There was no surprise when the NCAA host sites for the baseball regionals were announced. We kind of new that Mississippi State's late rally probably wasn't enough, so it would probably be LSU, South Carolina, Florida and Kentu--
Wait a minute. Kentucky wasn't selected to host a regional this year?
No, five ACC teams had to get, including one that just barely cleared the 35-win mark and went 9-7 16-14 in the conference in the regular season. And a B1G team has to "host" to keep Jim Delany from getting angry, despite the fact that they really aren't going to host.
Due to stadium construction issues, the regional hosted by Purdue will be played at U.S. Steel Yard in Gary, Ind.
Because when I think college baseball, I think Gary, Indiana.
There's an argument to be made that this was a business decision by the NCAA; Kentucky can technically be the No. 1 seed at someone else's regional -- the stadium and other peripherals are taken into account by the selection committee. Still, if you're going to have a regional hosting system in place, merit ought to be the key consideration. By that measure, Kentucky's season is far and away worth hosting a region.
National seeds will be announced tomorrow. LSU and Florida are virtual locks and South Carolina is very, very likely to also get one, meaning they will have homefield advantage until Omaha. But after today's announcement, anything is possible.