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UTSA’s Braylon Owens (Photo by David Buono/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

Two full days of the NCAA Tournament have already come and gone and 16 teams have officially been eliminated from the mix with at least 16 more set to make their exit throughout Day 3. You can follow along with results from every game here.

Here’s a quick snapshot of how No. 1 seeds have fared so far. We’ll cover Oregon’s surprising exit below. The following hosts all have one loss and must play their way through the elimination bracket:

• Clemson
• Georgia
• Texas
• Ole Miss
• Oregon State
• Vanderbilt
• Southern Miss

These hosts played their way into regional finals: Florida State, North Carolina, Coastal Carolina, Auburn, Arkansas, Tennessee, LSU, UCLA.

Here are 10 takeaways from Saturday’s action in the NCAA Baseball Tournament:

A host has fallen

We warned that this could be a chaotic start to the tournament. On Saturday, the Eugene Regional was first to fully deliver on that unpredictability as host Oregon fell 10-8 to three-seed Cal Poly, becoming the first nationally seeded team to be sent home empty-handed.

This was a true shock. The Ducks entered with a Player of the Year candidate in Mason Neville, a high-end ace in Grayson Grinsell and a veteran roster with deep postseason experience. But ultimately four-seed Utah Valley and Cal Poly sent Oregon packing before it ever found its footing.

For the Ducks and their fans, disappointment shouldn’t overshadow the program’s bright future. Head coach Mark Wasikowski has already delivered unprecedented success with back-to-back super regionals in 2023 and 2024 and Oregon just claimed a share of the Big Ten regular-season title. 

The Ducks should remain contenders. Right now, though, the sting is sharp.

The SEC is playing well, but not great

The SEC shattered its own Selection Monday record this year, placing 13 of its 16 teams into the NCAA Tournament. None were even considered bubble teams, a surprise in itself. Through 26 tournament games involving SEC teams, the league holds a 16-10 record, with only Alabama already eliminated after a quick two-game exit.

There were nearly more. Florida, Ole Miss and Kentucky staved off elimination Saturday, while Mississippi State, Georgia, Oklahoma, Vanderbilt and Texas all lost their winner’s bracket games and will now join those three in Sunday’s elimination rounds.

Just four SEC teams—Tennessee, Auburn, Arkansas and LSU—have advanced unbeaten to their regional finals.

Is that good enough? 

In one sense, yes—the league that filled nearly a quarter of the tournament field has only one team out. With 48 teams still alive, the SEC still represents exactly a quarter of the field.

But it’s also fair to ask whether the conference that commanded such an untouchable aura on Selection Monday should already have more than four teams through to regional finals, especially with eight of the 16 host sites belonging to its members.

Fans have every right to be and should ask these questions. So should the committee as it looks to keep refining its selection process.

Murray State is the early Cinderella run to watch

The NCAA Tournament is always at its best when it delivers an unlikely hero. Last year, that postseason magic was missing when Omaha’s field of eight came entirely from the SEC and ACC. This year, it feels like we’re getting back to form.

Murray State secured its second postseason stunner Saturday, knocking off Oxford Regional two-seed Georgia Tech to advance directly to Sunday night’s final. There, the Racers will face the winner of a surprising elimination game between Georgia Tech and host Ole Miss.

Murray State was no ordinary four-seed. The Racers entered the tournament ranked in the national top 50 in batting average, slugging percentage and runs scored per game, with a 14.1% walk rate that ranked 13th, clear signs of a disciplined, opportunistic offense. They also arrived with 38 wins and a 21-8 league record, showing season-long consistency.

Their pitching staff, with a 4.70 ERA and 5.41 FIP, is plenty serviceable for a team that can hit this well.

Statistically, we thought the Racers looked more like a three-seed than a four. So far, they’ve proven it and then some.

Foley Field is at it again

We flagged the Athens Regional as one of the most likely to get weird this weekend thanks largely to the ballpark itself, though the field of teams didn’t hurt.

With its extremely short right field, Foley Field was always going to be a home run haven and recipe for volatility. That didn’t fully show on Friday, when results went to script, but it came alive Saturday when Oklahoma State and Binghamton combined for 10 home runs in one game. In the nightcap, Duke rode three homers to an upset win over Georgia.

With Binghamton now out, only power-conference teams remain in Athens and all three bring major home run power. More fireworks are almost guaranteed.

The ‘junkyard dogs’ of UTSA

UTSA demanded national attention throughout the regular season, turning AAC play into its own playground en route to a regular-season title and comfortable at-large bid as the No. 2 seed in the Austin Regional.

