It's official. The NCAA baseball tournament field of 64 that will be fighting its way to that big circular stadium in Omaha is all set. The pursuit of the ultimate dogpile under the confetti blasters begins Friday with regional play.

In order, the top eight national seeds are Oregon State, Florida, Virginia, Indiana, Florida State, Louisiana, TCU and LSU. How did the committee do with their selections? Let's answer that with 10 things about the bracket.

1. Streaks, peaks and no repeats

• Miami's impressive streak is still alive, as the Hurricanes have made the NCAA tournament for the 42nd consecutive year. Florida State has gone 37 straight years, and Cal State Fullerton continues its 23-year regional streak.

• Long Beach State made the steadiest climb of any team from about midseason onward. On April 23, the Dirtbags were sitting at No. 73 in the RPI, but now they've peaked at No. 29.

• It's been 58 years since North Dakota State last made the NCAA tournament in 1956. Coming in second is Maryland, which went 43 years between appearances.

• This is the first Big Dance for Sacramento State and Kennesaw State.

• The best RPI team to not make the tournament was No. 40 West Virginia.

Cal Poly is one of two regional hosts on west. AP Photo/The Tribune/Joe Johnston

• The worst RPI team to make the tournament was No. 271 Jackson State.

• For the second year in a row, we're assured of no repeat national champion as UCLA failed to make the field of 64, as did 31 other teams from last year's bracket.

2. Transparency

That was a buzzword thrown around during the selection show as new committee chairman Dennis Farrell, the Big West commissioner, was upfront with the committee's decisions and how they came about. In the post-announcement news conference, Farrell said the last four teams to make the field (in no particular order) were Clemson, North Carolina, Texas A&M and UC Irvine. The first four to miss the field were Mercer, UCF, USC and West Virginia.

Farrell's honesty is both appreciated and much different from those years in the late '90s and early 2000s when all those committee chairmen, in their deep Southern accents, were either very vague or very close-lipped in their decisions and explanations.

3. The West fest

The West was treated badly once again, but also treated well, in a way. It all depends on your point of view.

The Good: Over the past few weeks, bubble teams such as Stanford, Long Beach State and Cal State Fullerton needed to get hot down the stretch if they wanted any hope of making the tournament. Well, all three went on good sprees and the committee rewarded them. Good favor was also shown to UC Irvine, which plummeted to No. 44 in the RPI during a recent cold streak but was still extended a bid. The fact that USC was under such heavy consideration was actually quite a surprise as well.

The Bad: For the first time since 2004, there will be only two regionals west of the Pecos River, at Oregon State and Cal Poly. Also, UC Santa Barbara, which won a series over Cal State Fullerton and finished with a better RPI, got snubbed so bad that the Gauchos weren't even a final four consideration for the committee. Outside of the two regionals in Corvallis, Oregon, and San Luis Obispo, California, there are six western teams spread out in six regionals. The committee always talks about saving money and having teams take buses instead of airplanes, but it didn't mind making the West Coasters pony up for travel. Don't those teams suffer from having some of the higher costs of living in the nation, anyway?

4. SEC reaches critical mass

As expected, the Southern monster conference got a record 10 bids this year. With the way the brackets fall, the maximum number of SEC teams that can reach Omaha is six. Ole Miss and Mississippi State will be matched up in the same super regional pairing if both win their regionals. Same scenario exists for Texas A&M and LSU, Alabama and Kentucky, and South Carolina and Arkansas.

5. The wide-eyed factor