By Chris Marler
Sunday Funday wasn’t fun for everyone. It was the first day of elimination games in the NCAA Tournament, and chaos ensued all day long. Here’s a recap of day three of the NCAA Regionals.
Ump Show
There have been several moments in the tournament so far that have seen umpire involvement ruin the moment and lack awareness of the moment. To be clear, once is too many. No one is showing up to the ballpark to watch the umpires. None of the umpires have been working since September in hopes of getting to Omaha. It’s absurd.
So, when I see potential national player of the year Landon Hairston tossed in the first elimination game for arguing a third strike call, it’s annoying. When it happened later to Tre Phelps after he put Georgia ahead 2-1 in the regional final, it was infuriating. I’m admittedly not a big, arrogant celebration on the field guy. I don’t mind bat flips, but the gold chains dangling from the neck of a .270 hitter doesn’t exactly move me. That being said, these kids have been doing 5:00 am workouts nine months ago to get to this moment. Ejecting someone for “taunting” after hitting a 450 foot bomb that essentially advances your team to super regionals? No, miss me with that, and flip the hell out of that bat.
TRE PHELPS GIVES GEORGIA THE LEAD AND THEN GETS TOSSED FOR CELEBRATION
WES JOHNSON TOSSED. WOW. pic.twitter.com/kL36K3AVXS
— 11Point7 College Baseball (@11point7) May 31, 2026
What’s most bothersome about these two ejections specifically is that it means each player also misses the next game. That means Hairston was absent for the regional final game against Ole Miss and Phelps will now miss a third of the super regionals next week against Mississippi State. That’s not sportsmanship or enforcing the rules, that’s fragile egos of umpires. Period.
UCLA finally gets burned
UCLA had been playing with fire for a month now, and on Sunday they finally got burned. The No. 4 seed St. Mary’s Gaels lit the flame too. The Bruins had held a 5-4 lead late in their elimination game against the Gaels. That wasn’t anything new to UCLA. The Bruins had a nation leading 29 come from behind wins this season including four in their previous five games before Sunday.
They were very comfortable in late game situations whether they were trailing or ahead. In fact, they hadn’t lost a game when leading after eight innings since April of 2024 and had won 78 consecutive games in that situation. They’re now 78-1. That’s a big deal for the bracket more than anything because the winner of the Los Angeles region will be either No. 3 seed Cal Poly or 4 seed St. Mary’s. That means the winner of the Morgantown regional will get to host the super regionals now.
SAINT MARY’S ELIMINATES THE NO. 1 OVERALL SEED UCLA IN WALK-OFF FASHION 😱 pic.twitter.com/hJGgMWVVon
— ESPN (@espn) May 31, 2026
Oh Kentucky, what is you doing?
Speaking of Morgantown, there were some couches being burned there tonight. The Mountaineers had to win two games on Sunday to keep their season alive. First, they had to beat all the flame throwers Wake Forest had to offer. Then they had to face Kentucky in a rematch from their 11-9 loss on Saturday.
Kentucky barely got into the postseason tournament, and the No. 3 seed they were given was argued a lot. They didn’t listen. On Sunday they were in the driver’s seat to advance to their second super regional in the last three years. They even held a one run lead for most of the game. They extended that lead to three taking a 9-6 lead into the ninth. Then the wheels fell off.
An error, walk, and base hit loaded the bases for the Mountaineers. Kentucky changed pitchers only to have the incoming pitcher walk in a run to make it 9-7. They went to the bullpen again. This time they got a sac fly to record one out and have runners on first and third. Kentucky then proceeded to balk in the tying run making it 9-9. The next pitch went over the right field wall and may not have landed yet.
https://x.com/11point7/status/2061251956090581091?s=20
Kentucky was three outs away from supers with a three run lead and lost by two. They’ll now face West Virginia in a win or go home game on Monday.
Auburn, team of the people
The Auburn regional has sucked to put it bluntly. It has had a million runs scored and a million and one rain and weather delays. The regional final between Auburn and UW-Milwaukee didn’t even get finalized until after 9:15 p.m. central time.
On a scale of 1-to-Auburn firing head coaches, the frequency of these weather delays was a Bryan Harsin. Auburn made it worth the while for fans though. Every weather delay that came about meant a price change for beer and hot dogs. By the time of the Auburn-UCF restart, the numbers were down to $2.50 beers and $1.25 hot dogs. That means that at $15.8 million, Hugh Freeze could’ve bought 12,640,000 hot dogs with his buyout.
If we keep getting delayed will yall eventually pay us to drink beer and eat hotdogs??? https://t.co/mhN1FVgAI1 pic.twitter.com/IO5QjY9AN0
— AUBURN SUPERFAN (@CFullman30) May 31, 2026
Where things stand now…
The SEC had a great first two days of the NCAA tournament. The conference went 18-6 as a whole with a third of their losses coming from one team, Tennessee. The schedule got very quirky and murky on Sunday with all the weather delays, but here’s where things stand as of now.
Teams that have advanced to Super Regionals
No. 3 Georgia
No. 6 Texas
No. 7 Alabama
No. 14 Mississippi State
Ole Miss
Teams that play in a Monday Regional Final
Oklahoma (vs Georgia Tech)
Kentucky (vs West Virginia)
Florida (vs Troy)
Texas A&M (vs Southern Cal)
Auburn (vs UW Milwaukee)
Teams out of the tournament
Tennessee
Arkansas
More SEC News
