"Makes 0 sense to me and many others": College baseball fans react to Charleston's snub from 2024 NCAA Tournament

Charleston won't feature at the NCAA Tournament. Despite a superb overall record of 41-14, the baseball program of the Charleston Cougars wasn't invited to the Big Dance. The news took many by surprise, first among them Charleston's head coach Chad Holbrook:

"It appears the only metric we didn't have was a representative with a voice in the room, I almost feel like I’m being punked in a weird joke. I can’t wrap my brain around the fact that we didn’t do enough to be in the NCAA Tournament," Holbrook said.

Charleston's X account posted a simple but heartbreaking message, a single broken heart. Whatever happens, the association of the school's alumni is proud of their team and their regular season Coastal Athletic Association title:

"Thank you for playing your hearts out—Regular Season Champs and making us so proud! GO COUGARS!" the account posted.

Another fan didn't mince words to express his disagreement:

"You guys got flat hosed! They had us as a #2 seed and you were regular season conference champions and got to tourney finals. Makes 0 sense to me and many others. Crazy."

Some people did point some fingers at Coach Holbrook.

"Feel bad for the kids. Coach Holbrook let them down with the schedule. He knows the conference is mediocre at best. You have to have a good non conference schedule. 25 games vs quad 4 teams. Almost half the schedule. You can't play the victim when the coach had a role in this," a fan wrote.

In general, fans felt the Cougars were robbed.

"Y'all got robbed for sure!" said one fan.

"Y'all got snubbed," another fan agreed.

Coach Holbrook: Charleston is owed an apology

Minutes before the selection show airing on ESPN, Coach Holbrook already knew his Cougars wouldn't be in the postseason. In the aftermath, he openly gave his take on the matter, describing the situation as something to be ashamed of:

“I’ve been in the business a long time, and I had some people call me and they felt it was important for me to know, I think the selection committee owes our players and the university an apology," Holbrook said per the Post and Courier.

In this manner, a 41-14 school with a conference record of 21-5 won't be participating in this year's NCAA tournament.