What is the Bruins' Path to a National Championship?

Through an unprecedented second half of the season and a dominant postseason, the UCLA Bruins are making their sixth College World Series appearance and first since 2013, when they won their first and only national championship.

It hasn't been an easy path to Omaha, but as coach John Savage will quibble, the Bruins certainly had some breaks along the way.

"It's really hard to get here, number one," Savage said at CWS media day. "You got to have some breaks, you've got to have matchups, got to have health. There's a lot that goes into it. We had some dog fights with ASU and (UC) Irvine and of course UTSA. We played at home, I think anybody would want to play at home in regionals.

"Things fell right for us. UTSA beat Texas and they came to us. We were one of the last regional sites. Things fell right. We were really good in '15, really good in '19, we were really good in '20, COVID hit us. We won 40 games in '22. We won a lot of games, but we just hadn't knocked the door down."

This Bruins team is different from the ones prior, though, as Savage later described. Regardless of the breaks along the way, they were able to get over the hump and make it back to Omaha for the first time in 12 years.

But the past is behind them, and a much more difficult route is ahead of them if they want to make it to the national championship series.

UCLA's first test is one similar to the one they had against UTSA in the Los Angeles Super Regional, an unranked team on a run making their first appearance of this kind in program history. Murray State is making its fist CWS appearance in program history after making it out of the Oxford Regional and Durham Super Regional in three games against Duke.

The Racers, however, are the only team not seeded in the top-16 in their brackets. They and the Bruins are joined by the 3rd-ranked Arkansas Razorbacks and sixth seeded LSU. UCLA will have to face and beat at least one of the two juggernauts to make it to the national championship.

On paper, the other bracket is much easier, consisting of No. 8 Oregon State, No. 13 Coastal Carolina, Arizona and Louisville. One could argue that whoever makes it out of UCLA's bracket has the best chance at winning the national championship.

The Bruins path may not seem improbable, but it certainly wont be easy. It all starts on Saturday against Murray State at 11 a.m. PT on ESPN.

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