OMAHA, Neb. — Pac-12 champion Oregon State has been chosen the No. 1 overall seed for the NCAA Division I baseball tournament.
The NCAA announced the national seeds and 64-tournament field on Monday.
Oregon State (49-4) set a conference record with 27 league wins and was the nation’s most dominant team all season after narrowly missing the tournament a year ago.
North Carolina (47-12), which also failed to make the tournament in 2016, is No. 2 after winning 18 of its last 22 games. The Tar Heels lost in the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament won by Florida State.
Florida (42-16), the top seed in 2016, is No. 3 despite not reaching the Southeastern Conference final, and is followed by LSU (43-17).
The rest of the national seeds, in order, are Texas Tech (43-15), TCU (42-16), Louisville (47-10) and Stanford (40-14).
Play begins Friday in 16 regionals. Winners advance to eight best-of-three super regionals. Those winners move on to the College World Series in Omaha.
Coastal Carolina (37-19-1) will not be able to defend its 2016 national championship. The Chanticleers won the Sun Belt Conference regular-season title in their first year in the league, but lost in the quarterfinals of the conference tournament.
Also missing the tournament is Miami (31-27), whose 44 consecutive appearances was the longest postseason streak in any NCAA sport. The Hurricanes won six of seven to end the season. Florida State (39-20), at 40 appearances in a row, now has the longest active streak.
Selection committee chairman Scott Sidwell, the athletic director at San Francisco, said Miami, Connecticut (33-25), Old Dominion (37-21) and South Carolina (35-25) were the first four teams held out of the tournament.
The last four in were Auburn (35-24), Texas A&M (36-21), UCLA (30-25) and Michigan (42-15).
The Southeastern Conference led the nation with eight teams selected. The Atlantic Coast Conference and Big 12 each had seven teams picked, and the Big Ten tied the conference record it set two years ago with five teams in the field.
Surprise automatic bids went to Rice (31-29) from Conference USA, Xavier (32-25) from the Big East, Iowa (37-20) from the Big Ten, and Oklahoma State (30-25) in the Big 12. All four of those teams got in by winning their conference tournaments.
Atlantic Sun champion Florida Gulf Coast (42-18) and Atlantic 10 champ Davidson (32-24) are each making their first appearances. Patriot League member Holy Cross (23-27) is in for the first time since 1978; Ivy League champ Yale (32-16) for the first time since 1993; and at-large pick West Virginia (34-24) for the first time since 1996.
The reward for Holy Cross is a first-round game at Oregon State on Friday.
