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The San Diego State Aztecs are heading to the NCAA Tournament after defeating Fresno State in the Mountain West tournament on Sunday, and their reward is earning a four seed and playing host Long Beach State Friday night.
San Diego State finished the season with a respectable 41-19 record but their RPI was not all that great at 86, and that includes winning two games against top-seeded Long Beach State.
The Aztecs playing the 49ers is good and bad. Obviously, the good as San Diego State won both times this year back on February 21, 6-2, and again a month later on March 21, 12-5. So, the familiarity of playing Long Beach State should be a boon to the Aztecs confidence heading into Friday’s regional.
The other teams in the double-elimination field are No. 2 Texas who earned their spot in the tournament as an at-large after dropping the Big 12 title game to Oklahoma State.
UCLA is the third team in this region and they were also an at-large team by virtue of finishing third in the Pac-12.
The regional begins this Friday and will run through at least Sunday and perhaps Monday if there needs to be a deciding game.
Long Beach Regional hosted (Friday, times ET)
No. 2 Texas (37-22) vs. No. 3 UCLA (30-25), 7 p.m., ESPN2
No. 1 Long Beach St. (37-17-1) vs. No. 4 San Diego St. (41-19), 11 p.m., ESPN2