Louisville College World Series 2025 bracket, dates: UofL can win it

Louisville baseball advanced to the sixth College World Series in program history on Sunday with its 3-2 win over Miami in the NCAA Tournament super regional round.

The winning doesn’t have to end in Omaha.

These Cardinals aren’t the best group coach Dan McDonnell has ever taken to the CWS, but they have the best chance of winning the whole thing.

Parity rules college baseball this season, a point hammered home by No. 1 overall seed Vanderbilt and No. 2 seed Texas being eliminated in the regional round. The Commodores also made history as the first top seed that didn’t reach the regional final.

It also marked just the second time since the NCAA went to national seeds in 1999 that the top two seeds failed to advance to the super regional round. The first occurrence was in 2014 when No. 1 Oregon State and No. 2 Florida each lost early.

At most, only three of the top eight seeds will be in Omaha as the super regionals play out. No. 13 seed Coastal Carolina made sure No. 4 seed Auburn would not be one of them, as the Chanticleers earned the first berth to the CWS. Unranked Arizona eliminated No. 5 seed North Carolina on Sunday.

With the way Louisville can hit, it could follow the path Coastal took in 2016 when it won the CWS for the school’s first national championship. The Chanticleers had no previous history of tournament success before they won it.

Louisville senior pitcher Brennyn Cutts, an Indiana State transfer, is the only player on the roster who had previous NCAA Tournament experience.

Yet, there they were on Sunday, booking their charter flight to Omaha after they finally cleared their celebratory dogpile on the field.

The Cards are a confident crew, based on how they’ve played. They can also take confidence in believing they can beat anyone remaining.

The Cards played three teams that advanced to the super regionals — North Carolina, Florida State and Arizona. They held a combined 5-2 record against the trio including winning the ACC series against both the Tar Heels and Seminoles.

U of L could face FSU again, as its first game on Friday in the CWS will be against the winner between the No. 9 seed Noles and No. 8 seed Oregon State.

This column will be updated.

Reach sports columnist C.L. Brown at clbrown1@gannett.com, follow him on X at @CLBrownHoops and subscribe to his newsletter at profile.courier-journal.com/newsletters/cl-browns-latest to make sure you never miss one of his columns.