Regional baseball venues revealed
Entire field to be announced today
OMAHA, Neb. – Defending national champion Vanderbilt and three other Southeastern Conference teams were among the 16 regional hosts named Sunday for the NCAA Division I baseball tournament.
The hosts are guaranteed spots in the 64-team NCAA tournament. The rest of the field will be announced today.
Other SEC host teams are LSU, Florida and Texas A&M.
The Atlantic Coast Conference has three host teams – Louisville, Miami and Florida State.
Other regional hosts are: Illinois, Dallas Baptist, Missouri State, TCU, Oklahoma State, Cal State Fullerton, UC Santa Barbara, Houston and UCLA.
The four-team, double-elimination regionals start Friday. Regional winners advance to the best-of-three super regionals the following week. The remaining eight teams will play in the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, beginning June 13.
Florida State will play in a regional at home for the 32nd time since the NCAA went to the regional format in 1975. Miami is hosting for the 25th time and LSU for the 23rd time.
Eight teams also were hosts in 2014: Florida State, Miami, LSU, Oklahoma State, Louisville, Vanderbilt, Florida and TCU.
First-time hosts are Dallas Baptist, Illinois, Missouri State and UC Santa Barbara.
Dallas Baptist (43-13) had been the No. 1 team in the RPI most of the last two months but lost in the Missouri Valley Conference semifinals and is 4-4 in its last eight games. Illinois (47-8-1) had the nation’s longest winning streak this season, 27 games, end in the Big Ten tournament.