NCAA Tournament Takeaways: Upsets, MJ Metz, Paul Skenes Highlight The Action

1. On a day that started pretty chalky, things turned late in the evening with a trio of hosts—No. 10 Coastal Carolina, No. 11 Oklahoma State and No. 13 Auburn—going down in upsets. It was the first time at least three No. 1 seeds lost their NCAA Tournament openers since 2017.

Rider beat Coastal, 11-10, in 10 innings. The Chanticleers started the game in total control, as freshman righthander Liam Doyle threw six scoreless innings, and they held a 5-0 lead going to the seventh inning. But when Coastal went to the bullpen, Rider pounced. The Broncs scored nine runs in the seventh to take the lead. The Chanticleers came back to tie the game in the ninth and had the bases loaded with one out but could bring home only one run.

In the 10th inning, Rider scored twice off Coastal closer Teddy Sharkey and while the Chanticleers got the tying run to third base in the bottom of the inning, they couldn’t bring it in. Coastal, the Sun Belt Conference champion, now will face an elimination game against UNC Wilmington, while Rider takes on Duke in the winner’s bracket. The win was the Broncs’ first in the NCAA Tournament since 1987.

In Stillwater, Oklahoma State fell behind Oral Roberts early and never was able to catch up. The Golden Eagles, who have the longest winning streak in the country at 19 games, scored the first five runs of the game and went on to win, 6-4. Only No. 1 Wake Forest (48) has more wins than ORU (47).

ORU knocked 13 hits and added six walks against the Cowboys. Outfielder Jonah Cox went 2-for-3 with two walks as he extended his hitting streak to an incredible 42 games, matching Austin Peay State’s Chuck Abbott for the sixth longest in Division I history.

The Golden Eagles won their NCAA Tournament opener for the first time since 2012 and now will take on Washington in the winner’s bracket. Oklahoma State faces Dallas Baptist in an elimination game.

Pennsylvania beat Auburn, 6-3, in 11 innings. The game was a taut affair throughout, with neither team able to get a lead larger than one run until the Quakers scored three runs in the 11th using a bit of small ball.

Righthander Ryan Dromboski was solid for Penn, holding Auburn to two runs in 5.1 innings and striking out eight. But it was the bullpen that really stood out for the Quakers. Brian Zeldin, Eli Trop and Carson Ozmer combined to hold the Tigers to one run on one hit in 5.2 innings. Ozmer threw 3.1 scoreless innings to finish the game and help lead the Quakers to their first NCAA Tournament win since 1990, a team which included future big leaguer Doug Glanville.

Penn moves on in the winner’s bracket to take on Samford, which itself scored an upset Friday, taking down Southern Miss and All-American Tanner Hall. Auburn and Southern Miss will meet in an elimination game.

2. That all of the day’s biggest upsets happened in night games highlighted one of the biggest debates/decisions that a No. 1 seed must make in regionals. Every host is asked for its preference as to whether to play the first or the second game of the day. The final decision ultimately rests with the NCAA, but they generally try to respect the host’s wishes.

In recent years, there’s been a trend toward hosts playing the first game. The downside is that the crowd in the stands is likely to be smaller and less rowdy. You also have to play in the heat of the day—no small concession for games taking place in June, mostly in the South. The upside is that you get more rest before the all-important games on Saturday and there’s a larger window to play the first game if weather becomes an issue.

The split was relatively even this year, with seven hosts playing the first game of the day and nine playing the second. Those three hosts that lost—Auburn, Coastal Carolina and Oklahoma State—now face very quick turnarounds ahead of elimination games. If they don’t come out of the loser’s bracket, playing the second game of Friday’s session isn’t going to be what eliminated them. But their current predicament is part of the reason why teams like Arkansas and LSU chose to play first on Friday.

3. The other big decision No. 1 seeds must make is when to throw their ace, whether to start them on Friday against a potentially overmatched No. 4 seed or hold them until Saturday. Like the decision about when to play on Friday, it’s probably not something that really flips the outcome of a regional anywhere near as often as the discourse surrounding these decisions would suggest.

This year’s biggest call was, of course, for LSU coach Jay Johnson and righthander Paul Skenes. Because Skenes is the best pitcher in the country and LSU is perceived to have a depth issue on the mound, whatever the Tigers did was sure to be a flashpoint.

They opted to start Skenes against Tulane, an in-state rival, but an in-state rival that came into the day 19-40.

“He’s the best pitcher in college baseball,” Johnson said. “We’re now in postseason play, and we felt really good about what he could do today and impact us winning the game. And he definitely did that. And, there’s some other value of him being able to do what he did today that should help the rest of the pitchers the rest of the way.”

All Skenes did Friday was a throw a complete game and strike out 12 batters in a 7-2 victory. He scattered seven hits and walked none. He improved to 11-2, 1.90 with 179 strikeouts and 17 walks in 99.1 innings.

With Skenes throwing a complete game, LSU now has a full complement of arms ready to face Oregon State in Saturday’s winner’s bracket game.

4. Duke’s MJ Metz hit three home runs to lead Duke to a 12-3 victory against UNC Wilmington at the Conway Regional. A hat trick would have been special enough, but the context behind Metz’s big day has the fifth-year slugger entering program lore.

Metz last week in the ACC Tournament tore his left ACL. Nine days later, he was back in the Duke lineup and crushing home runs. Coach Chris Pollard said it wasn’t until Thursday that it was decided that Metz would be on Duke’s active roster for regionals. That decision came after what Pollard called “an awesome” round of batting practice Thursday and Metz saying he was ready to go.

“Just really grateful to be back on the field again, grateful to be given a shot, especially given what happened” Metz said. “I wasn’t trying to do too much.”

Metz’s big day is not without precedent in college baseball. Mississippi slugger Tim Elko in 2021 came back from a torn ACL to help lead the Rebels to super regionals, hitting two grand slams along the way.

5. Here’s how every multi-bid conference fared Friday:

Big Ten: 3-0 (1.000)
SEC: 9-1 (.900)
Pac-12: 4-1 (.800)
ACC: 6-2 (.750)
AAC: 1-1 (.500)
Big 12: 3-3 (.500)
Sun Belt: 1-3 (.250)
Big East: 0-2 (.000)
Conference USA: 0-2 (.000)
Colonial: 0-2 (.000)