OMAHA, Neb. — Tennessee, the Southeastern Conference's regular-season and conference tournament champions and the No. 1 team in the country for a month, received the national No. 1 berth to the NCAA Tournament on Monday.
The 64-team tournament begins Friday with 16 double-elimination regionals. The winners advance to eight best-of-three super regionals. Those winners advance to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, beginning June 14.
The Volunteers have not lost consecutive games since mid-March and are the only team in the country to have won 50 games in three of the last four years. They will try to become the first No. 1 national team to win the championship since Miami in 1999, the year the NCAA adopted the current tournament structure.
Tennessee, which has reached two of the last three College World Series, enters the regionals ranked in the top 10 nationally in five offensive categories. The Vols' 147 home runs are the most in the nation, and Christian Moore has 28 to lead five Vols players with at least 17. The pitching staff has a 3.83 ERA and ranks in the top five in other four categories.
“If you look back to when August started, the group has had good vibes on the field every day,” Vols coach Tony Vitello said. “That's a good start because when you win or lose, it's going to be fun to come to work every day, and you can probably get better because you have guys that are willing to listen and work together.”
The national seeds after Tennessee (50-11) are Kentucky (40-14), Texas A&M (44-13), North Carolina (42-13), Arkansas (43-14), Clemson (41-14 ), Georgia (39-15) and Florida State (42-15).
Nos. 9-16 seeds: Oklahoma (37-19), North Carolina State (33-20), Oklahoma State (40-17), Virginia (41-15), Arizona (36-21), UC Santa Barbara (42 -12), Oregon State (42-14) and East Carolina (43-15).
The final four teams to receive at-large bids, in alphabetical order, were Coastal Carolina, Indiana, James Madison and UCF.
The first four teams out were California, Charleston, Cincinnati and TCU.
The SEC set a record with 11 teams in the regionals and five in the top eight national finishers. The Atlantic Coast Conference has eight teams in the tournament and the Big 12 has six.
Selection committee decisions that are sure to be debated were for East Carolina to host a regional over other contenders and for Coastal Carolina, Kansas State, Indiana and Florida to receive at-large bids. All of those schools have representatives on the committee, and all but East Carolina were thought to be on the offer bubble.
Chairman Matt Hogue, Coastal Carolina's athletic director, said NCAA protocols ensure fairness by requiring committee members to leave the room when their schools are being discussed and not participate if their schools are subject to a vote.
“One thing you do want to have on a committee is people who are tuned into the sport,” Hogue said, “so as an inherent natural result, if you have quality people on the committee, it's likely that in many years you'll have teams in that situation, so I think it's important to take that into account.
Other notes about the tournament:
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Defending national champion LSU, in danger of missing the tournament six weeks ago after losing 12 of its first 15 SEC games, has won 18 of its last 24 overall and reached the conference tournament championship game to take second regional position. in Chapel Hill, North Carolina.
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A total of 19 college players projected to be selected in the first round of the Major League Baseball draft, according to MLB.com, are in the tournament. The group is led by Georgia's Charlie Condon, whose 35 home runs and .443 batting average lead the nation.
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Vanderbilt has the longest active streak with its 18th consecutive appearance. Texas is in the tournament for a record 63rd time. Florida State, whose record streak of regional appearances ended at 44 in 2023, is back in the tournament and will host for the 36th time, a Division I record.
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UC Santa Barbara will be an intimidating regional host. The Gauchos have won all 25 of their home games this season, the only Division I team to do so, and have the longest overall active winning streak in the country at 14.
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Oral Roberts (27-30-1), which made a surprise run to the CWS last year, won the Summit League tournament title to return to the tournament and is the only team in the field with a losing record.
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First-time participants are High Point, Niagara and Northern Kentucky.
