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 Auburn, East Carolina, Florida, Georgia Southern, Louisville, Maryland, Miami, North Carolina, Oklahoma State, Oregon State, Southern Mississippi, Stanford, Tennessee, Texas, Texas A&M and Virginia Tech. The full bracket for the NCAA Tournament will be released Monday at noon.

The selection process produced a couple surprises. Notre Dame was the biggest snub of the host sites after the Fighting Irish posted a top-15 RPI, finished fourth in the ACC standings, advanced to the semifinals of the ACC Tournament and went 14-7 against top-50 RPI teams. They were probably undone by their 5-7 record against top-25 RPI opponents and perhaps the fact they played just 49 games. No matter the reasoning, Notre Dame will feel hard done, especially after last year getting snubbed for a top-eight seed and having to go on the road to Mississippi State for super regionals.

Oklahoma also has a strong case that it should be hosting. The Sooners won the Big 12 Tournament, rank No. 19 in RPI and their 18 top-50 RPI wins rank third in the nation, behind only Tennessee and North Carolina (tied at 20). Oklahoma was still playing the Big 12 Tournament championship game at the time of the host site announcement, leaving the door open to questions about what might have happened had the Big 12 title game started earlier in the day or if the NCAA had waited longer to announce host sites. Even if it wouldn’t have changed anything, the optics of the situation were strange.

Georgia Southern and Maryland will both host regionals for the first time ever. Georgia Southern lost Sunday in the Sun Belt Tournament championship game, but still won 40 games this season and ranks 11th in RPI. Maryland won the Big Ten regular season title, went 45-12 and rank ninth in RPI.

The ACC and SEC both have four schools hosting, tied for the most of any conference. Eight conferences are represented among the 16 host sites.