Top-seeded UCLA will host NCAA Tournament Regional while USC hits the road

One is the top seed in the NCAA baseball tournament.

The other might have the biggest gripe.

UCLA and USC will face vastly different paths to the College World Series based on their Regional pairings released Monday.

As expected, the Bruins earned the No. 1 overall seed after having gone wire to wire as the nation’s top-ranked team while winning both the Big Ten Conference’s regular-season and tournament championships.

The Trojans were given no such respect.

Even though it’s an impressive No. 9 in the RPI rankings, USC was not selected as one of the 16 Regional hosts alongside UCLA.

The Trojans’ loss to the Bruins in a Big Ten Tournament semifinal was critical because teams in the top eight of the RPI have hosted a Regional in 223 of 224 chances (99.6%) since 1999.

“Our RPI, it doesn’t happen very often that you’re not hosting,” USC coach Andy Stankiewicz told the California Post on Monday, “but at the same time it’s like, what are you going to do about it? You can’t cry about it, you’ve got to move on in life and so we’ll move on and we’ll get ready to head down to Texas.”

The Trojans (43-15) will face Texas State (36-24) at 6 p.m. PDT on Friday in the College Station Regional. The game will be broadcast on ESPN+. Host Texas A&M (39-14), the No. 12 national seed, will face Lamar (34-25) earlier in the day.

Hosting would have given USC a major advantage given that the Trojans have gone a school-record 32-1 at home versus 10-13 on the road. USC also faces the perception that it can’t beat top teams after having gone 1-11 in Quad 1 games.

“We didn’t take care of business in some moments that we probably should have,” Stankiewicz said, “and that’s how it works sometimes, that’s life, and so we’ll go where they send us.”

UCLA (51-6) gets to stay home after completing the best regular season in school history. The Bruins will open the Los Angeles Regional at noon Friday against Saint Mary’s (34-25), champions of the West Coast Conference. The game will be broadcast on ESPNU.

The other teams in the regional are Cal Poly and Virginia Tech. Whoever faces the Bruins will undoubtedly be aware that they’re one of the hardest teams in the nation to put away after logging 28 comeback victories.

UCLA will be shorthanded for its Regional opener after center fielder Will Gasparino – one of its best players who is hitting .316 with 19 homers and 62 runs batted in – was suspended for one game following his ejection for malicious contact while bowling over an Oregon infielder when caught in a rundown on Sunday.

Should the Bruins advance to host a Super Regional, they would face the winner of the Morgantown Regional featuring 16th-seeded West Virginia, Wake Forest, Kentucky and Binghamton.

UCLA is still awaiting the return of ace Logan Reddemann, who has not pitched since April 17 because of arm fatigue. Coach John Savage said last week that Reddemann might be available out of the bullpen in the Big Ten Tournament as he continued rounding into form, but he did not pitch during the Bruins’ three games at Charles Schwab Field.

While UCLA is seeking a second consecutive trip to the College World Series, USC is trying to get back to Omaha for the first time since 2001. Possessing the 1-2 starting pitching punch of Mason Edwards and Grant Govel – who have gone a combined 18-2 – makes the Trojans a sneaky smart pick to emerge from their Regional.

Clearly, USC is a program on the upswing considering it’s making its first back-to-back appearances in the NCAA Tournament since 2001-02.

“We’ve kind of built stepping stones since we’ve arrived here four years ago,” Stankiewicz said, referring to his coaching staff, “so I think we’ve consistently gotten better every year and I think that’s the barometer if you think of any program – are you getting better? Are you getting more competitive? Are you finding yourself playing in bigger moments?”

Of course, Stankiewicz has higher aspirations given USC’s history of having won 12 national titles in the sport, more than any other team.

“I took the job fully aware of the expectations here, and so I’m proud of our guys and our staff and what we’ve done,” Stankiewicz said, “but at the same time I understand the expectations here – this program has been built on winning national titles, not just getting to Regionals. But you’ve got to get to a Regional before you get to Omaha.”

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