No surprise: Hogs to host a regional

FAYETTEVILLE -- Hosting NCAA baseball regionals is getting to be a habit for the University of Arkansas.

Arkansas will be one of 16 regional hosts, the NCAA announced Sunday night. All of the regionals will include four teams and begin Friday.

It will be the first time the Razorbacks have hosted a regional in three consecutive years and the eighth time overall at Baum-Walker Stadium since 1999.

Which teams will play in each regional and the top eight national seeds won't be announced until 11 a.m. today when ESNPU will televise an hour-long selection show.

Arkansas (41-17) is in strong position to be a top 8-seed -- meaning that if it wins its regional it also will host a super regional -- based on being No. 5 in the coaches' poll and No. 6 in the NCAA's Ratings Percentage Index, which is used to rank teams based on their performance of schedule.

Arkansas is one of six SEC teams to host a regional along with Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Georgia, LSU and Ole Miss.

Ole Miss and LSU played their way into hosting regionals with strong showings at the SEC Tournament. Ole Miss reached the championship game, where the Rebels lost to Vanderbilt 10-9 on Sunday. LSU reached the semifinals before losing to Vanderbilt 13-4 on Saturday.

Arkansas went 1-2 at the SEC Tournament, where the Razorbacks beat Ole Miss 5-3, lost to Georgia 3-1 and lost to Ole Miss 3-2. Razorbacks DH Matt Goodheart, a sophomore from Magnolia, was voted to the All-SEC Tournament team.

Baseball America projected Arizona State, Houston and Grand Canyon to join Arkansas in its regional, but Sacramento State beat Grand Canyon 5-4 on Sunday to win the Western Athletic Conference Tournament, so the Hornets will be in the NCAA Tournament instead of the Lopes.

D1Baseball projects Creighton, Florida Atlantic and Nebraska-Omaha to be in Arkansas' regional.

The SEC's six regional host sites are twice as many as any other conference. The ACC has three teams hosting regionals (Georgia Tech, Louisville and North Carolina) as does the Big 12 (Oklahoma State, Texas Tech and West Virgina) and Pac-12 (Oregon State, Stanford and UCLA). East Carolina also is a regional host.

Oregon State won the national championship last season when the Beavers beat the Razorbacks in 2 of 3 games in the College World Series finals in Omaha, Neb.

LSU will host a regional for he 26th time, which leads all other schools according to the NCAA.

The NCAA Tournament field announced today will include 31 automatic qualifiers and 33 at-large selections.

Arkansas has won three regionals it has played at Baum-Walker Stadium, but failed to win four regionals at home. The Razorbacks won at home in 2004, 2010 and last season and lost at home in 1999, 2006, 2007 and 2017.

Sports on 05/27/2019

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