Virginia, UConn lead NCAA Baseball Tournament snub list

The field of 64 in the NCAA DI Baseball Tournament is written in stone. As with all bracket reveals, the announcement didn't come without its controversy — and snubs. 

The UConn Huskies (38-21) and Virginia Cavaliers (32-18) will be watching the tournament from home, two teams more than qualified to be in the field.

UConn finished the season ranked 44th in D1 Baseball's Diamond Sports Ranking (DSR), an updated ranking system over the maligned RPI of years prior. The Huskies came up just short of the Big East championship with a 7-4 loss to No. 3 regional seed Creighton, notched seven Quad 1 wins and did not lose in Quad 4. 

They beat No. 5 national seed North Carolina and No. 1 overall seed Vanderbilt in March and won the series over tournament inclusion Miami (FL). A 12-3 finish to the season wasn't enough, as their lack of top-100 wins was compared to Last Four In teams like USC and Arizona State.

The real snub, however, was Virginia. It was the only Power Conference team with fewer than 20 losses omitted, likely hurt by a controversial RPI finish (64th). DSR favors UVA and paints a more accurate picture of its 2025 season, ranking it 33rd overall. That standing puts the Cavaliers over West Virginia (No. 2 regional seed), Kentucky (No. 3) and Oklahoma State (Last Four In).

The NCAA Selection Committee took immediate heat for the exclusion. Some calls cited the poor RPI on a canceled series against Florida State due to a tragic shooting on FSU's campus. Virginia swept tournament team Miami (FL) at the end of the season, but that emphatic victory fell on deaf ears.

Brian O'Connor's squad made it all the way to Omaha and the College World Series the past two years, but went 0-4 in CWS games. This year, it won't get the chance to improve that mark.

Other teams controversially omitted include the Troy Trojans (39-21) and Southeast Louisiana Lions (38-16).