UNC baseball begins NCAA Tournament at home. Who will the Tar Heels play?

Cheers erupted from Boshamer Stadium Monday afternoon — followed by a few groans — as UNC baseball’s NCAA regional placement was announced at a watch party hosted for fans of the program.

The reason for the cheers? North Carolina (45-11-1, 22-8 ACC) earned the No. 5 overall seed for the NCAA Tournament and will host a regional for the fourth time in five years and 14th time in the last 20 years. NCAA regional action kicks off in Chapel Hill on Friday, May 29.

As for the groans?

“Most likely, we’ll have the toughest regional on paper,” UNC baseball coach Scott Forbes said.

The Tar Heels enter the NCAA Tournament ranked No. 4 nationally in RPI per D1Baseball, while Tennessee sits at No. 31, East Carolina at No. 40 and VCU at No. 84.

No. 1 regional seed UNC opens Friday against No. 4 VCU at 5 p.m. on ESPN+ in the first meeting between the programs since the Tar Heels won 13-3 on Feb. 25. North Carolina has history with the Rams: the Tar Heels defeated VCU in a 2022 winner-take-all Monday matchup in Chapel Hill to advance to the Super Regional round, where UNC fell to Arkansas.

No. 2 regional seed Tennessee and No. 3 East Carolina meet at noon on ESPNU in the regional’s opening game.

But Forbes isn’t complaining about the difficulty of the Tar Heels’ regional. Forbes, a big Nick Saban fan, said he’ll be emphasizing the following Saban quote to his team this week: “Everybody wants to be the beast, but don’t everybody want to do what the beast do.”

“The longer I coach, the less I get into who’s going where,” Forbes said. “I just look at who’s coming to our region. I expect it to always be difficult. You got to be careful what you ask for on the other side... I think it’s going to be a really difficult regional.”

“We’ll have our work cut out for us, but we’re playing at the Bosh and we’re a national seed,” Forbes continued. “I love our team. I’m excited to prepare for the regional and get after it on Friday.”

The Tar Heels have made 12 super regional appearances in the last 20 seasons. Positioned inside the top-eight national seeds, North Carolina is in line to host a super regional should the team advance to the tournament’s second weekend. That would square UNC with the winner of No. 12 national seed Texas A&M’s College Station regional.

But the Tar Heels have to advance out of their own regional first, where Forbes hopes the home field advantage will bring out the best in UNC.

“I’m telling these guys, ‘I want you to play like Little Leaguers,’” Forbes said. “You used to go on that field and you just had a blast. That’s how you play well.”

The Chapel Hill regional runs Friday through Sunday with a potential final game Monday, June 1. More information on tickets and parking is available at this link.

The Tar Heels enter the regional fresh off an ACC Tournament runner-up finish, falling to Georgia Tech, 13-6, on Sunday. The Yellow Jackets are the No. 2 national seed.

“We were still in that game until Georgia Tech broke it out,” Forbes said. “But our guys didn’t quit. We had the bases loaded, so I thought we were in the game to the very end.”

Forbes has guided the Tar Heels to six consecutive NCAA Tournament appearances.

North Carolina advanced to the 2024 College World Series as a No. 4 national seed and fell one win short of a trip to Omaha last season as a No. 5 seed.

Chapel Hill Regional Schedule

Friday, May 29

• Game 1: No. 2 Tennessee vs. No. 3 ECU, noon, ESPNU
• Game 2: No. 1 UNC vs. No. 4 VCU, 5 p.m., ESPN+

Saturday, May 30

• Game 3: Game 1 loser vs. Game 2 loser, time/broadcast TBD Game 4: Game 1 winner vs. Game 2 winner, time/broadcast TBD

Sunday, May 31

• Game 5: Game 4 loser vs. Game 3 winner, time/broadcast TBD
• Game 6: Game 4 winner vs. Game 5 winner, time/broadcast TBD

Monday, June 1 (if necessary)

• Game 7: Game 6 winner vs. Game 6 loser, TBD

This story was originally published May 25, 2026 at 12:41 PM.