Purdue baseball‘s postseason push, including a near-upset of No. 1 UCLA (51-6) over the weekend, fell short.
The Boilermakers were not among the 64 teams selected to the NCAA Tournament when the full field was announced Monday. Instead of reaching a regional for the first time since 2018, Purdue‘s season ends with a 37-20 record.
Purdue went into the final weekend of the Big Ten’s regular season seemingly in good shape for a regional bid. With even one win against Iowa it could potentially secure a top-four Big Ten Tournament seed and a bye into the single-elimination bracket.
Instead, it lost all three games to Iowa in Des Moines. As the 5 seed, it then lost its conference tournament opener to 12 seed Michigan State.
Purdue had to beat Illinois and Iowa, two other non-NCAA Tournament teams, to reach the single-elimination bracket It led UCLA 3-1 with two outs in the bottom of the eighth but could not hold on against the No. 1 seed in a 4-3 loss.
Besides the Bruins, only three other Big Ten teams made the field: Oregon, coached by former Purdue coach Mark Wazikowski, Southern Cal and Nebraska.
Purdue second baseman Dylan Drake made the All-Big Ten Tournament team.
Purdue won 11 of its 14 Big Ten weekends, including six in a row. It beat Baylor and Oregon State in non-conference en route to its third straight 30-win season.
That was not enough, however, to push the Boilers off of the bubble and into the NCAA Tournament field.
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Purdue misses NCAA baseball tournament regional 2026 after 37-win season