College baseball’s Sweet 16 is set and nearly every team remaining has a chance to make history.
Seeking their first trip to Omaha:
• Cal Poly
• West Virginia
• Troy
• Little Rock
Seeking their 1st national title:
• North Carolina
• Auburn
Trying to reach Omaha for the first time in decades:
• Alabama (last app: 1997)
• St. John’s (last app: 1980)
Looking for a rare return to Omaha:
• Oregon (only app: 1954)
• Kansas (only app: 1993)
National champions looking to add another trophy:
• Ole Miss (last title: 2022)
• Mississippi State (2021)
• Texas (2005)
• USC (1998)
• Oklahoma (1994)
• Georgia (1990)
No defending College World Series teams left. No recent Omaha mainstays dominating the bracket.
Rory McIlroy commissioned this pencil drawing after last year's Masters Tournament.
The artist (@KeeganHall) provided context on Reddit:
• Spent 6+ months working on it
• Estimates 600-800+ total hours
• Worked on it 6-7 days each week
• Uses a Pentel Graphgear mechanical pencil
Hall says this piece was incredibly challenging because so much detail went into such a small area. For context, the original is smaller than 30x22, so each face in the crowd is essentially a quarter of the size of a fingernail.
This is the second piece he has done for Rory.
We’re going to see a lot of height changes this year because, with the rollout of ABS, MLB is now measuring each player's height down to the millimeter.
The process is super strict — no shoes, no hats, knees exposed, back against the wall — and to account for potential shrinkage throughout the day, MLB is even requiring all its teams to take measurements between 10 am and 12 pm local time on their appointed day.