Why is Louisville baseball hosting a super regional? NCAA Tournament, CWS format explained
The most important key to a deep postseason run is making the field.
Through its first three games of the 2025 NCAA baseball tournament, Louisville is proving that to be true. The Cardinals caused havoc in the Nashville Regional by coming out of it as an unseeded team.
As a reward for its regional sweep, which included a win over top overall seed Vanderbilt, the Cardinals were given the invitation and right to host the Louisville Super Regional at Jim Patterson Stadium for the seventh time in program history, and first since 2019.
Now, the road to Omaha and the College World Series goes through Louisville, as the Miami Hurricanes travel to The Ville for the best-of-three super regional series.
This marks the eighth trip to the super regional round for the Cardinals since 2013, which is tied with LSU for the most in that span. The Cardinals will look to continue their postseason run with a series win to make it back to the College World Series for the first time since 2019.
Here's what you need to know regarding why Louisville is hosting a super regional:
Why is Louisville baseball hosting a super regional?
Since Louisville was placed in the No. 1 seed region of the NCAA baseball tournament and advanced out of it, the Cardinals were rewarded with a super regional.
Louisville began the Nashville Regional, where it was the No. 2 seed, with a convincing 8-3 win against East Tennessee State University. Right-hander Patrick Forbes dominated on the mound for the Cardinals, tying his career high for strikeouts at 13 through six innings of work while allowing just two runs on two hits.
Zion Rose broke a 1-1 tie in the top of the fifth inning against top overall seed Vanderbilt in Game 2 of the Nashville Regional "Winner's Bracket" with a solo home run to left field. Rose's home run was followed up with an insurance run later that inning, as Lucas Moore reached on an error at shortstop. Louisville's 3-2 win over Vanderbilt marked the Cardinals' second win over the Commodores in a month's span.
The Cardinals moved to 3-0 in the Nashville Regional with a 6-0 shutout win against No. 4 seed Wright State, which knocked Vanderbilt out of the postseason earlier on June 1. Louisville's regional win ended a brief two-year drought of not making it past the first weekend.
"My wife will tell you, I'm not easy to deal with when we're losing, and the last couple years were rough. I mean, they were," Louisville coach Dan McDonnell said after the win. "I hate to get emotional, but these guys have made it special, really fun in the fall. ... We went through some real tough times this year, but I just kept pouring into them, like, guys, that's part of it. It's how you grow, and we definitely grew."
Like Louisville, Miami is also an unseeded team. However, since the Hurricanes were placed into Southern Miss' regional, in which the Golden Eagles were the No. 16 overall seed in the tournament, Miami did not qualify to host the super regional vs. Louisville.
NCAA baseball tournament format, explained
The NCAA baseball tournament consists of three rounds: the regionals, the super regionals and the College World Series.
The Road to Omaha begins with the regionals, a four-team pod that takes place at 16 different regional sites — the top 16 national seeds in the 64-team bracket. The regional round of the NCAA baseball tournament is a double-elimination style format.
To make it out of the regional round, a team can win three straight games or four games, the latter of which consists of making it out of the "elimination bracket" and beating the representative of the "winner's bracket" twice in the regional championship game. Louisville took the easier path to make it out of the Nashville Regional.
Those who win their respective regional round then advance into the best-of-three super regional weekend. The super regionals are traditionally held at the home ballpark of the top eight seeds unless, of course, one of those respective teams is eliminated in the regional round. That's why Louisville is a host.
From there, the eight winners of the super regional series advance to Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Nebraska, to compete in the College World Series.