Xavier Musketeers baseball not selected to NCAA Tournament
The Xavier Musketeers baseball season is over.
For the second consecutive year, Xavier was left with an agonizing weekend wait to see if they survived the NCAA Tournament bubble after being eliminated from the Big East Tournament at Prasco Park in Mason on Friday.
When Monday, May 26 rolled around, Xavier did not hear its name during the selection show.
When the dust settled from the Big East Tournament, which saw top-seeded Creighton grab the league’s automatic NCAA Tournament bid, Xavier was ranked No. 39 in the NCAA’s College Baseball RPI Rankings.
That was one spot higher than its No. 40 ranking after last season when it missed the NCAA Tournament and one spot better than UConn.
Xavier had a strong start to the Big East Tournament, rallying from a six-run deficit to beat UConn, 11-8, in extra innings on Wednesday, May 21. In the Musketeers’ next two games, though, they came up short in a high-scoring tilt with Creighton, then had its bats silenced in an 11-2 loss to UConn in an elimination game.
Xavier head coach Billy O’Conner made his case for the Musketeers to get an at-large bid following the loss to UConn.
“I believe we’re gonna be in the field on Monday when it comes out. I really believe that if they look at the resume that we put together, we deserve to be in. We’re gonna need some things to break our way and hope that they look at the metrics we’ve compiled,” O’Conner told The Enquirer.
That resume, which O’Conner posted on social media ahead of the Selection Show, included six Quad 1 wins, a combined 15 Quad 1/2 wins, just three combined Quad 3/4 losses and one of the nation’s toughest schedules.
Xavier played the No. 4 non-conference strength of schedule, and its overall slate of opponents ranked No. 32 in the nation.
“The resume we’ve put together, it’s deserving of it,” O’Conner said.
Creighton was picked to the Fayetteville Regional and is the only Big East squad invited as UConn was left out of the NCAA Tournament, as well.
UConn was one of the First Four Out along with Southeastern Louisiana, Troy and Virginia.