We recently examined the impact of home-field advantage in the NCAA Baseball Championship and found that in the last 10 years, the 16 regional hosts that earned No. 1 seeds claimed roughly six of the eight College World Series berths, on average, so now we're flipping the question: what non-No. 1 seeds have had the most difficult paths to Omaha in the last decade?
RELATED: Super Regional hosts announced | Interactive bracket
In order to try to objectively determine what roads to the College World Series were the most challenging, we created the following point system that rewards teams based on the seeds of their opponents and their opponents' winning percentage:
- Win vs. No. 1 seed = 4 points (+1 point if No. 1 seed is playing at home)
- Win vs. No. 2 seed = 3 points
- Win vs. No. 3 seed = 2 points
- Win vs. No. 4 seed = 1 point
- Going undefeated in both the Regional and Super Regional = 4 points (to make up for not playing extra elimination games)
We then took each team's point total and multiplied it by the collective winning percentage of their tournament opponents.
Using the formula above, here are the 10 hardest paths teams have navigated to the College World Series since 2008.
| Year | School | Seed | Point Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | Oklahoma State | No. 2 | 17.9 |
| 2009 | Arkansas | No. 2 | 17.5 |
| 2014 | UC Irvine | No. 3 | 16.5 |
| 2016 | Arizona | No. 2 | 16.3 |
| 2012 | Stony Brook | No. 4 | 16.1 |
| 2008 | Fresno State | No. 4 | 15.6 |
| 2009 | Virginia | No. 2 | 15.3 |
| 2009 | Southern Miss | No. 3 | 15.2 |
| 2017 | Cal State Fullerton | No. 2 | 15.1 |
| 2012 | Kent State | No. 3 | 14.3 |
Here's a breakdown of the hardest paths to Omaha, with game-by-game results from the Regional and Super Regional rounds.
Oklahoma State (2016)
- (2) Oklahoma State def. (3) Nebraska 6-0
- (2) Oklahoma State def. (1) Clemson 12-2
- (2) Oklahoma State def. (1) Clemson 9-2
- (2) Oklahoma State def. (1) South Carolina 5-1
- (2) Oklahoma State def. (1) South Carolina 3-1
Arkansas (2009)
- (2) Arkansas def. (3) Washington State 10-3
- (2) Arkansas def. (1) Oklahoma 17-6
- (2) Arkansas def. (1) Oklahoma 11-0
- (2) Arkansas def. (1) Florida State 7-2
- (2) Arkansas def. (1) Florida State 9-8
UC Irvine (2014)
- (3) UC Irvine def. (2) UNLV 10-3
- (3) UC Irvine def. (1) Oregon State 14-2
- (1) Oregon State def. (3) UC Irvine 4-0
- (3) UC Irvine def. (1) Oregon State 4-2
- (3) UC Irvine def. (1) Oklahoma State 8-4
- (3) UC Irvine def. (1) Oklahoma State 1-0
Evan Cassolato talks about playing in the @NCAACWS with his teammates in 2014. pic.twitter.com/2o7UIzid6M
— UCI Baseball (@UCIbsb) May 26, 2017
