Arizona baseball makes preliminary list as NCAA Tournament host

The Arizona Wildcats are one of 20 programs that are in contention to host regional and Super Regional games in next month’s NCAA Baseball Tournament, it was announced Friday.

However, only 16 of those sites will be used for the postseason, with the final announcement of who will be hosting coming on May 30.

“We deserve to be on the list,” UA coach Jay Johnson said Wednesday. “With that being said, there’s so much baseball left to play. We have to earn that. The season is not over.”

Arizona, which is tied for first in the Pac-12 heading into a weekend home series with Washington, has not made the NCAA tourney since 2017 and last hosted in 2012. As it stands now, the Wildcats are in line not just to host the regional round but also Super Regionals based on field projections.

D1Baseball.com has Arizona as the No. 8 seed while Baseball America has the Wildcats as the No. 7 seed.

The Wildcats have 10 games between now and when the NCAA field is announced May 31, but only three of them can really help their case to host. That would be next weekend’s trip to Oregon State to wrap up Pac-12 play.

The other seven scheduled games are against Quad 4 opponents with losing records, all at Hi Corbett Field. Falling in any of those games would put a big dent in Arizona’s resume, but to this point it is 5-0 against Quad 4 teams.