UCLA earned the No. 1 overall seed in the NCAA baseball tournament after winning a program-record 48 games in the regular season and following up with a Big Ten tournament championship.The Bruins, who advanced to the College World Series last season, were one of four Big Ten teams to make the 64-team field. The SEC led the way with 12 teams, including five of the top eight seeds.Georgia Tech, which won the ACC regular-season and tournament titles, is the No. 2 seed.The remaining eight national seeds are Georgia, Auburn, North Carolina, Texas, Alabama and Florida.The other eight Regional hosts are Southern Miss, Florida State, Oregon, Texas A&M, Nebraska, Mississippi State, Kansas and West Virginia.Notably absent are LSU, the defending national champs, and Vanderbilt, which was the No. 1 overall seed in 2025 and had made the field in 19 consecutive seasons.The 16 Regionals will feature four-team, double-elimination competitions, which will be played this weekend. The Regional winners advance to the Super Regionals for a best-of-three series to be played June 5-8. The eight Super Regional winners advance to the College World Series in Omaha, Neb., beginning June 12. The CWS championship series begins June 20.Bruins claim top seedUCLA went wire to wire as the No. 1 team in the nation and enters the NCAA Tournament with a 51-6 record. The headliner is All-American shortstop Roch Cholowsky — the likely No. 1 pick in the 2026 MLB Draft — but this team’s strength is its pitching staff. The Bruins rank second nationally in ERA (3.27), third in WHIP (1.18) and fifth in batting average against (.219).There are some concerns, however, with the health of No. 1 pitcher Logan Reddemann. The junior is 8-0 with a 2.87 ERA and 1.00 WHIP, but has been sidelined since mid-April with what UCLA is calling arm fatigue. There was speculation that Reddemann might be used out of the bullpen in the Big Ten tournament, but he did not pitch in any of the three games. If Reddemann, who is draft-eligible, is unable to pitch, the Bruins’ path to Omaha gets trickier.And despite its gaudy record and consensus No. 1 ranking in the polls, UCLA was not the no-doubt-about-it top overall seed. A solid argument could have been made for Georgia Tech (48-9), which won the ACC regular-season and tournament titles, played a more difficult schedule and had twice as many Quad 1 wins (22) as UCLA (11). Or even Georgia, whose RPI is “only” No. 7 but won the SEC regular-season title and rolled through the league tournament with wins over Mississippi State, Florida and Arkansas.But in the end, UCLA was rewarded for its consistency — the Bruins didn’t lose a weekend series and did, after all, lose only six games. — Mitch Light, college sports senior editorPick to win itI’m jumping on the Georgia bandwagon. The Bulldogs might not be elite on the mound, but they were good enough to win the SEC regular-season title by 3.5 games and hold Mississippi State, Florida and Arkansas to a combined 11 runs in the SEC tournament. The offense is arguably the best in the country, led by the dynamic duo of catcher Daniel Jackson and third baseman Tre Phelps. Georgia leads the nation in home runs (149) and ranks second in OPS (1.053) and runs scored (541).