2010 College Baseball thread

[MrBug708]

UCLA has been selected to host a regional for baseball

[MJ4H]

NCAA.com – The Official Website of NCAA Championships - NCAA

[MrBug708]

LSU, UCI? Thanks a lot NCAA...

[Tigercat]

Yea, they sent the SEC championship/defending national champion fan base that has lead NCAA in attendance for 15 or so straight years to the furtherest away regional they could possibly go to. (Although, obviously Fullerton wouldn't be much closer.) Maybe that is the very reason they did so, though. Because they knew we would help out attendance regardless of where we went. UCLA isn't one of those west coast parks that only holds around 1k people is it?

[Tigercat]

Dola, and if we manage to upset UCLA in regional, we likely have to go back to that furtherest regional area to play Fullerton in the supers. (Compare that with Fullerton's 2 and 3 seeds, which are West coast teams, and wouldn't have to go far for UCLA.)

Man, I have never see a top 30 RPI team so thoroughly hosed on location before.

[Thomkal]

Very happy to see Coastal get its first ever national seed, and a bit surprised to see them get the #4 seed in front of Virginia who the Chants lost to this season.

I'm not a big fan of playing teams in your regional that you played in the regular season though I understand the reasons behind it. I'm not a big fan of putting a College of Charleston team in as the #2 seed in Coastal's regional that beat Coastal in both games they played this season. I would have preferred someone like Clemson or Virginia Tech as the #2 seed even though they faced them this year in one game each, Coastal won both. They have also played #3 seed NC State in one game this season, beating them. #4 Stony Brook (hopefully!) shouldn't be much of a problem in the first game.

I'm just happy that they didn't get nemesis North Carolina in their regional. How about the Tar Heels making the field without even making their conference tournament?

[MJ4H]

happy with our regional but not our super partner ffs

[MrBug708]

Originally Posted by Tigercat

Yea, they sent the SEC championship/defending national champion fan base that has lead NCAA in attendance for 15 or so straight years to the furtherest away regional they could possibly go to. (Although, obviously Fullerton wouldn't be much closer.) Maybe that is the very reason they did so, though. Because they knew we would help out attendance regardless of where we went. UCLA isn't one of those west coast parks that only holds around 1k people is it?

Jackie Robinson field is small. I'm not sure how many it holds but baseball is the sport UCLA is traditionally the worst sport. UCLA has the pitching to go deep in the tournament but its not a veteran team. Coach Savage is the former coach of UCI as well

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by Tigercat

Yea, they sent the SEC championship/defending national champion fan base that has lead NCAA in attendance for 15 or so straight years to the furtherest away regional they could possibly go to. (Although, obviously Fullerton wouldn't be much closer.) Maybe that is the very reason they did so, though. Because they knew we would help out attendance regardless of where we went. UCLA isn't one of those west coast parks that only holds around 1k people is it?

From the chat with the selection chair
Baton Rouge: Why are you sending LSU to California?
Tim Weiser: One of the committee's policies is not to have teams from the same conference play in the same Regional. Balancing this policy with 8 teams from each of the Pac-10, ACC and SEC makes it very difficult to put the bracket together. So in some cases teams have to travel across time zones to compete.

edit to add: So let's see how much water that holds.

There are 16 regionals, 4 of which are hosted by SEC teams, so that leaves 12 possibilities.
Based on the top 8 national seeds, it looks like the top 16 (or so, depending on who didn't bid for a host slot)
1. Arizona State (est RPI #1)
2. Texas (est RPI #5)
3. Florida (est RPI #4)
4. Coastal Carolina (est RPI #2)
5. Virginia (est RPI #3)
6. UCLA (est RPI #6)
7. Louisville (est RPI #7)
8. Georgia Tech (est RPI #11)
-----
9. Auburn (est RPI #16)
10. FSU (est RPI #14)
11. CS-Fullerton (est RPI #10)
12. Oklahoma (est RPI #17)
13. South Carolina (est RPI #18)
14. Miami (est RPI #8)
15. TCU (est RPI #15)
16. Arkansas (est RPI #9)

Now the NCAA official page doesn't seem to have updated the end of regular season RPI (normally done on Tuesday) but here's a link to an approximation of it as of today. I'm adding this estimated RPI to the list above

Missing from the top 16 seeds but in the estimated RPI top 16 are Alabama (#12) and Vandy (#13), who are both #2 seeds in their regionals. The remaining #2 seeds (and est RPI, in order of their top 16 seed opponent) are Washington State (#28), Baylor (#35), Texas A&M (#20), Va Tech (#34), Cal (#37), Stanford (#36), UConn (#23), Clemson (#19), then come Alabama (#12) and Vandy (#13), followed by LSU (#22), Ole Miss (#27), Coll. of Charleston (#26), Florida Atlantic (#38), Rice (#30), and San Diego (#29).

