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(Photo by Tyler Schank/NCAA Photos via Getty Images)
The college baseball selection committee on Sunday night announced the 16 regional hosts for this year’s NCAA Tournament, which is set to begin on Friday May 30.
Georgia, Auburn, Texas, LSU, North Carolina, Clemson, Coastal Carolina, Oregon State, Oregon, Arkansas, Southern Miss, Tennessee, UCLA, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss and Florida State were selected by the committee. The rest of the bracket, including the seeding order of the host sites, will be announced on ESPN2 at noon ET on Monday.
There weren’t many surprises above the host line as 15 of the 16 teams picked in Baseball America’s latest projected Field of 64 were ultimately selected. TCU was the lone casualty relative to our latest prognostication after it finished conference tournament week with the No. 18 RPI, 39 total wins, 22 Quad-I and Quad-II wins, 19 Big 12 victories all while facing the No. 18 strength of schedule. Georgia Tech, which won the ACC regular-season title but ranked No. 22 in the RPI, was also viewed as a hosting candidate.
UCLA and Southern Miss seemingly beat out the Horned Frogs and Yellow Jackets. The Bruins earned a share of the Big Ten regular-season title before losing to Nebraska in the conference tournament championship and finished with the No. 15 RPI while Southern Miss won 44 total games and finished 19th in RPI and as runner up in the Sun Belt Tournament to fellow host Coastal Carolina.
Vanderbilt is Baseball America’s projected No. 1 seed after it won the SEC Tournament on Sunday in Hoover, Alabama. The Commodores rank No. 1 nationally in RPI, combined Quadrant I and II wins (29) and faced the second-hardest schedule in the nation, trailing only fellow host and projected top-eight national seed Auburn. Their pitching is searing hot at the right time, too, as they allowed just three runs in the SEC Tournament while facing Oklahoma, Tennessee and Ole Miss, two of which are also hosts. This marks Vanderbilt’s 10th host designation in 23 years under head coach Tim Corbin, who won national titles in 2014 and 2019.
Texas also has a shot at the No. 1 overall national seed thanks to the weight of its regular-season resume. The first-year SEC member earned the outright crown in their new league after winning 22 conference games. The Longhorns’ fast exit from the SEC Tournament after a loss to Tennessee on Thursday is viewed the potential barrier to them earning to the top spot in the tournament.
In addition to Sunday’s host announcement, 28 of the 29 automatic bids had been determined as of the initial publication of this story. They are as follows:
| Conference | Winner |
| American Athletic | East Carolina |
| American East | Binghamton |
| Atlantic 10 | Rhode Island |
| ACC | North Carolina |
| Atlantic Sun | Stetson OR Florida Gulf Coast |
| Big 12 | Arizona |
| Big East | Creighton |
| Big South | USC Upstate |
| Big Ten | Nebraska |
| Big West | Cal Poly |
| Coastal | Northeastern |
| Conference USA | Western Kentucky |
| Horizon | Wright State |
| Ivy League | Columbia |
| Metro Atlantic | Fairfield |
| Mid-American | Miami (OH) |
| Missouri Valley | Murray State |
| Mountain West | Fresno State |
| Northeast | Central Connecticut |
| Ohio Valley | Little Rock |
| Patriot | Holy Cross |
| SEC | Vanderbilt |
| Southern | East Tennessee State |
| Southland | Houston Christian |
| Summit | North Dakota State |
| Sun Belt | Coastal Carolina |
| SWAC | Bethune-Cookman |
| WAC | Utah Valley |
| WCC | Saint Mary’s |
