For the first time in more than 50 years, Northern Illinois will compete in the NCAA baseball tournament later this week.
The Huskies, by virtue of winning the Mid-American Conference tournament in their final season in the MAC, will compete in the tournament for the first time since 1972, slotting into the Atlanta Regional as the NCAA announced their brackets on Monday.
Joining the Huskies in the tournament will be the University of Illinois-Chicago Flames, who claimed the conference crown in the Missouri Valley this season.
The Flames will compete in the NCAA tournament for the seventh time in their history, and they’ll aim to earn a victory in the tournament for the first time since 2008 when they get their journey started on Friday.
For the Huskies, their road to an improbable run to Omaha will start on Friday evening as they take on the No. 2 seed Coastal Carolina in their first game in Tallahassee regional play. That game will start at 6 p.m. Central time, and it will air on ESPN-Plus.
If they win that game, they will take on the winner of an earlier game between top-seeded Florida State and No. 4-seed St. John’s.
As for the Flames, they took the No. 4 seed in the Atlanta regional, so they’ll face the host Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets at 11 a.m. on Friday. That game will air on ACC Network.
If they can win, they would take on the winner of the later game between Oklahoma and The Citadel.
NCAA baseball regionals are double-elimination affairs, with the two winning teams and the two losing teams of Friday’s games then facing each other on Saturday. The winner from each regional then advances to a best-of-three super regional, with the winner of those eight series advancing to the College World Series in Omaha.
Northern Illinois is 0-2 in NCAA tournament play all-time, while UIC is 2-12. They’ll be hoping to reverse that history with some upset victories, and all of the action will get underway on Friday.
