USC baseball officially not named NCAA Tournament regional host
· Yahoo Sports
The bracket for the 2026 NCAA Baseball Tournament will be revealed on Monday. On Sunday, however, the NCAA announced the 16 host sites for the regional round of the tournament, which will begin on Friday.
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USC was in contention for one of those 16 spots. Ultimately, however, the Trojans were not selected as one of the hosts, meaning that they will need to travel on the road for the opening weekend of the tournament.
Had USC defeated rival UCLA in the Big Ten Tournament semifinals yesterday, the Trojans would have had a strong argument for hosting. However, they lost in brutal fashion on a walk-off home run with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning, effectively ending any shot that they had of finishing the regular season as one of the top 16 teams.
While USC will not be hosting a regional, three Big Ten foes will. UCLA, Oregon, and Nebraska, were all named among the host sites.
Not hosting is particularly brutal for the Trojans because they went 32-1 at Dedeaux Field on the season, compared to just 10-13 on the road. If USC wants to advance to the super regional round for the first time in more than two decades, the Trojans will need to find a way to win some big games on the road for the first time this year.
The full NCAA Tournament bracket will be announced on Monday. USC will find out its postseason fate and destination then.
This article originally appeared on Trojans Wire: NCAA reveals reveals regional hosts for baseball tournament, no USC