Fullerton, Pepperdine Top-Seeded

Cal State Fullerton and Pepperdine were selected Monday as top-seeded teams in two of the 16 regionals that begin Friday in the newly expanded 64-team NCAA baseball playoffs.

Big West Conference champion Fullerton and West Coast Conference champion Loyola Marymount received automatic berths, and defending national champion USC, UCLA, Long Beach State and Pepperdine received at-large berths.

Winners of the four-team, double-elimination regionals advance to eight, best-of-three super-regionals June 4-6. The College World Series is set for June 11-19 in Omaha.

This is the first year the selection committee seeded eight teams nationally at the start of the playoffs rather than waiting until the World Series. Miami, 41-13, is the top-seeded team in the tournament, followed by Florida State, 48-12; Fullerton, 44-11; Baylor, 46-13; Alabama, 46-14; Stanford, 43-13; Texas A&M;, 46-14, and Rice, 52-11.

The Big 12 and Southeastern conferences each had six teams selected, the Atlantic Coast Conference had five and the Pac-10 four.

Fullerton is the No. 1-seeded team at South Bend, Ind., in a regional with No. 2 Notre Dame, 42-16; No. 3 Creighton, 38-23, and No. 4 Michigan, 32-28.

Pepperdine, 43-14 and ranked in the top 10 for much of the season, is No. 1 in a regional at USC, which also includes the second-seeded Trojans, 33-23; No. 3 Virginia Commonwealth, 40-18, and No. 4 Harvard, 28-18.

Long Beach State, 33-23, is the second-seeded team at College Station, Texas, in a regional with top-seeded Texas A&M; No. 3 Mississippi, 33-26, and Monmouth, 26-22.

Loyola, 33-26 and victor over Pepperdine five times in six games, was sent to Stanford as the No. 4 team in a regional with the top-seeded Cardinal; No. 2 Nevada, 35-18, and North Carolina, 40-16.

UCLA, 30-29, is the third-seeded team at Wichita, Kan., in a regional with top-seeded Wichita State, 57-12; No. 2 Oklahoma State, 40-17, and Oral Roberts, 46-13.

The Bruins’ inclusion was among the most hotly debated topics by the NCAA baseball selection committee, chairman Dick Rockwell said.

“Some people said, ‘What message are we sending [by including a team with a 30-29 record]?’ ” Rockwell said. “But they play everybody. . . . If we were at 48 teams, I don’t think UCLA would have got in. With the expansion [of the tournament], and based on their strength of schedule, they have a reasonable chance to compete for the national championship.”