How Bad Really Was Vanderbilt Baseball’s Loss To Wright State?

The regionals of the NCAA Baseball Tournament are over as fans look forward to this weekend’s super regionals. Among the chaos from this weekend was No. 1 overall seed Vanderbilt being upset by Wright State in an elimination game that ended the Commodores season abruptly and certainly unexpectedly.

So, how bad really was Vanderbilt’s loss to Wright State?

The present 64-team format of the NCAA Baseball Tournament made up of the regionals, super regionals and the College World Series was created in 1999, meaning this year was the 27th season in the present format.

Before this year, only five No. 1 overall seeds had ever lost one of their first two games in a regional round and ended up on the losers’ side of the bracket: Florida State in 2003, Vanderbilt in 2007, Oregon State in 2014 and UCLA in 2015 and 2019.

Vanderbilt's 3-2 loss to Louisville Saturday night made the Commodores the sixth No. 1 overall team ever to enter the losers’ bracket. Of the previous five teams who Vanderbilt joined, only the 2003 Florida State and 2019 UCLA teams that came all the way back and advanced to a super regional.

However, what Vanderbilt did in this year’s tournament is different from what the other five No. 1 overall teams were able to do. The Commodores loss to Wright State Sunday made Vanderbilt the first ever No. 1 overall team that failed to make its regional final, or in other words, the Commodores are the first team top-seeded team ever to only win one game in the regional round and fail to be one of the last two teams standing in their own regional.

But that is not the only way Vanderbilt’s loss is on a historic level. It is the fact that the Commodores were coming off a SEC Tournament Championship where Vanderbilt ran through three conference foes, including Tennessee and Ole Miss, who were also named as regional hosts in this year’s NCAA Tournament, and won arguably college baseball’s most difficult conference tournament.

Coming into regionals, Vanderbilt was one of, if not, the hottest team in the country. Riding an eight-game winning streak and a red hot offense, the ‘Dores seemed like they were primed for a deep playoff run. In fact, after the NCAA Tournament bracket was released, Vanderbilt had the third best odds to win the College World Series at +650, right behind Arkansas and LSU. 

Considering the odds, how well Vanderbilt was playing heading into the tournament and the fact that it is now the only top team ever to not even make a regional final, it is fair to say Vanderbilt’s loss to Wright State is a top tier upset in the NCAA Baseball Tournament, most certainly a top tier upset since the field expanded to 64 teams.

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