2023 Pac-12 Baseball Tournament schedule
The 2023 Pac-12 Baseball Tournament field and schedule are set. The event begins Tuesday at Scottsdale Stadium in Scottsdale, Arizona, and goes through Saturday, May 27.
It’s not a “clean” tournament bracket, meaning that winners do not automatically advance to play other known teams. Unlike basketball tournaments, this tournament involves three pools with round-robin play on the first three days of the tournament.
“At the conclusion of pool play on Thursday night, the three pool winners will advance to the Friday single-elimination semifinals along with one Wild Card team. The Wild Card will be determined by the best record of the non-advancing teams with any tiebreaker awarded to the highest seeded team.
“The semifinal matchups will pit the highest-seeded team against the lowest-seeded team on one side with the second-highest seed and second-lowest seed on the other. Teams from the same pool however will not play each other in the semifinals.”
Here’s the full schedule, starting with pool play on Tuesday, May 23 from Scottsdale:
GAME 1 -- TUESDAY, MAY 23
No. 8 seed Arizona plays No. 5 seed Arizona State at 10 a.m., bright and early, on Tuesday in Scottsdale. This is Pool B. The third team in this pool is No. 2 seed Oregon State.
GAME 2 -- TUESDAY
USC, the 4 seed, plays seventh-seeded UCLA at 2:30 p.m. on Tuesday. This is in Pool C, with the other team being third-seeded Washington.
GAME 3 -- TUESDAY
The final game on Tuesday, at 7 p.m. in Scottsdale, is No. 9 seed California versus No. 6 seed Oregon. This is in Pool A, where the other team is the top seed and the regular-season champion, the Stanford Cardinal.
GAME 4 -- WEDNESDAY, MAY 24
Wednesday’s schedule begins at 10 a.m. in Scottsdale with the second game from Pool B. Second-seeded Oregon State plays eighth-seeded Arizona. Keep in mind that the results of Tuesday’s pool games have no bearing on who plays whom. It’s a set schedule in pool play, as opposed to a system with winners’ brackets and losers’ brackets, which is what we have in the NCAA regionals and the College World Series. Arizona will play Oregon State on Wednesday morning, regardless of the result of Tuesday’s Arizona-ASU game.
GAME 5 -- WEDNESDAY
At 2:30 p.m. on Wednesday in Scottsdale, third-seeded Washington plays seventh-seeded UCLA in USC’s group, which is Pool C. Washington and UCLA will meet on Wednesday, regardless of the result of Tuesday’s UCLA-USC game in Pool C.
GAME 6 -- WEDNESDAY
At 7 p.m. on Wednesday, top-seeded Stanford plays ninth-seeded Cal in Pool A.
You will note that the top three seeds here — No. 1 Stanford in Pool A, No. 2 Oregon State in Pool B, and No. 3 Washington in Pool C — do not play on Tuesday in Arizona. They all start on Wednesday and then play again on Thursday. Seeds 4-9 all play on Tuesday.
GAME 7 -- THURSDAY, MAY 25
Pool B ends with a 10 a.m. game between second-seeded Oregon State and fifth-seeded Arizona State. Based on the first two games (on Tuesday and Wednesday) in Pool B, these teams will know what they need to do to advance out of the pool and into Friday’s semifinals. It will be the same for the other teams playing on Thursday in the final set of round-robin pool games.
GAME 8 -- THURSDAY
USC plays Washington in a battle of top-four seeds. The game is at 2:30 p.m. in Scottsdale, the final game in Pool C.
GAME 9 -- THURSDAY
Sixth-seeded Oregon plays top-seeded Stanford to round out Pool A. This is the last pool game. After this game ends, we will know who the three pool winners are, plus the wild card team which will round out the semifinal field.
GAME 10 -- FRIDAY, MAY 26
This is semifinal No. 1 on Friday. The game will start at 2:30 p.m. Remember: The highest seed plays the lowest seed in one semifinal, and the two other teams play in the other semifinal, but two teams from the same pool cannot meet. Basically, you’ll want to follow the tournament and see where everyone stands on Thursday. You’ll have a better idea of how the semifinal matchups will shape up.
GAME 11 -- FRIDAY
The second semifinal will be played at 7 p.m. in Scottsdale.
Note: Every game from Tuesday morning through the second semifinal on Friday will air on Pac-12 Network.
GAME 12 -- CHAMPIONSHIP -- SATURDAY, MAY 27
The championship game will start at 7 p.m. from Scottsdale on Saturday night and will air on ESPNU.
