UCLA No. 1 seed in NCAA baseball tournament for first time
OMAHA, Neb. – UCLA’s dominance in the Pac-12 this spring impressed the Division I Baseball Committee so much that on Monday the Bruins were awarded their first No. 1 national seed for the NCAA tournament.
“We knew we were going to have a good team,” coach John Savage said. “We knew we had some players back, and we knew we were healthy. But to go from the top of the mountain in ’13 to the bottom in ’14 and then back in ’15, at least to this point, feels pretty good.”
UCLA was national champion in 2013 and missed the tournament entirely last year.
The Bruins (42-14) edged out SEC regular-season champion LSU (48-10) even though they lost two of their last three at Oregon.
The other six national seeds, in order: Louisville, Florida, Miami, Illinois, TCU and Missouri State.
The tournament opens Friday with 16 four-team, double-elimination regionals. Best-of-3 super regionals are next week, with those winners moving to the College World Series in Omaha.
National seeds that win their regionals play at home in super regionals. Since the NCAA went to its current tournament format in 1999, only one No. 1 national seed – Miami in 1999 – has won the championship.