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Selection Show Open Thread: UCLA A Regional Host, Maybe No. 1 National Seed

The regular season is in the books, but UCLA can't quite get to work on the postseason yet. First, they have to sit and watch the NCAA Selection Show and find out their path to the College World Series in Omaha, which goes live on ESPNU at 9 am PT.

Here is what we do know: UCLA has a share of the Pac-12 title and the conference's automatic berth to the postseason by virtue of the tiebreaker with Arizona. They will also host a Regional, as announced by the NCAA on Sunday afternoon.

If all goes well for the Bruins and they can win their Regional, they won't just be hosting on the first weekend of the postseason, but the second weekend as well. UCLA is a lock to earn a national seed and might even be named the number one national sed. There isn't much advantage in being the number one national seed versus the number eight national seed since all that really matters is that a national seed guarantees you a home Super Regional if you make it, but the recognition is always nice.

Joining UCLA as west coast Regional hosts are Oregon, Arizona and Stanford and because they are all Pac-12 teams, they cannot be matched against any of those in the Super Regionals. Instead, they will get an out-of-region non-national seed.

Before the Bruins can look at the Super Regionals, though, there is the Regionals. Odds are the Bruins will get either Pepperdine, San Diego or Cal St. Fullerton as the two seed in their Regional. Because Arizona and Stanford are lower ranked teams and Cal St. Fullerton is arguably the best non-host, common sense would dictate that the Titans go to Tucson or Palo Alto with the Waves or Toreros coming to Jackie Robinson Stadium, but the selection committee has done weirder things in the past.

Both the three and four seeds in UCLA's Regional are likely to come from outside the west coast. The only western team that looks likely to be a three or four seed are New Mexico St. and New Mexico and either could end up in UCLA's Regional, but they aren't close enough to marry them to Westwood. Odds are, the Bruins will be welcoming in someone like Missouri, Missouri St. or even someone like Belmont as the three seed with a small conference northern team as the four seed. The worst case scenario would be getting someone like Ole Miss as a number three seed.

Enough with the speculation, though. At the end of the day, UCLA just needs to get three, maybe four wins next weekend and two the following weekend to book a spot in Omaha no matter who is in the other dugout. So let's flip on ESPNU and see who is in the Bruins' way.

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of BruinsNation's (BN) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of BN's editors.

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