After a tournament-opening win over Kansas State on Friday, the Roadrunners stunned national No. 2 seed Texas with a 9-7 victory in the winner’s bracket on Saturday night to take control of the regional.

It was UTSA’s second win over Texas this season and left the program one victory away from its first-ever super regional appearance.

“That is not some jackleg team who is just hot,” Texas head coach Jim Schlossnagle told media members after the game. “They are some junkyard dogs. They’re good players, and they present a lot of problems. They play fearlessly and they will take a shot at something even if it doesn’t work. They can really hit.”

The flexibility of the UTSA bats was put on full display Saturday when Mason Lytle, Garrett Gruell and James Taussig all slashed doubles throughout the contest, Lytle drove in what proved to be the winning run on a single in the seventh and a bunt provided the final insurance run in the ninth. 

Pat Hallmark’s Roadrunners are set to rematch against the winner of the elimination game between Texas and Kansas State on Sunday evening. A win would propel it to the super regional round while a loss would force a decisive regional final game on Monday.

With Kansas out, a fascinating offseason begins in Lawrence

Like Alabama, Kansas’ postseason ended in surprising fashion Saturday. It was eliminated from the Fayetteville Regional after back-to-back losses, including one to sub-.500 North Dakota State.

The Jayhawks appeared to run out of steam. 

Now the focus shifts to what should be a fascinating offseason in Lawrence. Head coach Dan Fitzgerald has built a fast-rising reputation that’s led to interest on the coaching search front. While Brian O’Connor remains the favorite for the Mississippi State opening, sources familiar with that search told Baseball America that Fitzgerald is also a serious candidate and would be in the mix to become the frontrunner if an agreement with O’Connor falls through.

Fitzgerald is also expected to be in the mix for any other major jobs that open this summer.

But being a candidate doesn’t guarantee a move and if Fitzgerald stays, recruiting at Kansas remains a huge challenge. This year’s roster featured just three true freshmen and now comes the tough task of re-recruiting the standout veterans from this historic season while filling key holes left by graduating seniors and draft departures.

Saturday results set up for Sunday madness

Saturday’s results have teed up an outstanding Sunday slate of elimination games. Thirteen of the 16 early-Sunday matchups feature at least one power-conference team, and six—Wake Forest-Cincinnati, Kentucky-Clemson, Georgia-Oklahoma State, Oklahoma-Nebraska, Ole Miss-Georgia Tech and Texas-Kansas State—will pit two Power Four programs against each other.

As we’ve said before, this postseason has already delivered plenty of twists and turns. When at least 16 more teams are cut from the field by sunset Sunday, expect more of the same.

Player of the Day

It didn’t take much thought to land on Murray State left fielder Dan Tauken for Saturday’s top individual honor after the graduate student went 3-for-5 with two home runs and five RBIs in the Racers’ wild 13-11 win over Georgia Tech, moving them to the brink of a super regional berth. 

Tauken launched his ninth and 10th home runs of the season in the victory, securing back-to-back double-digit homer campaigns at the Division I level after transferring from Rockland Community College.

Oklahoma defense, Kyson Witherspoon stumble against Tar Heels

Everything seemed to be falling into place for Oklahoma. The Chapel Hill Regional two-seed successfully saved ace Kyson Witherspoon for the winner’s bracket game by using No. 2 starter Malachai Witherspoon to beat Nebraska in the opener.

Kyson, one of the nation’s best arms this year, entered Saturday night’s matchup against North Carolina with a sparkling 2.48 ERA and 120 strikeouts in 91 innings. But sloppy defense and an uncharacteristic outing turned it into his worst start of the season: 4.0 innings, 10 hits, nine runs (three earned), four strikeouts and three walks.

The loss itself wasn’t a shock, but the way it happened certainly was. Now Oklahoma faces an elimination game rematch with Nebraska.

The Player of the Year race is murky

We’re halfway through regionals, and it’s still difficult to project who will take home Baseball America’s Player of the Year Award.

Mason Neville from Oregon was a strong candidate, but the Ducks’ early exit clouds his case. Tennessee ace Liam Doyle remains in the mix, though he hasn’t quite looked like himself in recent weeks. LSU ace Kade Anderson just ripped off 11 more strikeouts over seven scoreless against Dallas Baptist. Florida State’s Alex Lodise might be the frontrunner. His team is well-positioned for a super regional berth, and his individual numbers remain stellar, but he hasn’t completely broken away from the pack, either.

The point is, just as the regular season and postseason have been wildly unpredictable, so too are the individual awards. The race is still far from settled.

The E. coli concentration at Edgewater Beach is 106 MPN/100mL. While that’s an improvement from Saturday, the predicted water quality is still “poor.”

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