Baseball America projects 12 SEC teams to make 2026 NCAA Tournament, 7 Regional hosts
By Andrew Olson
Published:
The 2026 college baseball season is rolling along, and the conversation is starting to focus on which teams will be playing in the postseason. Baseball America recently shared its projected 2026 NCAA Tournament field of 64, including 12 teams from the SEC. Of those 12 teams, 7 would be Regional hosts, with the 3 in the coveted top-8 national seeds controlling their own destiny as potential Super Regional hosts.
Here are the projections:
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- Texas — Austin Regional host, No. 2 overall seed
- Georgia — Athens Regional host, No. 4 overall seed
- Mississippi State — Starkville Regional host, No. 8 overall seed
- Alabama — Tuscaloosa Regional host, No. 9 overall seed
- Auburn — Auburn Regional host, No. 10 overall seed
- Texas A&M — College Station Regional host, No. 12 overall seed
- Oklahoma — Norman Regional host, No. 15 overall seed
- Florida — Los Angeles Regional 2-seed, No. 19 overall (No. 14 USC host)
- Arkansas — Hattiesburg Regional 2-seed, No. 20 overall (No. 13 Southern Miss host)
- Ole Miss — Atlanta Regional 2-seed, No. 30 overall (No. 3 Georgia Tech host)
- LSU — Westwood Regional 2-seed, No. 32 overall (No. 1 UCLA host)
- Kentucky — Orlando Regional 3-seed (No. 16 UCF host)
- Vanderbilt — First Four Out
One thing that sticks out about 2026 projections is that national seedings extend beyond the 16 Regional hosts. This year, the NCAA selection committee will assign national seeds to the top 32 teams, helping dictate the Regional matchups. For example, LSU is the No. 32 national seed in the Baseball America projections. The Tigers, as such, would be the 2-seed in the Westwood Regional, hosted by projected No. 1 national seed UCLA.
Kentucky is the only SEC team projected to make the field and be a Regional’s 3-seed outside the top 32. Vanderbilt is notably in the First Four Out pool, while Tennessee, South Carolina and Missouri are even further outside the tournament picture at the moment.
Will the SEC keep its Omaha streak going? Predict this year’s college baseball national champion at Kalshi!
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
