The news couldn’t have been better Sunday night for Clemson, Coastal Carolina and South Carolina. Each of the Palmetto State programs was chosen by the NCAA Baseball Tournament Selection Committee to serve as a regional host starting Friday.
For the Tigers and the Chants, their selections were not surprising. Clemson won the ACC Tournament Championship earlier today and Coastal was the regular season champ in the Sun Belt.
The choice of USC may have surprised some. The Gamecocks were hoping the committee would focus on their entire season and not just the final month. Apparently, they did.
After starting 34-6, the Gamecocks finished at 39-19. Still, they owned an RPI of 8, 16 total SEC wins, 18 Q1 wins and a #3 strength of schedule. All of that must have been enough to convince the committee of their worthiness to host. Not to mention a monetary guarantee that must have been strong as well.
The SEC ended up with eight host sites and the ACC four.
The teams will learn who they will be hosting when the full tournament field is announced at Noon on Monday.
The 16 regional sites, with host institutions and records are as follows:
- Auburn, Alabama – Auburn (34-21-1)
- Baton Rouge, Louisiana – LSU (43-15)
- Charlottesville, Virginia – Virginia (45-12)
- Clemson, South Carolina – Clemson (43-17)
- Columbia, South Carolina – South Carolina (39-19)
- Conway, South Carolina – Coastal Carolina (39-19)
- Coral Gables, Florida – Miami (FL) (40-19)
- Fayetteville, Arkansas – Arkansas (41-16)
- Gainesville, Florida – Florida (44-14)
- Lexington, Kentucky – Kentucky (36-18)
- Nashville, Tennessee – Vanderbilt (41-18)
- Stanford, California – Stanford (38-16)
- Stillwater, Oklahoma – Oklahoma State (41-17) through games of 5/28
- Terre Haute, Indiana – Indiana State (42-15)
- Tuscaloosa, Alabama – Alabama (40-19)
- Winston-Salem, North Carolina – Wake Forest (47-10)
