The sites we've seen

The NCAA announced the 16 regional hosts for the 2007 NCAA Baseball Tournament, which begins Friday.

Once again, the SEC leads the way as four schools nabbed hosting duties. Apparently, reputation -- and of course money -- speaks volumes with the committee. The SEC has no shortage of either when it comes to baseball.

But four sites? Remember this is a "down" year for the conference. We already know all eight teams that reached the SEC Tournament will not make the NCAAs. We can pretty much guarantee the four who missed out on a trip to the Hoover Met will not get a call from the selection committe on Monday saying welcome to a regional.

Granted, Arkansas and Vanderbilt deserved to host. In all likelihood, the Hogs and Commodores will be among the top eight national seeds. Vandy probably tops the discussion of the No. 1 overall seed.

Ole Miss and South Carolina have nice facilities and plenty of recent history hosting regionals. It just seems funny to me that the committee, which has done a great job in doling out regionals to first-time hosts decided to stick to the old guard this year.