Florida takes No. 1 overall seed, 9 other SEC teams make 2018 NCAA baseball tournament

Despite losing six of their last seven games, the NCAA selection committed awarded the reigning national champion Florida Gators the No. 1 overall seed for the NCAA tournament Monday.

The Gators will host Jacksonville, Florida Atlantic and Columbia this weekend in Gainesville.

Florida opens with Columbia on Friday at McKethan Stadium. Jacksonville is the No. 2 seed in the four-team regional group and Florida Atlantic, the No. 3 seed.

Three other SEC teams earned a top-8 national seed: No. 4 Ole Miss, No. 5 Arkansas and No. 8 Georgia. The four top-8 seeds ties the conference record set in 2016.

Ole Miss, the SEC tournament champion, will face Saint Louis, while Tennessee Tech play Missouri State in the Oxford Regional.

Arkansas takes on Oral Roberts, while Southern Miss and Dallas Baptist play in the first round of the Fayetteville Regional.

Georgia, making its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2011, plays Campbell in the first round, and Duke faces Troy in the Athens Regional.

Six other SEC teams also made the tournament: No. 2 regional seeds Auburn (Raleigh), Mississippi State (Tallahassee), South Carolina (Greenville), LSU (Corvallis) and Vanderbilt (Clemson); and No. 3 regional seed Texas A&M (Austin).

The SEC has won two of last four College World Series, with Vanderbilt winning in 2014 and Florida beating LSU last year for the title. Prior to 2016, the conference had a team playing in the final series for seven consecutive years dating back to 2009 when LSU beat Texas.