The Citadel will open its NCAA Tournament run against Oklahoma in Game 2 of the Atlanta Regional on May 31 at 5 p.m., with the matchup set to stream on +. The Bulldogs, 35-24, are one of four teams in the regional, joining Georgia Tech and Illinois Chicago in a bracket that begins Friday afternoon.
The game gives The Citadel an immediate path into the first round of the national tournament, where 64 teams are divided into 16 regionals and every regional is double-elimination. A win would keep the Bulldogs alive in Atlanta and move them one step closer to the super regionals, scheduled for June 5-8, and then the College World Series from June 12-22 in Omaha, Nebraska.
Georgia Tech enters as the No. 2 overall seed and the host after winning its 10th ACC Tournament championship, and the Yellow Jackets bring the nation’s best offense into a regional they are favored to win. But Oklahoma, which is 32-21, arrives with good pitching, the kind of arm strength that can make a bracket harder to navigate for everyone else in Atlanta, including a Citadel team trying to keep its postseason alive from the start.
Illinois Chicago rounds out the field at 27-27-1, leaving The Citadel with a first test against an Oklahoma team that can slow games down and force the kind of tight innings that decide postseason baseball. The immediate question is not whether the Bulldogs belong in the regional — they do — but whether they can match Oklahoma pitch for pitch on Friday night and stay on the right side of the bracket long enough to keep playing into the weekend.