Teams in the top 32 of estimated RPI not in the field as a #1 or #2 seed are: UNC (#21), Arizona (#24), Oregon State (#25), Oregon (#31), and The Citadel (#32).

It looks to me as though they did some heavy geography on the 9-16 placement, setting up in-state matchups on the seeds where they could (Texas-TCU, Florida-Miami, UCLA-CS Full, and an adjacent state pair in GT-Auburn).

From there, the #2 seeds should have gone roughly with the following based on estimated RPI:
#1-1 Arizona State vs #2-38 erpi Florida Atlantic (actual vs #29 erpi San Diego)
#1-2 Texas vs #37 erpi Cal (actual vs #30 erpi Rice)
#1-3 Florida vs #36 erpi Stanford (actual vs #38 erpi Florida Atlantic)
#1-4 Coastal Carolina vs #35 erpi Baylor (actual vs #26 erpi Coll. of Charleston)
#1-5 Virginia #34 erpi Va Tech (actual vs #27 erpi Ole Miss)
#1-6 UCLA vs #30 erpi Rice (actual vs #22 erpi LSU)
#1-7 Louisville vs #29 erpi San Diego (actual vs #13 erpi Vandy)
#1-8 Georgia Tech vs #28 erpi Washington State (actual vs #12 erpi Alabama)
-----
#1-9 Auburn vs #27 erpi Ole Miss (actual vs #19 erpi Clemson)
#1-10 FSU #26 erpi Coll of Charleston (actual vs #23 erpi UConn)
#1-11 CS-Fullerton vs #23 erpi UConn (actual vs #36 erpi Stanford)
#1-12 Oklahoma vs #22 erpi LSU (actual vs #37 erpi Cal)
#1-13 South Carolina vs #20 erpi Texas A&M (actual vs #34 erpi Va Tech)
#1-14 Miami vs #19 erpi Clemson (actual vs #20 erpi Texas A&M)
#1-15 TCU vs #13 erpi Vanderbilt (actual vs #35 erpi Baylor)
#1-16 Arkansas vs #12 erpi Alabama (actual vs #28 erpi Wash. State)

Whew, whatta mess.

It appears that they may have tried to fill in geographic matches for the highest national seeds first, with in-state or adjacent non-conference opponents for the first four. One they did that then #5 Virginia & #6 UCLA had no available geo-partner, with #7 and #8 getting in-state/adjacent partners. They then did an adjacency for #15 TCU with Baylor (which should have been Tx A&M). And after that it kind of looks like they just threw the remaining teams in a hat.

Assuming the same #1's and #2's (and without me digging through the conference tourney results I didn't follow, and without me having access to the record vs top 100, record vs top 50, etc data), I would have done something like this

#1-1 Arizona State vs San Diego (actual vs #29 erpi San Diego)
#1-2 Texas vs Rice (actual vs #30 erpi Rice)
#1-3 Florida vs Florida Atlantic (actual vs #38 erpi Florida Atlantic)
#1-4 Coastal Carolina vs Va Tech (actual vs #26 erpi Coll. of Charleston)
----
#1-5 Virginia vs Cal (actual vs #27 erpi Ole Miss)
#1-6 UCLA vs Baylor (actual vs #22 erpi LSU)
#1-7 Louisville vs Vandy (actual vs #13 erpi Vandy)
#1-8 Georgia Tech vs Ole Miss (actual vs #12 erpi Alabama)
----------
#1-9 Auburn vs UConn (actual vs #19 erpi Clemson)
#1-10 FSU vs Stanford (actual vs #23 erpi UConn)
#1-11 CS-Fullerton vs Washington State (actual vs #36 erpi Stanford)
#1-12 Oklahoma vs LSU (actual vs #37 erpi Cal)
----
#1-13 South Carolina vs Coll of Charleston (actual vs #34 erpi Va Tech)
#1-14 Miami vs Alabama (actual vs #20 erpi Texas A&M)
#1-15 TCU vs Texas A&M (actual vs #35 erpi Baylor)
#1-16 Arkansas vs Clemson (actual vs #28 erpi Wash. State)

But nobody asked me

[Tigercat]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

From the chat with the selection chair
Baton Rouge: Why are you sending LSU to California?
Tim Weiser: One of the committee's policies is not to have teams from the same conference play in the same Regional. Balancing this policy with 8 teams from each of the Pac-10, ACC and SEC makes it very difficult to put the bracket together. So in some cases teams have to travel across time zones to compete.

