Southland teams fill Division I regionals

The Long Beach State Regional of the NCAA Division I baseball tournament will have a distinct Southland flavor as the 49ers will be joined by UCLA, Pepperdine and Illinois Chicago, the tournament committee announced Monday.

Big West Conference champion UC Riverside will play in the Arizona State Regional, UC Irvine will go to the Texas Regional and Cal State Fullerton will play in the San Diego Regional.

Each of the 16 regionals features four teams playing a double-elimination format. Each winner advances to one of eight super regionals and the super-regional champions advance to the College World Series. All of the regional openers are Friday.

“It’ll be a tough regional,” UCLA Coach John Savage said of the competition at Long Beach. “All those teams are tough matchups, but we’re right where we felt we should be.”

Not all Southland coaches shared Savage’s sentiment.

UC Riverside Coach Doug Smith, for instance, was surprised that his team was sent to Arizona State, because the Highlanders won the Big West yet were placed in the same regional with the Pacific 10 Conference champion Sun Devils, who are seeded No. 5 nationally.

Meanwhile, Long Beach State was the No. 3 Big West team, yet is host of a regional with no nationally seeded teams, and Cal State Fullerton, which finished fourth in the Big West, is headed to a regional where No. 8 San Diego is the highest-seeded team.

“I’m a little disappointed to have to go to a No. 5 national seed as the champion from a conference like the Big West,” Smith said. “The Pac-10 and the Big West are two of the premier conferences in the nation, and one champion is going to be eliminated after the first round. I think it’s a touch unfair.”

Smith said that the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) is given too much weight by the NCAA selection committee. UC Riverside (37-19) is No. 48 in the RPI, UC Irvine (40-15-1) is No. 30, Cal State Fullerton (33-23) is No. 32 and Long Beach (37-18) is No. 8 in the ranking system that measures strength of schedule.

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (32-24), which finished three games ahead of Cal State Fullerton in the Big West and won two of three games against the Titans this year, did not make the NCAA field of 64. The Mustangs are No. 60 in the RPI.

“Why play a conference schedule?” Smith said. “I mean, if you play a conference schedule in a conference as tough as ours, that’s a pretty big deal, but the conference standings just don’t mean much anymore.”

At Long Beach, the 49ers will play Illinois Chicago (34-19) and UCLA (30-26) will play Pepperdine (35-20) in the first round. The Bruins defeated Pepperdine twice this season, most recently a 4-1 victory on May 8.

Long Beach State swept a three-game series from Illinois Chicago last season and was a combined 4-0 against Pepperdine and UCLA this year.

UC Irvine will open against Wake Forest (33-27) in the Texas Regional. Cal State Fullerton opens against Minnesota (40-16) in the San Diego Regional.

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Cal State Los Angeles (47-13-1) will resume play in the Division II tournament in Montgomery, Ala., at 4:30 p.m. PDT today against Nebraska Omaha (37-23) in an elimination game.

The Golden Eagles lost, 13-5, to Tampa (Fla.) in their opener and then eliminated Kutztown (Pa.), 4-1, on Sunday. Nebraska Omaha won its opener, 5-4 in 10 innings, over Kutztown before losing, 9-2, to Tampa.

peter.yoon@latimes.com