It starts on Friday! The most exciting Championship tournament in college sports, the NCAA Division 1 Baseball Championship. What this tournament has that the others lack is history, and pride in making it to one specific destination. In Februray, the one goal every team in baseball has is to make it to Omaha. Thankfully, it'll stay that way for another 30 years, but that's another topic for another day. All in all 64 teams are vying for the chance to make it to the College World Series. The top 8 seeds are as follows: Miami, North Carolina, Arizona St., Florida St., Cal St. Fullerton, Rice, LSU, and Georgia. Looking at that list I'm surprised by a couple of things. First off the SEC getting two top 8 national seeds, while the Big 12 got zero. I said last month that college baseball has deep ties to the south, and it shows right there. Also, the SEC got 9 teams into the tourney, despite having 9 of its 12 programs finishing with a conference record of 2 games above .500, or worse. Also, I think the selection committee didn't want to get too ACC happy, as Miami, UNC and FSU probably should have been 1,2,3.
As far as predictions, it's tough to really have a great idea on who'll move onto to the Super Regionals, since the Regionals are double elimination. One thing to keep in mind, is that the 3 and 4 seeds are most likely in the NCAA tourney because they have a dominating pitcher. If their ace is throwing well, it gets pretty tricky for a team to win, when they don't have anyone on base. With that said, you can almost pencil in the top 8 seeds to move on. Since the NCAA started ranking the top 8 seeds, 2007 had the most not make it to the Super Regionals, which was 5. The most before that was 2 teams not making it out of the regionals. The only top 8 seed that I see being in trouble is Georgia. First off, they have the worst record of any of those teams, and they have two very solid teams in their region, Louisville and Georgia Tech. Louisville went to Omaha last year, and GT last went to Omaha in 2006, and should have a nice following to Athens Georgia. Here are my regional winners, paired up into their Super Regional opponents:
Miami vs Arizona
South Carolina vs Louisville
Cal St. Fullerton vs Stanford
Wichita St. vs Florida St.
North Carolina vs East Carolina
Nebraska vs LSU
Rice vs Texas A&M
San Diego vs Arizona St.
Now it gets a bit tricky, but more often then not, it's safe to go with the top 8 seed if they are available. One thing to keep in mind, is there seems to be a member of the CWS every year, that isn't a traditional program (teams with fewer than 2 trips to the CWS). Last year it was Louisville and UC Irvine, 2006 it was Oregon St., 2005 it was Tulane, Nebraska, Baylor, and Oregon St., 2003 it was Southwest Missouri St., etc. In fact since 1990 only 2004 and 1998 have CWS's full of regular members. The best bet for a non-regular member would be Louisville, or San Diego.
Here's how I think the Supers will pan out:
Miami over Arizona
South Carolina over Louisville
Cal St. Fullerton over Stanford
Florida St. over Wichita St.
North Carolina over East Carolina
LSU over Nebraska
Rice over Texas A&M
San Diego over Arizona St.
That sets up the first games of the CWS as follows:
Miami vs South Carolina
Cal St. Fullerton vs Florida St.
North Carolina vs LSU
Rice vs San Diego
My predicted champion is North Carolina. I think their side of the bracket is a bit tougher than Miami's, but in the end UNC will beat Florida St. in the championship series, and the Tar Heels will no longer be the bridesmaid in Omaha.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
What's a non-regular member. Sounds like a personal problem. I bet Jake would know a 'little' something about it.
You are really showing your Big Red bias by picking NU to make it to the top 16 and not any of the Big 12 teams that have kicked NU's you know what this year. Teams like Texas and Missouri to name just two. I can't wait for the series to come to omaha. That new stadium will be sweeeeet. Wade Boggs played in the CWS one year. The zoo looks neat behind left field at the blat.
Post a Comment