Maryland baseball makes NCAA Tournament as No. 3 seed

Maryland baseball finished the Big Ten Tournament with a 37-21 overall record and the 34th-best RPI in the country. That was good enough to earn them a bid to the NCAA Tournament, as the Terps were inside the field announced Monday.

Prior to John Szefc’s arrival, this program hadn’t been invited to dance since 1971, so to become a regular in the field is an amazing achievement. It also erases any doubts that Maryland had caught lightening in a bottle in 2014 and 2015, and demonstrates that the Terps are becoming a nationally recognized program.

The Terps earned a No. 3 seed in the Winston-Salem Regional, which shakes out as shown below:

The other Big Ten teams to make the NCAA tournament are Nebraska, Michigan, Indiana, and conference tournament winner Iowa. Getting five teams into the NCAA tournament matches the league’s high, set in 2015.

Here’s the full bracket:

The Regional phase of the tournament is a double elimination format. Maryland will face No. 3 seed West Virginia on Friday at 2pm in their opening game, and depending on the outcome of this game, will face either No. 1 Wake Forest or No. 4 UMBC. As in any double elimination round, the team that wins its first two games is in the catbird seat.

The winner of each of the 16 Regionals will go on to the Super Regional round, with two Regional winners squaring off against each other in a best-of-three series. Maryland got to the Super Regional round in 2014 and 2015, only to fall to Virginia both times. The eight Super Regional winners head off to Omaha, Nebraska, for the College World Series, something the Terps have yet to accomplish.

A rundown of all of the teams in the Terps’ bracket will be published later this week.