The 2016 NCAA College Baseball Tournament bracket is set, and four SEC clubs have earned national seeds: Texas A&M, Mississippi State, Florida and LSU are all in the top eight, as are Miami, Louisville, Texas Tech and Clemson.
NCAA Baseball Tournament bracket 2016: SEC makes history with 4 national seeds
Florida, Miami, and Mississippi State headline this year’s college baseball tournament field.
Steven Branscombe-USA TODAY Sports
The selection committee didn’t shy away from concentrating power in the country’s two best conferences. Seven of the eight national seeds and 13 of the 16 regional hosts come from the SEC and ACC. The West Coast, typically loaded with contenders, didn’t receive a single host site after decidedly mediocre seasons from the Pac-12 and Big West. In fact, there’s not a single host site west of Texas or north of Louisville.
Like its basketball counterpart, the NCAA Baseball Tournament field features 64 teams in the opening round, which begins on Friday, June 3. Groupings of four teams are seeded and assigned to 16 regional sites, where they play a double elimination mini-tournament to advance to the next round. The 16 teams that advance out of their regionals then pair off into eight best-of-three super regional series. From there, the eight super regional winners travel to Omaha, Neb., where they’ll battle it out for the national championship trophy.
One of the largest questions coming into Selection Monday was whether the committee would assign four national seeds to a single conference, the SEC. According to D1Baseball.com, LSU, South Carolina, Ole Miss and Vanderbilt were all jockeying for the eighth spot, with LSU finally winning out Monday. Furthermore, with seven teams in the SEC hosting their first-round regional tilts, this year marks the most number of host sites coming from one conference.
The national seeds
- Florida
- Louisville
- Miami
- Texas A&M
- Texas Tech
- Mississippi State
- Clemson
- LSU
The full field of 64
The field is organized by regional sites with each regional site organized by seeding and opening-game matchups (so you’ll see the one-seed and four-seed paired together; the two-seed and three-seed paired together). Parentheses denote national seeds.
| Gainesville, Fla. | Tallahassee, Fla. | ||
| (1) | Florida | 1 | Florida State |
| 4 | Bethune-Cookman | 4 | Alabama State |
| 2 | Georgia Tech | 2 | Southern Miss |
| 3 | UConn | 3 | South Alabama |
| Louisville, Ky. | Nashville, Tenn. | ||
| (2) | Louisville | 1 | Vanderbilt |
| 4 | Western Michigan | 4 | Xavier |
| 2 | Ohio State | 2 | UC Santa Barbara |
| 3 | Wright State | 3 | Washington |
| Coral Gables, Fla. | Oxford, Miss. | ||
| (3) | Miami | 1 | Ole Miss |
| 4 | Stetson | 4 | Utah |
| 2 | Florida Atlantic | 2 | Tulane |
| 3 | Long Beach State | 3 | Boston College |
| College Station, Texas | Fort Worth, Texas | ||
| (4) | Texas A&M | 1 | TCU |
| 4 | Binghamton | 4 | Oral Roberts |
| 2 | Minnesota | 2 | Arizona State |
| 3 | Wake Forest | 3 | Gonzaga |
| Lubbock, Texas | Charlottesville, Va. | ||
| (5) | Texas Tech | 1 | Virginia |
| 4 | Fairfield | 4 | William & Mary |
| 2 | Dallas Baptist | 2 | Bryant |
| 3 | New Mexico | 3 | ECU |
| Starkville, Miss. | Lafayette, La. | ||
| (6) | Mississippi State | 1 | UL Lafayette |
| 4 | SE Missouri State | 4 | Princeton |
| 2 | Cal State Fullerton | 2 | Arizona |
| 3 | Louisiana Tech | 3 | Sam Houston State |
| Clemson, S.C. | Columbia, S.C. | ||
| (7) | Clemson | 1 | South Carolina |
| 4 | Western Carolina | 4 | Rhode Island |
| 2 | Oklahoma State | 2 | UNC Wilmington |
| 3 | Nebraska | 3 | Duke |
| Baton Rouge, La. | Raleigh, N.C. | ||
| (8) | LSU | 1 | NC State |
| 4 | Utah Valley | 4 | Navy |
| 2 | Rice | 2 | Coastal Carolina |
| 3 | Southeast Louisiana | 3 | St. Mary's |
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