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UCLA Top Seed as 64-Team NCAA Baseball Tournament Kicks Off

5/26/2026

25 3 Full Breakdown

Summary

UCLA Leads Tournament

The 2026 NCAA Division I baseball tournament opens on Friday, May 29, with 64 teams and runs through June 22/23.
UCLA is the No. 1 seed; the other 15 seeds are Georgia Tech, Georgia, Auburn, North Carolina, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Southern Miss, Florida State, Oregon, Texas A&M, Nebraska, Mississippi State, Kansas and West Virginia.
Games air on ESPN, the final on ABC, and stream via ESPN app and ESPN+.

Summary

SEC Secures Hosts

The SEC submitted 12 bids and secured seven regional hosts, the most of any conference.
Mississippi State won a host over Arkansas, illustrating the committee’s heavy reliance on RPI.
Host decisions reveal RPI still dominates despite Chairman Michael Alford’s praise of the “eye test.”
Nebraska earned its first regional host since 2008 while Kansas captured the Big 12 title and locked in a regional host seeded between 10 and 14.

History

Historical Context

The NCAA doubled the baseball championship to a 64-team field in 1999, adding four-team regionals, best-of-three super regionals and eight national seeds, while ESPN now broadcasts the entire tournament. In 2018 the NCAA seeded the top 16 teams, further shaping brackets. Those reforms underpin today’s 2026 tournament, where the SEC fields 12 bids and Kansas hosts a Big 12 regional.

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UCLA Leads Tournament

The 2026 NCAA Division I baseball tournament opens on Friday, May 29, with 64 teams and runs through June 22/23.
UCLA is the No. 1 seed; the other 15 seeds are Georgia Tech, Georgia, Auburn, North Carolina, Texas, Alabama, Florida, Southern Miss, Florida State, Oregon, Texas A&M, Nebraska, Mississippi State, Kansas and West Virginia.
Games air on ESPN, the final on ABC, and stream via ESPN app and ESPN+.

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