Coastal Carolina won’t get chance to defend national title

Coastal Carolina will not have an opportunity to defend its 2016 NCAA national baseball championship this postseason.

The Chanticleers did not receive an at-large bid into the NCAA Baseball Tournament on Monday, marking just the second time in the past 11 years and third time in the past 17 years the Chanticleers have failed to make the tournament.

CCU (37-19-1) did not receive one of the 33 at-large berths into the 64-team field despite being the reigning national champs and being the Sun Belt Conference regular season championship with a 22-7-1 record that included 11 consecutive wins to close out the regular season.

“When you get to the end of a season, you make the bed you lie in, and we’re lying in the one we’ve made; and we’ve had opportunity after opportunity all year to be a little bit better,” Coastal Carolina coach Gary Gilmore said.

As the conference’s top seed, CCU lost 7-5 to Texas State in its opening game of the Sun Belt championship on Friday in Statesboro, Ga., after the tournament was changed from double elimination to single elimination after two days of cancellations because of rain.

The Chants are the fourth reigning national champion to miss the tournament since the field expanded to 64 teams in 1999.