The South Carolina baseball team will open the NCAA tournament at home as they have been awarded one of the 16 host bids. This will be the Gamecocks 27th appearance in the NCAA tournament.
If you are one to “play the odds” in baseball then you like where the Gamecocks are starting out as they look to march back to Omaha to defend their National Championship. Of the nine times South Carolina has reached the College World Series in its history, eight trips began with a home regional. USC is also 45-8 all-time in regional play that they have hosted.
The Gamecocks (45-14) are likely to be named a national seed. This would guarantee a host role for a potential Super Regional but first the Gamecocks need to find out who they will play host to in Columbia and then win three games. The quest to win five games begins now, do that and the Gamecocks are Omaha bound.
This is the 12th straight NCAA tourney showing for USC. This streak is the longest among the 12 schools of the SEC.
The entire field of 64, as well as the eight national seeds, will be announced on Monday at 12:30 p.m. EDT on ESPN.
Here is the complete list of the 16 NCAA tournament host sites in 2011:
Atlanta, Ga. – Georgia Tech 40-19
Austin, Texas – Texas 43-15
Fullerton, Calif. – Cal State Fullerton 39-15
Chapel Hill, N.C. – North Carolina 45-14
Charlottesville, Va. – Virginia 48-9
Clemson, S.C. – Clemson 41-18
College Station, Texas – Texas A&M 41-18
Columbia, S.C. – South Carolina 45-14
Corvallis, Ore. – Oregon State 38-16
Fort Worth, Texas – TCU 42-17
Gainesville, Fla. – Florida 44-16
Houston, Texas – Rice 41-19
Los Angeles, Calif. – UCLA 33-21
Nashville, Tenn. – Vanderbilt 47-9
Tallahassee, Fla. – Florida State 42-16
Tempe, Ariz. – Arizona State 38-16
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