Familiar foes head to Clemson for the NCAA Baseball Regional

The NCAA Baseball Tournament selection committee has announced it’s field of 64 teams for the 2024 NCAA Tournament, and as expected, Clemson is a top 8 national seed. The Tigers were named as the sixth overall seed, meaning Clemson will host a Regional, and if the Tigers advance, will be guaranteed to host a Super Regional.

The foes coming to Tiger Town are somewhat familiar to Clemson fans. The two seed will be Vanderbilt. Fans may remember Vanderbilt being the two seed in Clemson’s 2017 and 2018 regionals, where the Dores advanced on out of Tiger Town both times. Vanderbilt is led by Tim Corbin, who was a fellow assistant with Erik Bakich under Jack Leggett at Clemson. With Leggett’s returned presence in the dugout, this should make for a fun reunion.

The three seed will be in-state foe Coastal Carolina. The Tigers were set to play the Chanticleers twice this year, once in Clemson and once in Conway, but those matchups were both cancelled due to weather. This isn’t the first time these two Palmetto state programs have met in the postseason. In 2011, Coastal Carolina came to the Clemson Regional as a three seed, where the Chanticleers fell to Clemson 13-7 and were eventually eliminated by UConn, who went on to win that regional. Prior to that, the 2007 Tigers were a two seed in the Myrtle Beach Regional, where they advanced out of before falling in the Super Regionals at Mississippi State.

The final team in the regional is High Point. About a 3.5 hour drive away from Clemson, High Point has been a midweek opponent for Clemson in years past. The Panthers are coming off winning the Big South Tournament.

The Clemson regional is paired in the bracket with the Stillwater, Oklahoma regional, hosted by Oklahoma State. The regional has Oklahoma State, Nebraska, Florida, and Niagara. The Tigers faced Oklahoma State in the 2016 Clemson regional, where the Cowboys took the regional en route to a trip to Omaha. Nebraska was also a participant in the 2016 Clemson regional, but the Tigers never got to take on the Cornhuskers at Nebraska lost their first two games to Oklahoma State and Western Carolina. The Florida Gators are coached by Kevin O’Sullivan, another former Clemson assistant from the Jack Leggett coaching tree.

In other Palmetto state baseball news, South Carolina was selected as the two seed for the Raleigh, NC regional, and Wofford is the three seed in Chapel Hill.