NCAA Baseball Tournament: Arizona gets No. 13 seed, to open vs. Grand Canyon

It won’t just be familiar confines for Arizona as it gets to host an NCAA Baseball Tournament regional. There will also be familiar foes.

The Wildcats (36-21) earned the No. 13 overall seed and will begin play Friday against Grand Canyon (34-23), a team they’ve faced three times this season and lost to twice, including once (badly) at Hi Corbett Field. The other teams coming to Tucson are Dallas Baptist (44-13), whom the UA lost to at the Frisco Classic in March, and West Virginia (33-22), which took two of three in a series at Hi Corbett to open the 2023 season.

“It was a no brainer,” UA coach Chip Hale said of Grand Canyon, which was also sent to Tucson in 2021. “We knew that, and it makes sense. It’s good, their fans and get down here no problem.”

The 4-team regional has a double-elimination format, with Friday’s winners and losers meeting on Saturday. The regional final is set for Sunday, with a potential second game (if needed) on Monday.

The Tucson Region is paired up with the Chapel Hill Region, hosted by No. 4 seed North Carolina (42-13). If both Arizona and UNC advance to Super Regionals it would be played in Chapel Hill, but if the Wildcats win their regional and anyone other than the Tar Heels take the other the Supers would be played in Tucson.

Among those in the Chapel Hill Region is defending College World Series champion LSU, led by former UA Jay Johnson. Ex-Wildcat outfielder Mac Bingham is on the Tigers after spending four seasons with Arizona.

Arizona is 10-1 in NCAA Tournament games played at Hi Corbett, advancing to the World Series from there in 2012 and 2021. This will be the fourth consecutive season the Wildcats have played in the NCAA tourney, the longest streak since making it 14 years in a row from 1950-63.

“I haven’t played in a regional where there hasn’t been a weather delay,” said infielder Garen Caulfield, who was part of the UA teams that dealt with stormy conditions in Coral Gables, Fla., in 2022 and Fayetteville, Ark., last season. “I’m hoping that the Tucson Regional provides some good weather for us.”

Despite an RPI of 31, Arizona not only got to host but was considered by the selection committee to be better than three other seeds. No. 14 Santa Barbara had an RPI of 13, while No. 15 Oregon State (18) and No. 16 East Carolina (22) also were ranked ahead of the Wildcats.

“I’m not as surprised as most people were, because of what we’ve done and our body of work,” Hale said, noting Arizona’s Pac-12 regular-season and conference tournament titles.

Dallas Baptist, which has an RPI of 17, won the Conference USA tourney title on Sunday after finishing second in the regular season. West Virginia was fourth in the Big 12 but went 0-2 in its conference tourney, while Grand Canyon also went 0-2 in the WAC tourney but because champ Tarleton State is ineligible due its transition from Division II the Antelopes were awarded the automatic bid by virtue of winning the regular season crown by five games.

GCU took two of three from Arizona this season, with the Wildcats winning 6-4 at home on March 19 before losing 5-4 in Phoenix on April 16 and then getting run-ruled 24-8 at home on April 30. Those were all midweek contests, however, when teams tend not to pitch their weekend starters.

“This will be different,” Hale said. “We’ll face they’re supposed Friday night starter and we’ll have our our best pitcher going against them. So it will be a little bit different, but they put good at-bats together, they put the ball in play with two strikes. As we know, with our weather and our fiel there’s a lot of hits to be had in this field. So when you put the ball in play have a chance.

“They’re a good team, and we’ve always said that, that’s what we play them three times a year. They’re very tough team. We know them well, they know us well. So it’s going to be a good battle.”

Arizona is one of three Pac-12 schools to make it in the conference’s final season. Besides the Wildcats and OSU, Oregon got in as the No. 3 seed in the Santa Barbara Region, while Cal was among the first four teams out of the field.