Regional Host Sites For 2022 NCAA Baseball Tournament Announced

The selection committee on Sunday announced the 16 regional host sites for the NCAA Tournament.

The schools hosting regionals will be Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Clemson, Coastal Carolina, Florida, Indiana State, Kentucky, LSU, Miami, Oklahoma State, South Carolina, Stanford, Vanderbilt, Virginia and Wake Forest. The full bracket for the NCAA Tournament will be released Monday at noon.

The SEC this year has eight of the 16 host sites, setting a new record for one conference. Previously, the high for one conference was seven, a mark the SEC set in 2016.

The hosts selected by the committee all closely adhere to RPI. The 16 teams all rank in the top 19, with Auburn the lowest at No. 19. The highest ranked teams not to host are Campbell (14), Dallas Baptist (17) and Boston College (18).

Eight SEC hosts is somewhat controversial, but also a sharp reflection of the sport’s current state. The conference last year accounted for half the teams in the College World Series and has produced the last three national champions and eight of the last 13. At least one SEC team has played for the national championship every year since 2008, except 2016.

All eight SEC hosts also fit the historical model for an SEC team hosting. All rank in the top 20 of RPI and all won at least 16 SEC games. While Kentucky (RPI 2, 16-14 SEC record) and South Carolina (RPI 8, 16-13 SEC record) didn’t finish strong, not awarding a host site to a team that ranked in the top 10 of RPI, the basis for all of the metrics used by the selection committee, and had a winning conference record would have caused more questions about the selection process and what the criteria actually were.

BC can feel hard done by the selection committee. ACC teams are not afforded as much leeway as SEC teams on their resumes and BC was just 16-14 in conference play during the regular season (it went 1-1 in the tournament, giving it a 17-15 record against ACC opponents). Its non-conference strength of schedule of 203 may have also been an issue.

But the Eagles still had a top-20 RPI and would have given college baseball a Northeast regional for the first time since 2010. The opportunity to put a regional in a part of the country that almost never gets postseason baseball was a massive one. It’s not the selection committee’s responsibility to grow the footprint of the sport, but it wouldn’t have been unprecedented to allow geography to play a small role in selecting the field or host sites.

Indiana State is hosting for the first time in program history. The Sycamores’ inclusion will probably be viewed somewhat controversially, as they went just 2-9 against opponents that rank in the top 50 of RPI. But, much like Kentucky and South Carolina, Indiana State had a standout RPI (9) and played an elite non-conference schedule (No. 5). It also won both the Missouri Valley Conference regular season and tournament titles. To not award a host to a team like that would have raised questions about what a team from a mid-major league needed to do.

In the end, the committee mostly stuck to its main metrics. Now, the question is whether the same will be true when the full Field of 64 is released Monday.