The 16 regional hosts in the 2013 NCAA Baseball Tournament were announced Sunday night, and the rest of the field will be revealed during a selection show on ESPNU that begins at noon ET on Monday.
NCAA Baseball Tournament 2013 Selection Show: Time, TV schedule and more
We know the regional hosts, and soon we’ll know which teams they have to contend with.
Harry How
The regional hosts announced Sunday are LSU, Virginia Tech, Indiana, North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina, Oregon State, Oregon, Cal State Fullerton, UCLA, Louisville, Kansas State, Vanderbilt, North Carolina State, Mississippi State and Florida State.
Under the current tournament format, four teams meet in 16 regionals for a total of 64 championship hopefuls. It’s not quite March Madness, but it’s still a lot of fun.
The regional round is played in a double-elimination format, and only one team can advance out of each regional. The schools that move on play in a best-of-three super regional round the following weekend, with national seeds getting host honors by default whenever applicable. It is the eight national seeds that have the inside track to the College World Series, and any upsets among that group could shake up the tournament considerably.
North Carolina, Vanderbilt, LSU and Virginia are some of the heavier favorites to reach Omaha. They’re all coming off fantastic regular seasons, and as national seeds, their reward is the opportunity to play nothing but home games en route to the College World Series.
The ACC and SEC are incredibly deep this season, as evidenced by the number of national seeds and regional hosts belonging to those leagues, and they both will be well-represented in the NCAA Tournament field. All eight teams that qualified for the ACC Tournament rank in the RPI top 30, while the SEC has just three teams outside of the RPI top 100.
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