All Huskers

Report: Big Ten Baseball Tournament Expanding, Changing Format

The Big Ten Baseball Tournament is reportedly set to expand and change formats in 2025.

Kaleb Henry

Nebraska baseball players dog pile on the field after winning the 2024 Big Ten Conference Tournament Championship game.
Nebraska baseball players dog pile on the field after winning the 2024 Big Ten Conference Tournament Championship game. / Nebraska Athletics

A bigger Big Ten Conference means a bigger Big Ten Baseball Tournament.

A report from D1Baseball's Patrick Ebert indicates the tournament will expand to 12 teams in 2025. That expansion will also come with a change of format.

The previous model, with eight qualifying teams, operated as two, four-team double-elimination brackets. The winners of each bracket played a winner-take-all final.

Nebraska took advantage of that format in 2024. The Huskers lost the first game, then went on a run through the elimination bracket to emerge into the final against Penn State. The Nittany Lions were undefeated in Omaha, but with the final being winner-take-all, they suffered their only loss in the championship to finish runner-up.

The new format would remove the bracket until the semifinals, while still guaranteeing every qualifying team two games. The 12 teams will be split into four pods of three teams. Winners of each pod will advance to a single-elimination bracket.

Nebraska played six games in the 2024 Big Ten Baseball Tournament, the maximum possible. Eliminating two potential games should be helpful to pitching staffs.

The Pac-12 utilized a similar format before hemorrhaging teams, including Oregon, UCLA, USC, and Washington, to other conferences. That was three pods of three teams with pod winners and the next best team advancing to the semifinals. The 2024 edition saw the 1, 4, 6, and 8 seeds advance.

The ACC utilizes a 12-team format like the Big Ten will. Teams play three games each over four days, Tuesday through Friday. The semifinals are Saturday with the championship on Sunday. Last year's edition saw the 5, 6, 9, and 11 seeds make the semifinals, with Duke (6) topping Florida State (5) 16-4 in the final.

The Big Ten Baseball Tournament is slated to remain in Omaha at least through the 2027 season. Charles Schwab Field, previously TD Ameritrade Park, has hosted the tournament every year since 2018, except for the canceled COVID-19 season. Omaha also has hosted the event in 2014 and 2016.

MORE: Nebraska Volleyball's Andi Jackson Added to AVCA National Player of the Year Watch List

MORE: HuskerMax Predictions: Nebraska Football vs. No. 16 Indiana

MORE: Nebraska Football a Tier 3 Team in the Big Ten Conference?

MORE: I-80 Club: How Has Indiana Done This?

MORE: McMaster's Big Ten Football Power Rankings After Week 7

Stay up to date on all things Huskers by bookmarking Nebraska Cornhuskers On SI, subscribing to HuskerMax on YouTube, and visiting HuskerMax.com daily.

Published
Kaleb Henry
KALEB HENRY

Kaleb Henry is an award-winning sports reporter, covering collegiate athletics since 2014 via radio, podcasting, and digital journalism. His experience with Big Ten Conference teams goes back more than a decade, including time covering programs such as the Nebraska Cornhuskers, Oregon Ducks, and USC Trojans. He has contributed to Sports Illustrated since 2021. Kaleb has won multiple awards for his sports coverage from the Nebraska Broadcasters Association and Midwest Broadcast Journalists Association. Prior to working in sports journalism, Kaleb was a Division I athlete on the Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville Track and Field team where he discussed NCAA legislation as SIUE's representative to the Ohio Valley Conference Student-Athlete Advisory Committee. 

Home/Baseball