The busiest weekend in College Baseball has past; here’s a run down of the opening weekend of the College Baseball playoffs.
Resource links to help with this:
- top 25 rankings d1baseball, baseballamerica, and usatoday Coaches poll.
- WarrenNolan’s RPI rankings
- Here’s D1Baseball.com’s Tournament Central, my favorite place to track the tourney.
- Here’s the NCAA.com field of 64 Bracket with some great data points at NCAA.com and an easier-to-read bracket.
Quick Regional Recaps of the 16 regional action, ordered by National Seed super Regional matchup. that means, the pairs of regionals being reviewed (#1 Vanderbilt regional and #16 Southern Miss regional) will determine that Super Regional. The eventual winning team is bolded.
- #1 Vanderbilt Regional Recap: Vanderbilt failed to advance to the Super Regionals as the #1 overall seed for the 2nd time in recent memory (they were #1 overall seed with David Price as their ace and also fell at a home regional), losing twice to Louisville to go home early.
- #16 Southern Miss Regional Recap: host Southern Miss inexplicably lost to Ivy League champ Columbia to open the regional, got back to the final and even forced an extra game, but the strain on their resources was too much as they fell to Miami.
- #8 Oregon State Regional Recap: Oregon State got upended in game one by a #4 seed in St. Marys, but clawed their way back, crushed St. Marys 20-3 in the loser’s bracket, then beat USC twice to advance. Phew.
- #9 Florida State Regional Recap: Florida State advanced in a relatively straight-forward regional, cruising past eventual regional finalist Mississippi State twice, once behind top-5 pick Arnold’s 7ip effort.
- #5 UNC Regional Recap: North Carolina got stretched to an extra game but persevered versus Oklahoma to move on.
- #12: Oregon Regional Recap: Host Oregon went 2-and-out to finish last as the seed and host, while Arizona beat Cal Poly twice to win the regional and advance. Props to Utah Valley for the win as the #4 seed.
- #13 Coastal Carolina Regional Recap: ECU ousted Florida, but Coasal Carolina beat them twice to win the region and advance as one of the few mid-majors remaining.
- #4 Auburn Regional Recap: Host Auburn beat all three teams in its region to advance, crushing NC State 11-1 in the regional final.
And, the eventual CWS Bottom Half:
- #3 Arkansas Regional Recap: Arkansas handled Big East’s Creighton twice to advance with ease.
- #14 Tennessee Regional Recap: Tennessee got stretched by Wake Forest to an extra game but moved on, as 1-1 draft candidate finished off the finale to the horror of the GMs drafting in that range.
- #11 Clemson Regional Recap: West Virginia came out on top of a crazy regional that saw host Clemson get whacked by last-team-in Kentucky before WVU topped the SEC team in a wile 16-15 regional final.
- #6 LSU Regional Recap: Arkansas-Little Rock as a #4 seed gave LSU everything they could handle, but the Tigers advanced to get another super regional.
- #7 Georgia Regional Recap: Everything started great for Georgia, then it fell apart; they lost the winner’s bracket game to Duke, then couldn’t even get back to the regional final, losing to Oklahoma State, to finish 3rd as a national top-8 seed. Not a good look. Duke took out OkState to win the regional.
- #10 Ole Miss Regional Recap: holy cow, how about #4 regional seed Murray State?! Beat the hosts 9-6 to open, then score 13, 19, and 12 against SEC and ACC royalty to win the regional and move on. Bravo!
- #15 UCLA Regional Recap: UCLA won an offense-first regional by beating all three teams to advance.
- #2 Texas Regional Recap: UT-San Antonio shocked the field with two wins over #2 overall seed Texas to win the region and move on.
Thus, your Super Regionals are ...
- Louisville vs Miami
- #8 Oregon State v #9 Florida State
- #5 UNC v Arizona
- #4 Auburn v #13 Coastal Carolina
- #3 Arkansas v #14 Tennessee
- #6 LSU v West Virginia
- Duke v Murray State
- UT-San Antonio v #15 UCLA
Stats/Observations of the 16 regionals.
- 9 out of 16: Seeds/Hosts to advance. Three of the top 8 seeds are out, including #1 Vandy, #2 Texas, and #7 Ole Miss.
- 6 regionals went to Monday extra game; lots of close regionals this year.
- Conference Breakdown of the 16 advancers: ACC 5, SEC 4, Big12 2, Big10 1, others 4.
- Seed breakdown of advances: #1 seeds/hosts – 9. #2 Seeds: 5. #3 seeds: 1 (Miami). #4 Seeds: 1 (Murray State).
Comments
- How about the ACC? 9 teams in, 5 going to supers. Versus SEC: 13 teams in, just 4 moving on.
- Murray State; holy cow. Usually we’re ecstatic to talk about a #4 seed getting a win, not moving on.
- UT-San Antonio; a #2 seed who took out a power house.
Performance of 1st Round projected players in the Regionals:
(we’ll put this content into our 1-1 candidate review post, coming out later this week)
Super Regional predictions: Here’s what i think happens when these Regional champs meetup next weekend:
- Louisville vs Miami: two teams with .500 records in ACC conference play are now going to give the CWS a representative from between them. I would guess Miami gets to host based on pedigree. These teams didn’t meet at all this year so no history. Prediction: Miami had a slightly harder SoS and may have a slight advantage here.
- #8 Oregon State v #9 Florida State: I’m going FSU just based on having a better arm to throw game 1. FSU faced a better slate of teams all year.
- #5 UNC v Arizona: hard to pick against UNC in this position. I think these former Pac12 teams are overrated generally.
- #4 Auburn v #13 Coastal Carolina: Auburn will outclass the mid-major former CWS champ here.
- #3 Arkansas v #14 Tennessee: They played late in the season, at Arkansas; Tennessee won the first game, then lost the 2nd when Doyle pitched (Arkansas lit him up for 11 hits and 8 runs). I think Arkansas repeats the feat and moves on. If they can get to Doyle that easily, they’ll be tough to beat.
- #6 LSU v West Virginia; with all due respect to WVU, LSU isn’t going to lose at home with a top 5 pick throwing one of the games.
- Duke v Murray State: Murray State played, nobody, I mean, nobody this year; SoS #222. But they showed up in the Regional and I’ll bet they show up again. Murray State to CWS!
- UT-San Antonio v #15 UCLA: UTSA is big-time. Top 20 RPI, 8-4 record against Q1. I think they’re going to beat UCLA.
CWS field: Miami, FSU, UNC, Auburn, Arkansas, LSU, Murray State, UTSA