CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. – The University of Virginia baseball team will not participate in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2019, marking only the third time in head coach Brian O’Connor’s 22-year tenure that the Cavaliers have missed the postseason.
Despite finishing the season with a 32–18 overall record and a 16–11 mark in Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) play, Virginia was among the “First Four Out” when the 64-team field was announced Monday.
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The Cavaliers’ exclusion comes as a surprise, considering their strong finish to the season, winning 16 of their final 19 regular-season games. However, early-season struggles and losses to non-conference opponents such as Liberty and Richmond negatively impacted their resume.
“My heart aches for the young men who wear our uniform that we do not have an opportunity to play this weekend,” O’Connor said Tuesday.“You get what you earn in life. That’s a little bit of the lesson, right? And sometimes in this sport, in college baseball at the highest level, it comes down to a game or two, whether or not you earn the opportunity.”
Virginia’s early exit from the ACC Tournament, a loss to No. 14 seed Boston College, further diminished their chances. Additionally, the cancellation of a series against Florida State due to a campus tragedy reduced their opportunities to bolster their RPI.
O’Connor expressed frustration with the selection process, noting, “There’s never been a team that was five games above .500 in the ACC in the regular season and does not get into the NCAA Tournament.”
Despite the disappointment, O’Connor remains proud of his team’s efforts. “To do what we did in this conference in the back part of the year was incredibly impressive,” he said. “The fact that we didn’t get into the NCAA Tournament does not diminish how these guys stood up in the back half of the year and played their best baseball.”
Virginia’s absence from the tournament ends a streak of consecutive appearances and comes after back-to-back College World Series berths in 2023 and 2024. The program, under O’Connor’s leadership, has become a perennial contender, and this year’s setback serves as a reminder of the fine margins in collegiate baseball.
“Sometimes it comes down to a game or two,” O’Connor reflected. “I just feel horrible as the leader of the program that our young men don’t have an opportunity to compete to go to Omaha to have a chance to win a national championship.”
As the Cavaliers regroup, the focus shifts to building on the lessons from this season and returning to the national stage in 2026.