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See also: NCAA automatic bids to tournaments
The Division I Baseball Commission has released 16 regional hosts, and for the first time ever, half of them will come from one conference: the SEC.
We projected the SEC would host seven regional games all week, but the committee also deemed South Carolina’s overall work worthy of the eighth non-league host, even though the Gamecocks had lost their last four games of the weekend and 11 of their last 14 games. Total. South Carolina finished with a mediocre record of 17-15 overall in the SEC, but was buoyed by No. 8 RPI and a 20-18 record against the Top 50.
Hosting the Gamecocks is a mild surprise given the brutality of the past month, but a far cry from a total shock given their overall metrics and impressive first half. We’d beleive Campbell (who won Big South regular-season and conference tournament titles, finished with a 14-ranked RPI record and a 9-5 record against the Top 50 — not easy to do as a member of the 15th-ranked RPI conference) had a strong argument, however. We’d also give Southern Miss or Boston College a home regional spot before the Gamecocks. But the committee saw it differently, and that’s all that mattered in the end.
The other 15 hosts are as we expected this morning. The ACC lands four hosts, while the Big 12, Missouri Valley, Pac-12, and Sun Belt land one each.
The 16 hosts, in alphabetical order:
Alabama (Tuscaloosa, Ala.)
Arkansas (Fayetteville, Arkansas)
Auburn (auburn, ala).
Clemson (Clemson, South Carolina)
Coastal Carolina (Conway, South Carolina)
Florida (Gainsville, FL)
Indiana (Terre Haute, Ind.)
Kentucky (Lexington, Kentucky)
LSU (Baton Rouge, Los Angeles)
Miami (Coral Gables, Florida)
Oklahoma State (Stillwater, Oklahoma).
South Carolina (Columbia, South Carolina)
Stanford (Stanford, California)
Vanderbilt (Nashville, Tenn.)
Virginia (Charlottesville, VA)
Wake Forest (Winston-Salem, NC)
The full field of 64 seeds, including the 16 national seed standings, will be released during the selection show starting at noon Monday EST.
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