Arizona baseball: Wildcats projected to be national seed in NCAA Tournament

In 2016, there were no College Baseball Regionals west of Texas.

Things will likely be different this year.

Baseball America put out its first Field of 64 projection of the 2017 season on Wednesday, and there are three regionals out west, including one in Tucson.

BA has the Arizona Wildcats as the No. 8 National Seed right now, which would put them in line to host Regionals and Super Regionals if things were to play out like that.

Here is the region that Arizona is projected to host right now:

1. Arizona
2. Long Beach State
3. Vanderbilt
4. Rhode Island

The Tucson Regional is currently paired up with the Fullerton Regional, and there would certainly be some interesting storylines if Arizona were to play several of these teams in the second weekend.

1. Cal State Fullerton
2. Stanford
3. Minnesota
4. San Diego

Hey look, Jay Johnson’s former school. Oh and Sergio Brown’s old school. Oh and a Stanford team with a legendary head coach retiring this year. Oh and a Minnesota team Arizona plays next year in the Big Ten/Pac-12 Showdown in Minneapolis.

Not to get too far ahead or play this game too much, but Arizona/Oregon State would be the first game of the College World Series as well. These projections are so much fun. There’s so much baseball left to be played though.

But it’s encouraging to see Arizona as a national seed right now. The Wildcats resume Pac-12 play on Friday when they take on the Washington State Cougars in Pullman. First pitch is scheduled for 5 PM PT.