Yea I noticed that myself when I saw that they had to send Pac-10 lesser seeds across the country too. LSU basically got screwed over because they only have three west coastish sites, but a good number of Pac-10 teams that can't be put in the same regionals. So someone had to go out West, and they decided it would be LSU as a 2 seed. (Why they couldn't find a way to send out West a 3 seed is beyond me though, at least tap a Big 12 two seed before you go to the SEC.)

They might need to get rid of that rule because of years like this when 3 conferences send so many teams. Doing right with the seeds and travel considerations is more important than having teams square off against conference rivals sooner rather than later.

[MrBug708]

Ucla holds about 2k fans

[digamma]

Originally Posted by Tigercat

Yea I noticed that myself when I saw that they had to send Pac-10 lesser seeds across the country too. LSU basically got screwed over because they only have three west coastish sites, but a good number of Pac-10 teams that can't be put in the same regionals. So someone had to go out West, and they decided it would be LSU as a 2 seed. (Why they couldn't find a way to send out West a 3 seed is beyond me though, at least tap a Big 12 two seed before you go to the SEC.)

They might need to get rid of that rule because of years like this when 3 conferences send so many teams. Doing right with the seeds and travel considerations is more important than having teams square off against conference rivals sooner rather than later.

This happens every year. Some really good teams get sent out west. Last year UVA and Georgia Southern, both as #2 seeds. UVA made the best of it and went to Omaha. Georgia Southern went home in two games. Year before Vandy got sent west as a #2 seed. Not unusual, given the usually relatively small number of west coast hosts and large number of teams to place from the SEC and ACC.

[k0ruptr]

so Hawaii ends up the #3 seed in the Arizona State regional (FFFFFFUUUUUU)
IMO I think Arizona State is F'n awesome this year and we don't stand much chance, but I also do like our chances against the other 2 opponents though. It seems that regional has one team a class above the rest (AState) and then 3 meh teams that Hawaii could come out with a couple wins, but hey in baseball you never know. I mean look what Fresno State did two years ago

[k0ruptr]

dola, in other news The Hawaii women are moving on in the Womens College WS as they upset #1 seed Alabama over the weekend!

[k0ruptr]

double dola, Also the Hawaii Pacific University Lady Sea Warriors just won the Division two College WS!

Hawaii ownes.

[MJ4H]

Plz to be defeating Arizona State tia

[k0ruptr]

I think its crazy that UNC got in without getting in to there conference tourney, lol.

[MJ4H]

Originally Posted by k0ruptr

I think its crazy that UNC got in without getting in to there conference tourney, lol.

It's not terribly unusual. Arkansas got in a few years ago without making the SEC tournament, in fact.

[RainMaker]

I just want to say that I love the format of the baseball tournament. Really looking forward to this years.

[Butter]

Hawaii women's softball team: Clutch.

[MJ4H]

Just got home with my ticket booklets for the Fayetteville Regional. Cox and Eibner are hitting the cover off the ball in BP and reports are that the team is really fired up to have them back. Going to bust out of this slump at exactly the right time again, I think!

IM FIRED UP.

Probably going to flood this thread with pictures from the regional this weekend so run for cover.

[Thomkal]

If you're looking to watch some of the games not being shown on ESPNU right now, you can try CBS College Sports.

CBS College Sports All-Access

Let me know if that link doesn't work. Coastal is scoreless with Stony Brook heading into the bottom of the 2nd.

[Thomkal]

1-0 Coastal heading to the 3rd.

[MJ4H]

About to head to the ballpark for games 1 and 2 of our regional. Get to see game 1 with my dad (this is Arkansas vs Grambling) since my wife can't make it because of work.

[Thomkal]

And its thundering here, so I imagine the game will be delayed soon enough.

[Thomkal]

Yep, not raining at the ballpark, but raining here with thunder and they have delayed the game.

[Butter]

Does Coastal play on campus, or at the MB Pelicans stadium?

