Despite losing to Michigan in the Big Ten championship game on Sunday, Maryland was granted an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament on Monday and will participate in the event for the second consecutive season.
The Terrapins were granted a No. 3 seed in the Los Angeles Regional and will open play Friday against Ole Miss at Jackie Robinson Stadium at UCLA. Maryland will be joined in the double-elimination regional by the Bruins, the 64-team tournament’s top overall seed, and by CSU Bakersfield, which won the WAC championship and is making its first NCAA tournament appearance.
The winners of the 16 regionals, to be determined no later than Monday, will be paired up in the Super Regionals, where teams will play a best-of-three series for the chance to advance to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.
Maryland (39-21), making its fifth appearance in the NCAA tournament, qualified last year and won its regional, but lost to overall No. 3 seed Virginia in the Super Regional. Before last season, the Terrapins had not participated in the event since 1971.
They were seeking to win the Big Ten title in their first year in the conference on Sunday, when a baserunning error in the eighth inning and a two-out fly out in the ninth contributed to a 4-3 defeat.
Five Big Ten teams were selected to participate in the NCAA tournament, with No. 6 overall seed Illinois, Iowa and Indiana also chosen on Monday.
Virginia (34-22), which lost to Vanderbilt in the best-of-three College World Series final last season, will make its 12th consecutive appearance and play as the No. 3 seed in the Lake Elsinore Regional. The Cavaliers will open Friday against USC and face either host UC Santa Barbara or San Diego State in their next game.
Also selected to the NCAA tournament are VCU (37-22), the Atlantic 10 champions, who will be a No. 4 seed in the Dallas Regional and open Friday against Dallas Baptist, and Radford (43-14), the Big South champion, which is a No. 2 seed in the Nashville Regional with host Vanderbilt and will face Indiana in its first tournament game.
UCLA (42-14), the Pac-12 champion, is the No. 1 seed in the tournament for the first time. LSU was named the tournament’s No. 2 seed, followed by Louisville, Florida, Miami, Illinois, TCU and Missouri State.
National seeds that win their Regionals play at home in Super Regionals.
The ACC and SEC tied for most qualifiers with seven apiece. The Pac-12 has six teams in the tournament, and the Big Ten set a conference record with five NCAA teams.
Twenty-seven of the 64 teams were in the field last year. Miami is in the tournament for a record 43rd consecutive year, while Florida State will make its 38th consecutive trip.
According to the selection committee, Maryland was one of the last four teams in the field, joining USF, Oregon and Clemson. The first four out were North Carolina, Missouri, Michigan State and Southern Mississippi.
• An Associated Press report was included in this story.
• Zac Boyer can be reached at zboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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