Jay Johnson says there’s ‘no question’ Arizona baseball deserves top-8 seed

Arizona baseball head coach Jay Johnson won’t be losing sleep worrying about NCAA Tournament seed projections.

He knows his team has done enough to earn a top-8 national seed, which would allow Arizona to host a regional and Super Regional in the postseason.

“There’s no question about it,” Johnson said Saturday night after Arizona beat Dixie State 5-4 to conclude the regular season. “It’s not even a debate in my opinion.”

Arizona entered this week as the No. 4 seed in D1Baseball.com’s latest projections. A surprising Friday loss to Dixie State did nothing to change the Wildcats’ seeding according to D1Baseball, but it did drop them two spots in the RPI, from No. 6 to No. 8.

Arizona responded Saturday with a walk-off win over the Trailblazers to improve to 40-15 on the season. The Wildcats also won the Pac-12 outright with a 21-9 league record.

“Forty wins, this program has been to Omaha more times than it’s won 40 games in the regular season,” Johnson said. “We only had one loss in the entire season, which was last night, to a team under 100 in the RPI. Book it.

“I don’t know if it’s four (national seed), I don’t know if it’s five, I don’t know if it’s six, but there’s no way that’s not happening.”

Arizona won’t have to wait much longer to learn its postseason fate. The 16 host sites will be announced on Sunday at 5:30 p.m. PT and the NCAA Tournament selection show is scheduled for 9 a.m. PT on Monday on ESPN2.

Johnson hopes the team can watch the show from their locker room at Hi Corbett Field, but the venue location is dependent on Covid-19 protocols.

“I want recruits that are watching that show to see that locker room,” Johnson said. “I want to see Arizona with the four, five, or six national seed talking about we have the best offense in the country, that we won 19 of our last 23 games against a top 25 schedule.”