Southern Miss hosting NCAA Regional
When you’re on the bubble of the NCAA Tournament, hosting a watch party can be risky business, knowing there’s a chance there’s nothing to party about.
But Southern Miss is one of 16 teams that didn’t have that problem coming into Selection Monday, having already been picked as one of 16 regional host sites on Sunday.
Now USM just needs an opponent.
Bring on Patriot League champion Army West Point, fresh off its fourth straight Patriot League Title. The winner of that game will face the winner of Atlantic Sun champion Kennesaw State and SEC at-large selection LSU.
The Golden Eagles likely to face the Tigers at some point this weekend in a rematch of the 2019 Baton Rouge Regional.
And the Black and Gold getting pretty used to this whole hosting thing, coming off a strong showing in the Conference USA Tournament at Pete Taylor Park in Hattiesburg.
USM going 2-2 overall with wins over UAB and Florida Atlantic, but two tough losses to UTSA ending its run two wins shy of Sunday’s title game.
But still, C-USA regular season title for Southern Miss and now its sixth straight regional appearance.
The Golden Eagles hosting for the third time in program history and the first time since 2017. 3rd baseman Danny Lynch said, “We kind of saw it last year. I feel like we would’ve had a much better chance to win that regional if it was in Hattiesburg instead of in Oxford, and I think that’s a huge thing. When you have fans behind you, it helps everybody. It helps the pitchers. It helps the hitters. Just a lot easier to play at home and that’s kind of a big thing. It’s easier to win the regional when it’s at your place.”
Head Baseball Coach Scott Berry said, “You never know if you did enough work prior to the tournament. I feel like we were at a position. We worked ourself in a position to be one of those 16 host sites. But to hear our name and I think reflects the body of work that we have been able to do and achieve through the course of the year and I think that’s exactly what the committee looked at was the whole body of work and our resume and the blueprint that we had established from the beginning to yesterday.”
USM’s number 11 overall seed is the highest in program history, heading into the NCAA Tournament.
Louisiana Tech serving as the only other team from C-USA to make the field of 64 after beating UTSA in dramatic fashion on Championship Sunday.
With the game tied at 8-8 in the bottom of the ninth, Steele Netterville comes through with an opposite field single to score Riggs Easterling for the game winning run.
Tech is the two-seed in the Austin Regional.
And then an interesting turn of events for the Ole Miss Rebels, making the big dance as one of the last four in, checking in as a three-seed in the Coral Gables Regional hosted by the University of Miami. The Rebels line up against two-seed Arizona in their first game, a rematch of last year’s Tucson Super Regional in which Ole Miss lost in three games.
Ole Miss was below .500 in league play at 14-16 and failed to win a game in the SEC Tournament.
