Florida baseball earns No. 1 overall seed in 2016 NCAA Tournament, will host Gainesville Regional

By Adam Silverstein
May 30, 2016
Florida baseball earns No. 1 overall seed in 2016 NCAA Tournament, will host Gainesville Regional
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Image Credit: ESPN Images

It comes as no surprise that Florida Gators baseball earned a top-eight national seed, but it is most certainly fortunate for the Gators that the selection committee put a string of recent losses in proper context and on Monday awarded Florida the No. 1 overall seed in the 2016 NCAA Tournament.

The Gators, which have lost five of their last 10 games, missed out on two Southeastern Conference championships — regular season and tournament — but are in position to make a run back to the College World Series after playing in Omaha, Nebraska, last season.

Expected to be healthy with a full compliment of players when action begins on June 3, UF should be primed to make the most of this next postseason opportunity.

Florida will host the Gainesville Regional for the seventh time in the last eight seasons as it looks to advance to the CWS for the second straight year and 10th time in program history. The Gators also helped the SEC make history as one of four league members to earn a national seed.

UF will host (2) Georgia Tech, (3) UConn and (4) Bethune-Cookman; it is paired against the Tallahassee Regional, which features (1) Florida State, (2) Southern Miss, (3) South Alabama and (4) Alabama State. Should the Gators come out on top of their regional, they would host Super Regional action in Gainesville, Florida, perhaps against the rival Seminoles.

Florida beat Bethune-Cookman, which it will face to open the regional, 7-1 back on May 3. The Gators also swept the Seminoles in their season series (6-0, 3-2, 8-2). They have not faced any of the other six teams in the two brackets this season.

UF is 9-2 all-time coming out of the Gainesville Regional, failing to advance to Super Regional action only in 2002 and 2014.

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