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The NCAA baseball tournament kicks off Friday. Starting in the regionals, 64 teams will fight to make it to the College World Series in Omaha this June.
https://twitter.com/NCAABaseball/status/1795131722750730619
Host Teams
Prior to the selection show, 16 teams were announced to host regionals this year. The SEC and ACC tied for the most regional hosts with five.
Tennessee notched the No. 1 overall seed in the tournament. The Volunteers (50-11) capped off their season in style with a win in the SEC Tournament championship.
Tennessee wasn’t the only SEC squad to make the cut. Kentucky (40-14) and Texas A&M (44-13) earned the tournament’s second and third overall seeds, respectively. North Carolina (42-13), Arkansas (43-14), Clemson (41-14), Georgia (39-15) and Florida State (42-15) round out the remainder of the top eight.
Up next are the ninth-seeded Oklahoma Sooners (37-19) and 10th-seeded NC State Wolfpack (33-20). No. 11 Oklahoma State (40-17) will host the Florida Gators in the Stillwater Regional.
12-seed Virginia (41-15), 13-seed Arizona (36-21), 14-seed UC Santa Barbara (42-12) and 15-seed Oregon State (42-14) will also stay at home to host their own regional. Wrapping up the slate of regional hosts, No. 16 East Carolina (43-15) narrowly earned a bid to crack the top 16. The Pirates out of the American Conference have a 43-15 record on the season.
SEC Dominance
After a lot of uncertainty of who would be in, a record 11 SEC teams made the postseason.
https://twitter.com/SECbaseball/status/1795140603556090092
As the No. 1 seed, Tennessee will play host to Southern Miss, Indiana and Northern Kentucky in Knoxville. D1 Baseball’s Joe Healy believes that Texas A&M has the toughest regional, despite its high ranking.
SEC host Kentucky plays Western Michigan in game one of its regional. Arkansas will face Southeast Missouri, while Georgia will kick their region off against Army. After making it to the SEC Tournament Championship, LSU’s finished with a 40-21 overall record on the season to crack the tournament pool. The Tigers will see Wofford in the first game of the Chapel Hill Regional. Despite boasting a 38-21 record, Mississippi State was overlooked to host a regional this year. However, the Bulldogs have the potential to take the win in the Charlottesville Regional.
Florida snagged an at-large berth in the field of 64 despite having a 28-27 record on the year. The Gators were rewarded for having one of the toughest strengths of schedule with a spot in Stillwater. Florida plays Nebraska in game one.
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Rounding out the SEC, Vanderbilt plays Coastal Carolina in Clemson, Alabama faces UCF in Tallahassee and South Carolina plays James Madison in Raleigh.
Notable Regionals
In Tucson, Arizona hosts West Virginia, Dallas Baptist and Grand Canyon. Healy says that any of these four teams could walk away as the winner of this regional.
Duke won the ACC Tournament and has the opportunity to upset host Oklahoma.
Stillwater will be a tough regional for any of the four teams to overcome. While Oklahoma State is the host, Nebraska has been getting stronger and stronger as the season goes on. Niagara finds itself rounding out this regional in its first NCAA tournament appearance.
The first games of the regional round are set to start Friday at 12 p.m. EST.
