The 2002 NCAA Division I baseball tournament was played at the end of the

2002 NCAA Division I baseball season The 2002 NCAA Division I baseball season, play of college baseball in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division I level, began in January 2002. The season progressed through the regular s ...

to determine the national champion of

college baseball College baseball is baseball that is played on the intercollegiate level at institutions of higher education. In comparison to football and basketball, college competition in the United States plays a smaller role in developing professional pl ...

. The tournament concluded with eight teams competing in the

College World Series The College World Series (CWS), officially the NCAA Men's College World Series (MCWS), is an annual baseball tournament held in June in Omaha, Nebraska. The MCWS is the culmination of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Divisi ...

, a double-elimination tournament in its fifty sixth year. Sixteen regional competitions were held to determine the participants in the final event, with each winner advancing to a best of three series against another regional champion for the right to play in the College World Series. Each region was composed of four teams, resulting in 64 teams participating in the tournament at the conclusion of their regular season, and in some cases, after a conference tournament. The fifty-sixth tournament's champion was

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish language, Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2 ...

, coached by

Augie Garrido August Edmun "Augie" Garrido Jr. (February 6, 1939 – March 15, 2018) was an American professional baseball player and coach in NCAA Division I college baseball, best known for his stints with the Cal State Fullerton Titans and Texas Longhorns. ...

. This was Texas' first title since 1983, but Augie Garrido previously won three titles with

Cal State Fullerton California State University, Fullerton (CSUF or Cal State Fullerton) is a public university in Fullerton, California. With a total enrollment of more than 41,000, it has the largest student body of the 23-campus California State University (CSU) ...

. The Most Outstanding Player was

Huston Street Huston Lowell Street ( ; born August 2, 1983) is an American former professional baseball pitcher. He played 13 seasons in Major League Baseball (MLB) for the Oakland Athletics, Colorado Rockies, San Diego Padres and Los Angeles Angels. After ...

. Due to fears over

terrorism Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of criminal violence to provoke a state of terror or fear, mostly with the intention to achieve political or religious aims. The term is used in this regard primarily to refer to intentional violen ...

and travel security in the wake of the

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commercia ...

, the Division I Baseball Committee, which selects the 64-team field and places the teams on the bracket, was ordered by the NCAA to keep regional pairings as localized as possible, in order to minimize the number of plane trips utilized. Due to these travel constraints, teams from the same conference were allowed to play in the same regional for the first time. An example of the travel restrictions came from the regional in

Baton Rouge, Louisiana Baton Rouge ( ; ) is a city in and the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. Located the eastern bank of the Mississippi River, it is the parish seat of East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana's most populous parish—the equivalent of counties i ...

, featuring four schools from the Bayou State which are located a total of apart along

Interstate 10 Interstate 10 (I-10) is the southernmost cross-country highway in the American Interstate Highway System. I-10 is the fourth-longest Interstate in the United States at , following I-90, I-80, and I-40. This freeway is part of the originally pl ...

, the first time (and to date, last) a regional has been entirely an in-state affair outside

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

Florida Florida is a state located in the Southeastern region of the United States. Florida is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the northwest by Alabama, to the north by Georgia, to the east by the Bahamas and Atlantic Ocean, and to ...

, and

. The travel restrictions were eased in 2003, and the ban on conference teams facing each other in regional play was reinstated.

Bids

Automatic bids

Conference champions from 30 Division I conferences earned automatic bids to regionals. The remaining 34 spots were awarded to schools as at-large invitees.

Bids by conference

Notes on tournament field

* Central Connecticut State, Elon, Louisville, New Mexico St., and San Diego were making their first NCAA tournament appearance.

National seeds

''Bold indicates CWS participant.'' # # Clemson # # #

South Carolina )''Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no) , anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind" , Former = Province of South Carolina , seat = Columbia , LargestCity = Charleston , LargestMetro = ...

# #

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is considere ...

Regionals and super regionals

Bold indicates winner.

Tallahassee Super Regional

Clemson Super Regional

Atlanta Super Regional

Houston Super Regional

Austin Super Regional

†Arizona State hosted at HoHoKam Park in

Mesa, Arizona Mesa ( ) is a city in Maricopa County, Arizona, Maricopa County, in the U.S. state of Arizona. It is the most populous city in the East Valley (Phoenix metropolitan area), East Valley section of the Phoenix Metropolitan Area. It is bordered by ...

, where they played their 2002 season due to construction at

Packard Stadium Packard Stadium was a college baseball park in the southwestern United States, located in Tempe, Arizona, a suburb just east of Phoenix. It was the home field of the Arizona State Sun Devils of the Pac-12 Conference from 1974 to 2014. Opened in 1 ...

Columbia Super Regional

Lincoln Super Regional

Palo Alto Super Regional

College World Series

Participants

Results

Bracket

Game results

Championship Game

All-Tournament Team

The following players were members of the College World Series All-Tournament Team.

Tournament notes

* This was the last College World Series championship to be decided by a single game as the final was moved to a best-of-three format the following year.

References

{{2002 NCAA Division I baseball tournament navbox NCAA Division I Baseball Championship Baseball in Austin, Texas Baseball in Houston