NCAA baseball tournament: 4 things we learned on Day One
· Yahoo Sports
The first day of baseball at the 2026 NCAA tournament has yet to officially conclude, as three games were pushed to Saturday due to rain.
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Still, there was enough baseball played to draw some early conclusions.
Here are four things we learned from the first day of action at the 2026 NCAA baseball tournament.
Georgia Tech’s offense is as advertised
Georgia Tech entered the NCAA tournament as the No. 2 overall seed, with one of the most prolific offenses in both the nation, and program history.
That offense played to form on Friday.
After falling down 2-0 early to UIC, the Yellow Jackets exploded for 17 unanswered runs, en route to a 22-5 win in their first game. Five Georgia Tech batters left the yard, including Parker Brosius, Carson Kerce, Vahn Lackey, Jarren Advincula, and Alex Hernandes, who homered three times in the win. All told, Georgia Tech tallied 22 runs on 22 hits, and every player in the starting lineup had at least one hit save one.
The one player without a hit in their starting lineup? That would be Drew Burress, who recently became the program’s all-time single-season home run leader. He’ll get his hits soon enough.
Up next for the Yellow Jackets? The winner of Saturday morning’s game between The Citadel and Oklahoma, which was pushed to Saturday morning because of weather. But this looks like a team that could make a very, very deep run thanks to this offense.
The Yellow Jackets are not alone
Georgia Tech’s offense might get the most attention today, but they were not the only lineup to put on a show Friday.
Texas, the No. 6 overall seed, poured it on against Holy Cross, racking up 21 hits in their 19-1 victory. Aiden Robbins, Anthony Pack Jr., and Jayden Duplantier all homered in the win.
Alabama, the No. 7 overall seed, exploded for 21 runs in its 21-3 victory over in-state opponent Alabama State. The Crimson Tide roped 15 hits, including home runs from Bryce Fowler, Justin Lebron — a potential top-ten pick in the July MLB Draft — Brady Neal, and Luke Vaughn. Fowler also tripled in the Crimson Tide victory. And while this was a 3-2 game after three innings, Alabama broke it open with a six-spot in the fourth inning, followed by three more runs in the fifth and another six spot in the sixth.
And how about Oregon? Many believed that the Selection Committee did not do the No. 11-overall seed any favors, putting them in a region with Oregon State and Washington State, as well as Yale, which meant they would likely face 2025 All-American Jake Ohman on Friday. But that is exactly who the Ducks faced, and Oregon chased him with five runs in the first four innings, and put a big crooked number up on the board in the eighth when they pushed eight runs across the plate. The final score in Eugene? Oregon 14, Yale 2. Designated Hitter Naulivou Lauaki homered in the win.
Note: At the time of publication, Georgia is winning 18-1 against Long Island, so we can slot the Bulldogs into this category as well. While that game has yet to go final, Georgia has already hit nine home runs in this game, including two from Brennan Hudson and two more from Ryan Wynn.
No. 4 seeds came to play
In the regionals format, the 64 teams in the field are divided into 16 double-elimination tournaments, with each of those four teams seeded No. 1 through No. 4 in the regional. That set up 16 No. 1 vs. No. 4 games for Friday, with each of those games featured one of the top 16 teams in the nation as ranked by the Selection Committee.
While we are still waiting on the results of one of those games — the Georgia vs. Long Island contest, which was pushed to Saturday due to weather — four of those No. 4 seeds delivered upsets on Friday.
St. John’s knocked off Florida State by a final score of 6-5, while Little Rock knocked off Southern Miss by a final score of 7-4. But those upsets pale in comparison to the other two. First was Milwaukee over Auburn, as the Panthers from the Horizon League took an early 10-0 lead over the Tigers (the No. 4 overall seed) and held on for a 13-8 victory. That win saw Auburn join a rather small list, as the Tigers became just the sixth top four national seed in NCAA tournament history to lose a regional opener, along with Alabama (No. 3, 2002), Georgia Tech (No. 3, 2003), Florida State (No. 4, 2008), Baylor (No. 4, 2012), Florida (No. 2, 2014), and North Carolina (No. 2, 2017).
Hours later, UCLA joined that list. The Bruins, who entered the tournament as the top-ranked team in the nation, lost to Saint Mary’s by a final score of 3-2. That dropped UCLA (who went wire-to-wire as the No. 1 team in the nation according to D1Baseball this season) into today’s elimination game and made the Bruins the first No. 1 overall seed to lose their regional opener.
Jacksonville State made its case
When the Field of 64 was announced on Selection Monday, many were surprised to see the Jaguars on the No. 3 line. Jacksonville State finished the year with a 46-13 record out of Conference USA, which was good for the 25th-best RPI in the nation. Perhaps it was the schedule, ranked 108th in the nation, that saw the Committee drop them down to a No. 3 line instead of slotting them in as a No. 2.
So that meant a meeting with the No. 2 team in the Hattiesburg regional on Friday, in Virginia.
Jacksonville State pushed a pair of runs across the dish in the second, two more in the third, and then a five-run fifth inning powered the Jaguars to a 15-7 win. Caleb Johnson went 3-for-6 in the win with a home run and three RBI, while Brady Thomas went 3-for-5 with a double and three more RBI.
And with Southern Miss losing to Little Rock, that means that Jacksonville State has a Saturday date with the No. 4 seed in the regional, with a spot in the super regionals on the line.