Pac-12 changes postseason baseball tournament for 2023

The Pac-12 finally joined most of the rest of college baseball last spring when it held a postseason conference tournament for the first time. And one tourney was enough to see changes were needed.

The 2023 tourney, on tap for May 23-27 in Scottsdale, will feature a new format as well as one more participant than the 2022 version.

Nine of the 11 baseball-playing schools will be at Scottsdale Stadium, and instead of a double-elimination bracket the tourney will begin with pool play. Each pool will have three teams, and the three winners will advance (along with one second-place team) to a four-team single-elimination championship round.

The top three teams in the regular season standings will be the No. 1 seeds in pool play, and also not play the first day of competition, instead playing their pool games on Day 2 and 3.

The inaugural Pac-12 tourney, which featured eight teams, required four games to be played the first two days, resulting in games running long past midnight. The new format will have no more than three games on any day, and no team will play more than once in a day.

Arizona reached the semifinals of the 2022 tourney, going 2-2 and falling to eventual champion Stanford.