The Tennessee baseball fur coat is being worn by Mike Rooney as he picks the Volunteers to win the College World Series. (0:47)
Tennessee was the top seed in the NCAA baseball tournament.
The Volunteers have the best pitching and batting statistics in the nation and won 31 of their first 32 games.
They have been the unanimous top team in the polls since March 28 and have won eight straight and 13 of 14.
The tournament starts Friday in 16 regionals. There are eight best-of-three super regionals. The College World Series takes place in Omaha.
If the top eight national seeds win their regionals, they will host super regionals.
The national seeds after Tennessee were: Oregon State, Texas A&M, Miami, Oklahoma State, and East Carolina.
The national seed for the first time in over a year is the team that won the regular-season and tournament titles. The Pac-12 has never had two of the top three seeds.
Virginia Tech, which was picked to finish second to last in the Coastal Division, has its highest seed in program history and will be playing in a regional for the first time in four years.
After not making the tournament last year, Texas A&M won its last seven SEC series under first-year coach Jim Schlossnagle to lock up a national seed.
For the 32nd time, East Carolina will play in the tournament. The Pirates have not reached the CWS.
Texas, North Carolina, Southern Mississippi, Louisville, Florida, and Georgia Southern are in the ninth through 16th seeds.
The SEC had nine teams selected. The Sun Belt has four teams in the field, while the Big 12 and the Pac-12 each have five.
Tennessee opens regional play against Alabama State. Campbell and Georgia Tech are playing in Tennessee.
Florida State, Grand Canyon, Liberty and Mississippi were the last four teams. NC State, Old Dominion, Rutgers and Wofford were the first to go.
Mike Buddie, the chairman of the selection committee and the athletic director at Army, said that Ole Miss got the nod over NC State because it performed better in regular-season conference series.
NC State and Ole Miss each won four of 10 conference series, but only one of the Wolfpack's was against a team in the NCAA field.
Buddie said that it was a brutal one. Baseball is a game. We were not looking at one-game scenarios unless there was more than one data point.
There are other notes about the tournament.
Florida State has 44 consecutive appearances. Other notable streaks include Florida and Vanderbilt.
Two schools are making their first appearances. The Air Force hasn't had one since 1969.
A Day 2 meeting between Texas A&M and TCU in College Station is the best regional storyline. After last season, Schlossnagle left TCU for the A&M job. Kirk Saarloos was an assistant for 10 years.
Michigan stole the Big Ten's automatic berth by winning the conference tournament as the fifth seed and denying Rutgers a spot.
Three teams have losing records. New Mexico State is one of the others.
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