photo by: Kahner Sampson/Special to the Journal-World
The Kansas student section goes crazy after a home run in the Jayhawks’ game against Nebraska on Tuesday, April 21, 2026, at Hoglund Ballpark in Lawrence.
There will indeed be a Lawrence Regional for the first time in the history of the Kansas baseball program.
The NCAA announced KU as one of the top 16 seeds in its postseason tournament on Sunday night, a day after the Jayhawks beat West Virginia 9-0 to complete their sweep of the Big 12’s regular-season and tournament titles.
WVU, which had swept KU during the regular season but finished a game behind the Jayhawks in the league standings, was still able to retain its own hosting spot as well. That came a year after no Big 12 teams made the top 16 in the 2025 tournament.
Of note, the NCAA’s announcement did not disclose seeding order for the 16 teams in question, nor did it include any reference to other teams outside of the host sites. In other words, KU will not know which three foes are coming to Hoglund Ballpark until the actual selection show at 11 a.m. on Monday.
The university has been preparing to accommodate more than the stadium’s usual quantity of fans (its standard capacity is about 2,500), as evidenced by the temporary removal of the left-field wall. Head coach Dan Fitzgerald has said there will also be some sort of additional options available on the third-base side.
“We’re jamming Hoglund,” KU athletic director Travis Goff said in a video posted on social media after the Jayhawks’ victory in the Big 12 title game. “We’re putting people in the outfield. We’re going to stack them on top of each other. It’s going to be so much fun. I’m so proud of this program.”
KU will look to earn its first NCAA Tournament win since May 30, 2014, after the Jayhawks went 0-2 in Arkansas last postseason, and advance past the regional round for the first time since 1993, when KU got out of a six-team pod in Knoxville, Tennessee, to reach the College World Series.
The postseason format now consists of 16 four-team double-elimination tournaments. One team advances from each, and they are then paired based on seeding for best-of-three super regional series. KU has never played in the super regional round because it did not exist in 1993.
The winners of those series go on to the College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska, where they are again split into four-team double-elimination brackets, and then the winners of those brackets play a best-of-three series to determine the national champion. KU in its lone trip to the College World Series in 1993 lost its first two games.
