OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Eight of the 16 regional hosts selected for the NCAA Tournament are from the Southeastern Conference, the Division I Baseball Committee announced Sunday night.
The hosts have locked up spots in the national tournament, and the rest of the 64-team field will be unveiled Monday.
Each regional will be made up of four teams playing in a double-elimination format. All are scheduled from Friday through Monday. Regional winners advance to best-of-three super regionals, and those eight winners go on to the College World Series in Omaha beginning June 16.
Wake Forest (47-10), among four Atlantic Coast Conference teams to be named hosts, is expected to be the No. 1 overall seed after winning the league’s regular-season championship and leading the nation in wins.
SEC hosts are Alabama (40-19), Arkansas (41-16), Auburn (34-21-1), Florida (44-14), Kentucky (36-18), LSU (43-15), South Carolina (39-19) and Vanderbilt (41-18).
Joining Wake Forest as ACC hosts are Clemson (43-17), Miami (40-19) and Virginia (45-12).
Oklahoma State (41-18) is the only Big 12 host and Stanford (38-16) is the only one from the Pac-12.
Coastal Carolina (39-19) of the Sun Belt Conference and Indiana State of the Missouri Valley (42-15) are the other hosts. Indiana State is hosting for the first time.
This year marks the first time since 2013 — and second time since the tournament went to its current format in 1999 — that no team from the state of Texas will host.
Miami (29), LSU (27) and Stanford (21) have each hosted regionals at least 20 times.
Auburn, Florida, Miami, Oklahoma St. and Stanford hosted in 2022.
More AP college sports: https://apnews.com/hub/college-sports and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25
