NCAA baseball tournament bracket: Indiana draws 2-seed in Kentucky region

The Field of 64 for this year’s NCAA Baseball Tournament has been announced, and the Indiana Hoosiers will travel to Lexington for regional play. Indiana was named the 2-seed, and the regional will stack up like this:

1. Kentucky (39-20, 19-11 SEC, #9 RPI)

4. Ohio (31-26, 13-11 MAC, #185 RPI)

3. NC State (34-23, 16-14 ACC, #30 RPI)

2. Indiana (33-22-2, 14-9-1 B1G, #26 RPI)

This regional features a few very strong offenses, with Kentucky being one of the best in the country. The Hoosier pitching staff, and the bullpen in particular, will have to step up their game for this team to make a run. The bullpen looked vulnerable during the Big Ten Tournament and throughout a large chunk of thr season, and other teams will look to exploit that in NCAA play.

It’s easy to look at the bracket and look forward to a potential matchup with Kentucky, but NC State has been hot recently and shouldn’t be overlooked. They have won 14 of their last 17 games, including a series win against Clemson, a regional host. NC State also won their series against regional host Florida State earlier this season and took games from three other hosts — Wake Forest, North Carolina, and Louisville. D1Baseball projected NC State as a 2 seed, so this could be a close matchup to open the Hoosiers’ run in the national tournament.

Indiana and NC State will square off on Friday at 7 p.m., following Kentucky vs. Ohio, who play at noon.