Record-Breaking 11 SEC Baseball Teams Make NCAA Regionals

A record of 11 SEC baseball teams have been selected to compete in a regional tournament for the NCAA Championship bracket. This surpasses last season’s record of 10 squads who qualified. The Florida Gators earned one of these spots, securing the No. 3 seed in the Stillwater regional.

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Gators Earn Their Spot

The NCAA Selection Committee announced the Gators will compete in the Stillwater Regional as the No. 3 seed. The Oklahoma State Cowboys will host Florida alongside the second-seeded Nebraska Cornhuskers and fourth-seeded Niagara Purple Eagles. This marks the 39th time in school history that UF has cracked an NCAA regional, including 16 consecutive appearances under head coach Kevin O’Sullivan. This streak is the second longest in the country.

After exiting the SEC tournament early after a first round loss to the Vanderbilt Commodores, Florida’s fate rested in the hands of the NCAA committee. Florida was tied with four other SEC squads at 13 conference wins on the year. The Gators had the toughest strength of schedule out of the group, but this also translated to the most losses. The NCAA ended up adding all five borderline teams to the tournament pool, pushing the conference’s total to 11 squads.

Other SEC Teams Competing

The inclusion of 11 SEC programs in the 2024 NCAA tournament also marks the first time this many teams from any conference have earned NCAA Baseball Tournament bids.

Five SEC squads enter the tournament as regional hosts. This includes overall the Tennessee Volunteers, Kentucky Wildcats, Texas A&M Aggies, Arkansas Razorbacks and Georgia Bulldogs. The Volunteers, Wildcats, Aggies and Razorbacks all earned top five seeds in the bracket, with Tennessee securing the No. 1 seed in the tournament.

Beyond Florida and the conference’s regional hosts, other SEC teams to make the NCAA tournament include Alabama, LSU, Mississippi State, South Carolina and Vanderbilt.

NCAA Tournament Begins

NCAA Regionals begin on Friday, with all 16 regionals set to take place between Friday and Monday. Each regional has four teams that will compete in a double-elimination format. The 16 regional winners will move on to a best-of-three Super Regionals round. Those eight winners will then advance to the College World Series. An SEC team has won the last four College World Series.

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Florida is up against Nebraska in the Stillwater Regional in Oklahoma on Friday at 3 p.m. EDT.