Bracket breakdown, teams to watch, favorite matchups

The NCAA baseball tournament field of 64 is set, with a trip to Omaha, Nebraska, for the College World Series on the line.

Tennessee was the consensus No. 1 overall seed, with a pair of Pac-12 teams, Stanford and Oregon State, rounding out the top three.

The top 16 teams host regionals this Friday through Monday, with four teams at each site competing in a double-elimination format. The 16 regional winners advance to super regionals, which are best-of-three series hosted by the top eight remaining teams and will be held June 10-13.

The last eight teams left standing move on to the College World Series in Omaha beginning June 17. All CWS games will air on the ESPN family of networks.

We asked ESPN college baseball experts Chris Burke, Kyle Peterson, Kiley McDaniel, Mike Rooney and Ryan McGee for their takeaways from the 64-team bracket, including the biggest surprise, the seeded team with the toughest draw, an unseeded team that could make some noise, and the matchups and players they’re most looking forward to.

What was the biggest surprise from the bracket reveal?

Chris Burke: The biggest surprise for me was the shade thrown at the ACC with the omission of NC State from the field and Notre Dame not being a top-16 seed. NC State was 15 games over .500, had a winning record in the ACC and was No. 33 in RPI, which are almost always at-large worthy metrics. The snub feels almost worse for the Fighting Irish. Last year they won the ACC regular season by four games and weren’t a top-eight seed; this year they had an ACC record of 18-12 (including the tournament) and were No. 12 in RPI — and will be traveling for regionals. That’s a tough pill to swallow for the ACC.

Kyle Peterson: Can’t argue with any of that. I was surprised to see NC State out of the field and believe they deserve to still be playing. And it felt like Notre Dame was a safe host but instead will travel to Statesboro (Georgia Southern). That surprised me as well.

Kiley McDaniel: Ole Miss making the field over…