The Conference USA Baseball Tournament is headed to Houston, Texas. Here’s how to watch and what to be looking for this week.
The final weekend of regular season play saw teams jockeying for position, but now the Conference USA Baseball Tournament field is finally set. The top eight squads will square off with hopes of an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament and their chance to play for a trip to the College World Series.
All games will be streamed on ESPN+ with the exception of the tournament championship, available on CBS Sports Network. The tournament runs from Wednesday, May 24 to Sunday, May 28. The full schedule and updated bracket are available on the Conference USA Baseball Tournament website.
Assessing the field
The favorite | Dallas Baptist has only lost five games in conference play this season and posted an emphatic three-game sweep of UTSA in San Antonio in their penultimate series of the regular season. It’s hard to give the favorite nod to anyone else.
The contender | UTSA might have dropped three games to DBU, but all were relatively close contests. There’s still a clear gap between the Roadrunners and the rest of the pack and they do boast the most potent offense in the conference.
The darkhorse | WKU was in danger of missing the conference tournament altogether roughly a month ago following a sweep at home by Middle Tennessee. Since then the Hilltoppers have won 13-of-15 conference games. They’re the hottest team in the league and that matters come postseason time.
The wild card | Seeds 3 through 7 were neck and neck entering the final weekend before Charlotte emerged atop that group. The 49ers have one of the better one-two punches on the mound in Conference USA between Wyatt Hudepohl and Cameron Hansen. Teams can go far in pod play if they get two quality starts out of the gate and that tandem is certainly capable of making some noise.
The bracket
The opening day of games will take place on Wednesday, May 24:
Game 1 – 9:00 AM | (3) Charlotte vs (6) Louisiana Tech
Game 2 – 12:30 PM | (2) UTSA vs (7) Middle Tennessee
Game 3 – 4:00 PM | (1) DBU vs (8) Rice
Game 4 – 7:30 PM | (4) WKU vs (5) Florida Atlantic
2023 C-USA Baseball Championship Bracket
The action starts Wednesday, May 24 at 9am from Houston, TX!#CUSABASE ⚾️ | https://t.co/B7xWMJ0OBJ pic.twitter.com/TQ6dYA5sAY
— Conference USA (@ConferenceUSA) May 20, 2023
