D3baseball.com Daily Dose

The NCAA Division III Baseball Committee recommended a return to a championship bracket format that was discontinued in 2004.

Effective next spring, the tournament’s last undefeated team will play a semifinal game against an opponent with one loss, rather than advancing directly to the championship final. The purpose is to require teams to play a more comparable number of games to reach the final.

I have opposed giving the winner of the winners bracket a day off while the remaining teams fight it out and applaud the NCAA’s decision. This is a big step forward to improving the competition in the Championship round.

The advantages that the winners bracket winner had was overwhelming They had a day off to rest their regular players. They had their number one starter available on four days rest playing a team that played two more days. And they always came out the winner of the tournament.

Next year the team that comes out of the winners bracket will still have a spot in the Championship game but they will not have that day off to rest their team and will play the same number of games headed to the last day. The only downside is that the bracket is harder to read but D3baseball.com will be there to make the complicated simple.