The NCAA Baseball Tournament announced its field of 64 teams Monday afternoon, and yet again head coach Mike Fox and the Tar Heels found themselves on the outside looking in.

Prior to last season, UNC had made the tournament in 14 straight years–notching six trips to the College World Series during that streak.

Once a fixture in June, the Tar Heels have now had their season ended prematurely in consecutive years for the first time since 1996-97.

Despite boasting a solid 34-21 record and an RPI ranking of 19–the highest to miss the tournament–UNC was deemed the “first team out” by the NCAA Selection Committee.

The Tar Heels began the year 18-2, and were ranked as high as No. 3 in the nation earlier in the season according to some polls.

As the schedule got tougher, though, the offense slipped off a bit.

That late-season hitting swoon ultimately cost UNC a spot in the 10-team ACC Tournament–which was likely the final nail in its coffin.

Had the Tar Heels won one more ACC game, they would have qualified for the event.

Each of the 10 teams that played in Durham this past week were included in the field, giving the ACC a record-tying number of entries for one conference.

That seemed to be the deciding factor, as UNC was left out in favor of teams such as Duke and Boston College.

In their regular season series, the Tar Heels swept the Blue Devils in Durham–but with a stronger finish to the year Duke was selected for its first NCAA Tournament since 1961.

Boston College (31-20, 39th in the RPI) played its way into the ACC Tournament with a pair of wins on the final day of the regular season–earning the conference’s final at-large birth.

For the second week in a row, the Eagles–who didn’t play the Tar Heels this year–made it into the postseason at UNC’s expense.

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