#6 North Carolina will kick off the College World Series against #3 Oregon State at 3 pm ET on Saturday. The game will air on ESPN.
I feel like the pairings are a real gut-punch since the two ranked teams in our bracket have to play each other. Even worse, it's the Beavers, who beat UNC in back-to-back championship series in the mid-2000s.
The importance of winning the first game can't be stressed enough. It's just way too hard to come out of the losers' bracket and win 4 games in 6 days to advance to the championship. Whoever wins their first 2 games is in great shape and gets a 4-day rest before facing whoever advances out of the losers' bracket.