Defending champion Florida earned the No. 1 seed in the NCAA baseball tournament, and the SEC tied a record for bids.
Defending national champion Florida earned the No. 1 seed in the NCAA baseball tournament on Monday, leading four SEC teams among the top eight seeds and a record-tying 10 schools overall from the league.
The Gators (42-17) won the SEC regular season this year after sweeping LSU in the championship series a year ago for the school’s first national title in baseball. Stanford, which is 44-10 under first-year coach David Esquer, is the No. 2 national seed, followed by Oregon State, SEC tournament champion Ole Miss, Arkansas, North Carolina, Florida State and Georgia.
After the round of four team regionals Friday through next Monday, the top eight seeds — if victorious on the opening weekend — would host best-of-three super regionals June 8-11 to determine the field for the College World Series, which opens June 16 in Omaha, Nebraska.
Seeds 9 through 16, in order, are Texas Tech, Clemson, Stetson, East Carolina, Texas, Minnesota, Coastal Carolina and N. C. State.
Stetson (45-11) is the first team to host from the Atlantic Sun Conference. It carries a nation-leading, 15-game winning streak into the tournament. South Florida, Oklahoma State and Hartford are headed to the DeLand, Florida, regional.
Minnesota, which won the Big Ten regular-season and tournament crowns, is hosting for the first time since 2000.
From the SEC, Auburn, South Carolina, Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State and LSU also made the field. The conference’s 10 bids equal the record set previously by the SEC in 2014 and the ACC in 2016. A potential 11th SEC team, Kentucky, was denied a spot by the selection committee after losing its final four games.
Notably, Texas A&M will open against Indiana in the Austin, Texas, regional, with the winner to play Texas or Texas Southern. And LSU, seeded second in Corvallis, Oregon, could meet host Oregon State in one of the most attractive matchups of the first weekend.
Miami missed the tournament for a second straight season after a record 44 consecutive appearances.
