OMAHA, Neb. — UCLA was rewarded Monday for its dominant wire-to-wire run through the regular season with the No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
The tournament opens Friday with 16 double-elimination regionals. Winners advance to eight best-of-three super regionals. Those winners move on to the College World Series beginning June 12 in Omaha.
“The committee believed this year’s championship field was deep and very balanced from top to bottom,” said NCAA selection committee Chairman Michael Alford, the athletic director at Florida State. “Throughout the process we remained focused on applying the selection principles pretty consistently across all conferences and regions, and I hope that is noticed. Every decision was based on a full body of work, not just single metrics.”
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The Bruins (51-6), who swept the Big Ten regular-season and tournament titles, were No. 1 in each of Baseball America’s weekly rankings since the preseason and have the most wins entering regionals since Tennessee came in with 53 in 2022.
Their ace, Logan Reddeman, and closer, Ethan Hawk, are among the best in the nation and lead a staff that has a 3.31 ERA. Shortstop Roch Cholowsky is widely projected to be the No. 1 pick in the MLB draft by the Chicago White Sox, and he, Will Gasparino and Big Ten Tournament MVP Mulivai Levu have combined for 57 homers.
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No. 2 seed Georgia Tech (48-9), which swept the ACC championships, features the nation’s most prodigious offense. The Yellow Jackets lead Division I in scoring (10.8 runs per game), batting average (.358) and slugging (.636). Jarren Advincula is batting .431 to rank second nationally, and Vahn Lackey is sixth at .410.
The Yellow Jackets will open regional play Friday in Atlanta against Illinois-Chicago, which swept the Missouri Valley titles for the program’s 14th regular-season conference championship and ninth conference tournament crown. The Flames (27-27-1), who beat Southern Illinois 7-2 in Sunday’s MVC Tournament final, are making their seventh NCAA Tournament appearance.
Also in this year’s field — for the first time since 1972 — is Northern Illinois, which beat Toledo 5-1 on Saturday to win the Mid-American Conference Tournament for the first time. The Huskies (35-17), who set a program record for wins, were assigned to the regional hosted by No. 10 seed Florida State and will open play Friday in Tallahassee, Fla., against Coastal Carolina.
The national seeds after UCLA and Georgia Tech are No. 3 Georgia (46-12), No. 4 Auburn (38-19), No. 5 North Carolina (45-11-1), No. 6 Texas (40-13), No. 7 Alabama (37-19) and No. 8 Florida (39-19). The top eight seeds, if they win their regional, are assured of hosting a super regional.
The other regional hosts are No. 9 seed Southern Mississippi (44-15), No. 10 Florida State (38-17), No. 11 Oregon (40-16), No. 12 Texas A&M (39-14), No. 13 Nebraska (42-15), No. 14 Mississippi State (40-17), No. 15 Kansas (42-16) and No. 16 West Virginia (39-14).
The SEC had the most teams selected with 12. The ACC has nine teams in the field, followed by the Big 12 with six, Sun Belt with five and Big Ten with four.
The last four teams to get at-large bids, in alphabetical order, were Liberty (41-19), Kentucky (31-21), Texas State (36-24) and Troy (32-29).
The first four teams left out were Mercer (44-15), Michigan (34-24), Pittsburgh (33-24) and TCU (33-21).
LSU (30-28), the 2025 national champion, became the seventh program to win the title and not make a regional the next year since the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1999.
Been there, done that
Texas is in the tournament for a record 65th time and Miami for a 51st. Florida State is a regional host for a record 38th time.
Florida has the longest active streak with 18 straight appearances. Other notable consecutive streaks include Oklahoma State (13), Southern Miss (10), Arkansas (9) and East Carolina, North Carolina and Oregon State (8 each).
Vanderbilt (33-25) is missing regionals after 19 straight appearances.
First-timer
Western Athletic Conference champion Tarleton State is the only first-time participant. The Texans began their transition to Division I in 2021 and weren’t eligible for the tournament when they won the WAC in 2024. Their most recent postseason appearance was in the 2018 Division II tournament.
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Losing but winning
South Dakota State takes a 24-31 record into its second regional, and first since 2013, after winning the four-team Summit League Tournament as the No. 4 seed.
Holy Cross is 25-28 after winning the Patriot League Tournament and has its first back-to-back regional appearances since 1962-63.
Horizon League champion Milwaukee is 25-31 entering its first regional in 16 years.