DURHAM – Your questions about Duke being bypassed as a regional host for the NCAA tournament are probably the same ones coach Chris Pollard wants answered.

He’ll just have to wait a little while to get those answers.

Duke is headed to Norman, Okla., where Oklahoma is the host. The Blue Devils open the NCAA tournament with Friday's 1 p.m. game against UConn.

On the surface, Duke’s résumé is that of a hosting team. The Blue Devils finished above .500 in one of college baseball’s two best leagues and rolled through its conference tournament last week. Duke’s RPI is 16th; other hosts are 22nd (East Carolina) and 31st (Arizona).

It boils down to whether Duke’s Jack Coombs Field — where Duke shifted this season to playing all of its home games — was a deterrent.

“I think the honest answer is I have to get some answers about that after the dust settles. And I want to,” Pollard said when asked about that after Monday’s selection show.

It shouldn’t be taken as a slight to say Duke’s on-campus stadium has issues. That much is seemingly confirmed with renovations that are scheduled to take place this summer and in future years. Capacity is listed at 1,863 for a stadium built in 1931.

“I think Matt Hogue is awesome for college baseball,” Pollard said, noting his relationship with the Coastal Carolina athletics director and chairman of the NCAA baseball committee. “He’s got a tough job. I’d like for Matt to tell us if the current conditions of Coombs kept us out of the hosting consideration.”

Until he gets those answers, doubt will exist in Pollard’s mind.

“We’re addressing it. You know? Renovations are on the way,” he said. “Do I think that played into this some? Sure I do. It’s a lot easier to take a TV crew to a readymade facility.

“But that’s why we’ve made it a priority to address the need for the renovation at Coombs.”

Those renovations are slated to begin soon. The latest they’ll start is mid-June.

“I’ve got a lot of confidence in our operations and facilities folks here in the department. And they’re working like crazy,” Pollard said. “I know this, they’re behind us and they want to see this done, too.”

This year is the first time in at least a decade that all of Duke’s home games have been at Jack Coombs Field. In the past, the Blue Devils have split home games at Durham Bulls Athletic Park and the on-campus stadium, with most of their ACC games being played at the Triple-A ballpark.

Returning to DBAP this weekend wasn’t an option; there are concerts scheduled Friday and Saturday, and the Bulls have a home game on Monday.

“Yeah, I mean, I took some time to be disappointed about it (Sunday) night. If I’m being honest with you, I just felt bad for our guys,” Pollard said. “I felt like they had earned it. Twenty ACC wins, 13 Quad-1 wins, I thought we had a really good résumé and I’m not sure that anybody with our résumé has ever been kept out of hosting.”

Duke has never hosted a regional. For a long time, that was a backburner issue — the program went 55 seasons between NCAA tournament berths, from 1961 to 2016.

Now, though, the Blue Devils are emerging as a perennial contender. This year’s NCAA tournament is the sixth in the last nine years (and one of those didn’t have a tournament because of COVID). Three times, Duke has won a regional on the road and fallen short in a best-of-3 super regional series, all three times falling one win shy of the program’s first-ever trip to Omaha.

It seems like it’s only a matter of time before — to steal Pollard’s phrase — Duke breaks down the door and reaches college baseball’s hallowed ground.

The journey to do so is going to be easier if the Blue Devils get home games along the way.

The two times in the last nine NCAA tournaments that the ACC champion hasn’t hosted a regional are the two times Duke has won the league’s tournament.

UNC won the ACC tournament two seasons ago and after going 15-15 in the ACC’s regular season, hosted a regional.

Pollard pondered Sunday and again Monday if there had ever been an ACC team with at least 20 aggregate wins — regular season and ACC tournament combined — that didn’t host a regional.

There was one three seasons ago but it comes with a caveat. N.C. State was 19-14 in the regular season and won two games in the ACC tournament. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, each team played two extra ACC series that season.

In non-COVID effected seasons, you have to go back to 2009 to find that answer. That was Virginia, going 16-11-1 in the regular season and winning all four games in the ACC tournament to win the league’s title. The Cavaliers were sent across the country and won a regional at UC Irvine, and then came back and won the super regional series at Ole Miss after losing Game 1. The Cavaliers went 1-2 in Omaha that season.

Disappointment on the players’ behalf is there. But it’s also nowhere close to their focus.

“I mean, I feel like we were kind of on the bubble of hosting. I feel like a lot of guys weren’t really expecting it,” senior catcher Alex Stone said. “If it would’ve happened, yeah, it would’ve been great. But again, we don’t really control that, so you take it as it comes and enjoy it.”

Heading to Oklahoma might seem more difficult than, say, taking a trip to Greenville as a part of East Carolina’s regional.

But bussing to the middle of the country means hours of playing a road trip favorite game, “mafia.”

For second baseman Zac Morris, a transfer from VMI who’s from Suffolk, Va., he’s never been as far west as he’ll go this week.

“Felt like we deserved to host, obviously, but that’s out of our control. So we’re just ready to go keep playing good baseball,” Morris said. “I think it’s cool to get to experience a new state. I’ve never been, I think, that far west.”