[MrBug708]

Softball tournament has been entertaining so far. UCLA mercy ruled Florida, Washington and Arizona are both already in the losers bracket

[Thomkal]

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

Does Coastal play on campus, or at the MB Pelicans stadium?

They play at the MB Pelicans stadium, which is a better place to play than the Coastal's field, which is badly in need of renovation.

Rain has mostly stopped here, but looks like a line of storms have popped up to the south and west.

[k0ruptr]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Softball tournament has been entertaining so far. UCLA mercy ruled Florida, Washington and Arizona are both already in the losers bracket

I'm looking forward to UH vs UCLA today, the UH women set an NCAA record with 156 home runs this season.

[cartman]

In the first game of the Austin regional, Louisiana-Lafayette took down Rice 1-0.

[JediKooter]

I keep missing the kids name, but, who is the kid with the 55 game hitting streak? I think he's in college.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Originally Posted by JediKooter

I keep missing the kids name, but, who is the kid with the 55 game hitting streak? I think he's in college.

That'd be Garrett Wittels of Florida Int'l

FIU's Garrett Wittels pushes hitting streak to 55 with double - ESPN

[JediKooter]

Originally Posted by JonInMiddleGA

That'd be Garrett Wittels of Florida Int'l

FIU's Garrett Wittels pushes hitting streak to 55 with double - ESPN

Thank you. Impressive stat: 55 games played and has a hit in every game.

If he breaks Robin Venturas record, does he get to get punched in the face by Nolan Ryan?

[Thomkal]

Stony Brook played well against Coastal, it was 1-0 through five or six, but finally pulled away to win 6-0. That's a big relief, the Coastal starter has not done well in post-season play last year and this year, so glad to see him get it together for this important game.

Next up either College of Charleston or NC State-I'm rooting for NC State I think given Coastal losing twice to CofC this year.

[MJ4H]

Arkansas plastered Grambling. 19-7 I think. Something like 9 homers for Arkansas. Wilkins hit one over the scoreboard. Longest HR I've ever seen. Eibner had 3 HRs, Wilkins, McCann, and Kuhn all had 2 HRs each.

Wow was Grambling's starter awful. His fastball was ok, but everything else looked to be about 40 mph.

[MrBug708]

Originally Posted by k0ruptr

I'm looking forward to UH vs UCLA today, the UH women set an NCAA record with 156 home runs this season.

That was an impressive HR for UCLA

[Tigercat]

Man UCI is one pesky team as usual, and LSU bullpen continues to struggle since the middle of the season. UCI up 9-8 top of the 9th and threatening to score more.

[MrBug708]

Is the game on TV?

[Tigercat]

Originally Posted by MrBug708

Is the game on TV?

In Louisiana and surrounding states. Cox Sports TV televises most LSU baseball games. All regional games, even non-LSU, will be on here.

[MrBug708]

Meltdown for UCI

[Tigercat]

LSU wins 11-10 in the bottom of the 11th on a 2 out 2 RBI double. This team may not have any consistency on the mound, but they have shown a lot of heart so far this post season.

[Thomkal]

Unfortunately I did not get my wish as College of Charleston raced out to a 7-0 lead after 4 innings and then held on to beat NC State 9-6. CofC has never faced our #1 pitcher Anthony Meo who will get the call in this game, so there is some hope Coastal can break the losing streak against the Cougars.

[MrBug708]

Poor Kent State

[JonInMiddleGA]

GT gets a 10-0 win over Mercer featuring their first 9-inning complete game shutout since 2007. Jackets get Alabama tomorrow while Mercer faces Elon in the elimination game.

[mckerney]

Minnesota beats Cal State Fullerton!

[k0ruptr]

Hawaii beats San Diego yesterday and now plays in the winners bracket vs ASU today YAY!

hawaii still surging and have won 14 of their last 18!

[Dr. Sak]

Originally Posted by k0ruptr

hawaii still surging and have won 14 of their last 18!

They owe it all to us, we willed that walk off HR in extra's against New Mexico State!

[Thomkal]

Stony Brook pulled off one of the biggest wins in their history by taking out NC State 6-2 to stay alive in Coastal Carolina's regional. Coastal plays Charleston tonight weather permitting.

[k0ruptr]

Originally Posted by Dr. Sak

They owe it all to us, we willed that walk off HR in extra's against New Mexico State!

damn right, I expect a free shirt at the very least from the team