Just because it has never happened before does not mean the trend will continue. While the Duke Blue Devils' baseball season has been over for a while now, the arch-rival North Carolina Tar Heels are marching onto Omaha. They became the fifth team to punch its ticket into the Men's College World Series over the weekend. UNC has never won it all before, but there is a decent chance it just might...
With UNC joining the likes of West Virginia, Troy, Ole Miss, and Georgia, and then later joined by Texas, the Tar Heels have to be licking their chops over who they will have to play next up in Omaha. With Alabama, Kansas, Oklahoma, and St. John's still playing for the last two spots in, none of them will be facing UNC right out of the gate. Sadly, North Carolina will be playing in the easier of the two groupings...
No. 5 North Carolina will be put into the same bracket as No. 16 West Virginia, unranked Troy, and unranked Ole Miss. No. 3 Georgia and No. 6 Texas await the winners of No. 7 Alabama vs. St. John's and No. 15 Kansas vs. Oklahoma. Being on the same side of the bracket of No. 1 UCLA and No. 4 Auburn not getting to Omaha is massive for the Tar Heels. Duke fans may be holding their breath now.
There is also this: UNC is the only program to make it to Omaha in two of the last three postseasons...
Duke is hoping someone, anyone will get the best of UNC in Men's CWS
With the way the bracket is sure to shake out, No. 5 North Carolina will face Ole Miss next up. The winner of that game will take on the winner of No. 16 West Virginia vs. Troy. It will be a double-elimination tournament among those four teams before a national runner-up is decided. Whoever emerges out of that group will take on the winner of the other bracket, headlined by Georgia and Texas.
Given that it has been 18 years since Georgia last made it to college baseball's elite eight, there is a non-zero chance the Dawgs stumble along the way. If Alabama punches its ticket to Omaha, it will be the first time the Crimson Tide has gotten this far since 1999. It being that long for both of those schools to get to the Men's College World Series could potentially create even more chaos in Omaha.
Overall, Duke fans have to be beside themselves over how UNC got there. The Tar Heels were down 1-0 in their best-of-three vs. the USC Trojans during the Chapel Hill Super Regional. USC was an underseeded team coming in, having navigated the College Station Regional headlined by No. 12 Texas A&M. Good things just keep happening to the Tar Heels on the baseball diamond. This is awful...
The other side of the bracket may be daunting, but UNC has skated by with so much luck of late here.
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