The Florida State baseball team tied an NCAA record on Monday by being selected to an NCAA Regional for the 44th consecutive season.
The Seminoles will be the No. 3 seed in the Auburn Regional and will face No. 2 seed UCLA in the opening round. The host Tigers, who are the No. 14 national seed, will face Southeast Louisiana.
The FSU-UCLA game is set for Friday at noon ET.
According to ESPN, FSU was one of the "last four" teams selected to the tournament.
The winner of the Auburn Regional will face the winner of the Corvallis, Ore., Regional; the teams there are Oregon State, Vanderbilt, San Diego and New Mexico State.
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EARLIER REPORT
It wasn't a special regular season for the Florida State baseball team. Not by this program's lofty standards.
But, unless a bizarre oversight happens, the Seminoles will extend their streak of reaching the NCAA Tournament to 44 consecutive years on Monday when the Field of 64 is announced at noon on ESPN2.
With their 1-1 showing at the ACC Tournament, which included a win over a ranked Virginia team, the 'Noles improved to 33-23 on the year and seem poised to be a No. 2 or a No. 3 seed in next week's regional.
The question is where? And against whom?
The DIBaseball.com website currently has Florida State as a projected No. 3 seed in the Statesboro, Ga., Regional. The Seminoles would face off with No. 2 seed Georgia in the first game while No. 1 seed Georgia Southern would host Columbus.
This would be an interesting regional for the Seminoles for a couple of reasons. First, it would match them up again with the Bulldogs, who they stunned back in the 2019 NCAA Tournament in Athens on their way to the College World Series in Mike Martin's final season as head coach.
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It could also potentially match the Seminoles up again with Georgia Southern. FSU beat the Eagles 6-5 in 11 innings back on April 20 with a Tyler Martin walk-off walk. The Seminoles actually trailed 5-1 in the eighth inning of that game before storming back for the win.
As for Baseball America's most recent projections, well, if it turns out to be correct, it probably wouldn't be met with a lot of celebrating from Seminole fans.
As of Sunday evening, the website has the Seminoles as the No. 2 seed in the Gainesville Regional.
In that projection, FSU would play Texas Tech in the first game of the regional while host Florida would match up with an automatic qualifier from a smaller conference. Texas Tech ousted FSU in Mike Martin's final game in Omaha back in 2019.
If the Seminoles and Gators both won (or both lost) in the opening round, they would face each other for the fourth time this season. Florida beat FSU two out of three games this year, including on a walk-off homer 11 days ago in Gainesville.
While the media projections could be updated between now and then, none of us will know for sure where FSU ends up until the bracket is revealed Monday afternoon.
The only two certainties seem to be that the Seminoles will be a 2 or a 3 seed, and they'll be sent somewhere in the South. It would be an enormous surprise if the NCAA placed FSU anywhere outside the region for the first weekend of the tournament.
Florida State head coach Mike Martin Jr. will meet with the media following the Selection Show on Monday afternoon. If the Seminoles reach their 44th straight NCAA Tournament as expected, it would tie Miami's all-time record streak that lasted from 1973 to 2016.
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