The NCAA released the 2025 NCAA Baseball Tournament bracket Monday, and Virginia was not among the teams selected for the first time since 2019. With a 32-18 record and 16-11 mark in ACC play, the Cavaliers did not impress the committee enough to earn a spot.
“My heart aches for the young men who wear our uniform that we do not have an opportunity to play this weekend,” Coach Brian O’Connor said. “You get what you earn in life — that’s a little bit of the lesson. Sometimes, in this sport, in college baseball at the highest level, it comes down to a game or two.”
The Cavaliers played fewer games than almost any other team vying for the NCAA Tournament field. Two midweek games were canceled due to inclement weather, and a prime series at Florida State was canceled due to the April shooting in Tallahassee.
In addition to those cancellations, Virginia did itself no favors by losing six non-conference games — amplified by losing to Liberty twice as well as Richmond. Ultimately, that was the dagger for a Cavalier squad that did not face many of the ACC’s giants, such as Clemson, North Carolina or Florida State.
Even so, Virginia finished only five games above .500 in ACC play and is the first ACC team to miss the NCAA Tournament with that statistic in the past 30 years. To make matters worse, Miami — another team on the bubble for NCAA Tournament consideration — was swept by the Cavaliers and still made the bracket.
Exclusion from the NCAA Tournament marks a bitter end to Virginia’s 2025 campaign, but, according to O'Connor, the season should not be discounted.
“The fact that we didn’t get into the NCAA Tournament yesterday does not diminish how these guys stood up in the back half of the year and played their best baseball,” O’Connor said. “Unfortunately, it just wasn't enough the first half in a few games that cost us the opportunity. And that’s what it came down to.”
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