D1Baseball includes 13 SEC teams in preseason NCAA Tournament projections

College baseball season is here, and the SEC is once again expected to be the sport’s top conference. Ahead of Friday’s Opening Day festivities, D1Baseball revealed its preseason NCAA Tournament projections with 13 conference programs represented in the field of 64.

D1’s projections include SEC teams hosting 8 of the 16 NCAA Regionals. Here are the projected hosts:

• No. 2 overall seed LSU (Baton Rouge Regional host, paired with Athens Regional)
• No. 3 overall seed Texas (Austin Regional host, paired with Knoxville Regional)
• No. 4 overall seed Mississippi State (Starkville Regional host, paired with Gainesville Regional)
• No. 7 overall seed Arkansas (Fayetteville Regional host, paired with Fort Worth Regional)
• No. 9 overall seed Auburn (Auburn Regional host, paired with Louisville Regional)
• No. 13 overall seed Florida (Gainesville Regional host, paired with Starkville Regional)
• No. 14 overall seed Tennessee (Knoxville Regional host, paired with Austin Regional)
• No. 15 overall seed Georgia (Athens Regional host, paired with Baton Rouge Regional)

Here’s where the other 5 projected Tournament teams slot in D1’s preseason projections:

• Conway Regional 2-seed Ole Miss (hosted by No. 6 overall Coastal Carolina, paired with Chapel Hill Regional)
• Fort Worth Regional 2-seed Texas A&M (hosted by No. 10 overall TCU, paired with Fayetteville Regional)
• Chapel Hill Regional 2-seed Vanderbilt (hosted by No. 11 overall North Carolina, paired with Conway Regional)
• Corvallis Regional 2-seed Kentucky (hosted by No. 12 Oregon State, paired with Atlanta Regional)
• Atlanta Regional 3-seed Alabama (hosted by No. 5 overall Georgia Tech, paired with Corvallis Regional)

Last season, the SEC sent 13 teams to the NCAA Tournament, sweeping the top 4 national seeds. Vanderbilt, the SEC Tournament champion, claimed the No. 1 national seed but failed to make it out of the Nashville Regional. Regular-season SEC champion Texas was No. 2, followed by No. 3 Arkansas and No. 4 Auburn. LSU, the eventual national champion, was the No. 6 national seed.

It will be interesting to see how the early projections play out over the next few months.

Andrew Olson

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.