Top 8 seed Clemson baseball learns NCAA Tournament schedule, regional opponents
After a stunning midseason turnaround, Clemson’s red-hot baseball team has secured home field advantage throughout the postseason.
The Tigers will be the No. 4 national seed in the 64-team tournament, the NCAA’s Division I baseball selection committee announced Monday during its selection show on ESPN2.
The NCAA had already confirmed Clemson as one of its 16 regional hosting sites Sunday. Now, as expected, the reigning ACC champion Tigers have locked in a coveted top 8 national seed.
Charlotte, Tennessee and Lipscomb are the other three schools in the regional. Clemson will open regional play at 1 p.m. Friday (ESPN+) against Lipscomb, which is based in Nashville and made the tournament as the A-SUN conference champion. (Charlotte and Tennessee will play at 6 p.m. Friday on ESPNU.)
As the No. 4 seed, Clemson’s in line to host an NCAA Super Regional at Doug Kingsmore Stadium from June 9-12 if it makes it out of the Clemson Regional running June 2-5.
The winner of the Clemson Regional will be matched up with the winner of the Auburn Regional, which features No. 13 national seed Auburn, Samford, Southern Miss and Penn.
In other words: The Tigers wouldn’t have to leave campus in their push to advance to their first College World Series since 2010 under first-year coach Erik Bakich.
After beating Miami in Sunday’s ACC baseball tournament championship game, Clemson will enter the postseason at 43-17 and riding a 16-game winning streak. The Tigers have also won 27 of their last 30 games and boast the country’s No. 6 RPI and a 23-9 Quadrant 1 record.
All of that felt like a longshot on April 1 when the Tigers were 16-13 overall and 2-7 in the ACC. But a young and talented roster — led by Golden Spikes Award semifinalist Caden Grice and ACC Freshman of the Year Cam Cannarella — rounded into form in epic fashion.
Under Bakich, the former Michigan coach hired to replace Monte Lee last summer, Clemson won its last seven ACC series — its longest series winning streak since 1994 — and all four of its conference tournament games in Durham to win its 16th ACC title and 11th tournament title.
Clemson is one of three NCAA Tournament regional sites within the state of South Carolina. Coastal Carolina and South Carolina will also host regionals this weekend.
This season marks Clemson’s 45th all-time NCAA Tournament (the fifth most in NCAA history), its 17th time hosting a regional since 1980 and its first time hosting a regional since 2018.
The selection committee opted against pairing the Clemson and Columbia Regionals together, which would’ve set up a Clemson-South Carolina super regional at Doug Kingsmore Stadium if both teams advanced. That was a possibility, given that USC was a clear bottom 8 seed among the 16 hosts.
Clemson Regional schedule
Friday, June 2
Game 1 – (1) Clemson (43-17) vs. (4) Lipscomb (36-24), 1 p.m. (ESPN+)
Game 2 – (3) Charlotte (34-26) vs. (2) Tennessee (38-19); 6 p.m. (ESPNU)
Saturday, June 3
Game 3 – Winner Game 1 vs. Winner Game 2 (TV TBA)
Game 4 – Loser Game 1 vs. Loser Game 2 (TV TBA)
Sunday, June 4
Game 5 – Winner Game 4 vs. Loser Game 3 (TV TBA)
Game 6 – Winner Game 3 vs. Winner Game 5 (TV TBA)
Monday, June 5
Game 7 – (if necessary): Rematch Game 6
This story was originally published May 29, 2023 at 12:04 PM.
