The 2013 College World Series is through its Regional weekend, and by and large the selection committee’s work was justified with just 2 non-Regional hosts advancing to this coming weekend’s Super Regional CWS play-in tournaments.
(My original Field-of-64 thoughts are here. My favorite no-frills just data College Baseball site is d1baseball.com, where I go for all the results).
Regional thoughts, one by one (in order of national seeds). Note that officially there are no 9-16 seeds, but for convenience they’re listed here based on which of the 1-8 national seeds they’ll play in the Super Regionals.
- #1 overall seed UNC advances by the absolute skin of their teeth, with Florida Atlantic forcing the monday winner-take-all game and then UNC winning 12-11 in 13 innings. What an amazing game this final must have been; UNC took a 6-2 lead into the 9th inning only to have Florida Atlantic score six runs to take an 8-6 lead. UNC then rallies for 2 runs in the bottom of the 9th to force extra innings. Florida Atlantic then scored THREE runs in the top of the 12th only to have UNC rally to tie it and force a 13th inning. Holy cow. Can you imagine being at this game?
- #2 overall seed Vanderbilt survives a scare from ACC power Georgia Tech, who forced a monday playoff before Vandy won handily to advance.
- Oregon State held serve by winning a couple of close games and then taking out Texas A&M to advance.
- LSU beat in-state rival Louisiana-Lafayette to advance.
- Cal State Fullerton reversed a trend of early tournament upsets and swept two games from Arizona State to advance.
- UVA won a couple of nail biters before blowing out Elon to advance.
- Florida State looked the most impressive of any National seed, outscoring its opponents 32-4 en route to its advancing.
- Oregon couldn’t hold off traditional power Rice and was upset in its own regional.
- NC State held off a pesky William & Mary to advance.
- Indiana easily advanced over Austin Peay.
- Mississippi State held off a surprising Central Arkansas to take its regional.
- UCLA won a tough regional filled with Southern California heavyweights.
- Oklahoma upset regional host Virginia Tech, which couldn’t overcome the only 1-4 seed upset we saw on the first day of regionals.
- Kansas State battered its way to a regional title, beating each of the three teams in its group along the way.
- Louisville made a statement on its selection as a regional host, mowing down two big-time programs en route.
- South Carolina won a delayed sunday game to advance over Liberty.
Only two Regional upsets: Rice over #8 Oregon and Oklahoma over #13 Virginia Tech. And neither of these could really be considered that big of an upset; Rice was ranked 16th in the final USA Today coaches poll and Oklahoma was ranked ahead of Va Tech in that same coaches poll. The Baseball America guys in their podcast talked about how “Chalk” they were predicting the Regionals to be and they were mostly right.
Surprising/Over achieving Regional losers: You have to start with Central Arkansas, the only 4th seed to make it to the championship game. A number of #3 seeds beat out their #2 seed bretheren to force their way to the regional finals; Liberty, William & Mary, San Diego, Oklahoma State and Elon. Connecticut getting a win over nationally ranked Virginia Tech was a surprise. Columbia’s win over New Mexico was astounding. And Valparaiso beat a tough Florida team and had a pair of one-run losses in its regional.
Disappointing teams: besides the two Regional hosts which lost (Oregon and Virginia Tech), Clemson under achieved in a regional some thought they’d win. Ole Miss couldn’t handle CAA upstart William & Mary and it cost them in the tournament. Alabama couldn’t handle in-state rival Troy when push came to shove. New Mexico did not live up to its lofty BA ranking, finishing last in its regional. Coastal Carolina did not live up to its at-large bid, probably exacerbating complaints out of the Campbell camp. And despite all the howls of protest over the Mercer and South Alabama seedings, neither could overcome tiny Central Arkansas to give a weaker regional host any pressure.
Super Regional Matchups
This coming weekend the “round of 16” or Super Regionals are on tap. Here’s the schedule; all games are at the higher seed (meaning the only last minute travel change involved NC State being handed a super-regional).
- #1 UNC hosts #16 South Carolina
- #9 NC State hosts Rice
- #5 Cal State Fullerton hosts #12 UCLA
- #4 LSU hosts Oklahoma
- #6 UVA hosts #11 Mississippi State
- #3 Oregon State hosts #14 Kansas State
- #7 Florida State hosts #10 Indiana
- #2 Vanderbilt hosts #15 Louisville
Psuedo Predictions: Its hard to pick against any of the top 4 teams; there’s a distinct gap between them and the 5th ranked teams in the country. But Vanderbilt looked a bit rattled while Louisville looked confident and I wouldn’t be that shocked at an upset there. Cal State Fullerton/UCLA matches up frequent competitors on the Regional stage and could go either way. I like UVA’s chances of advancing to the CWS. Florida State seems likely to continue bashing its way to the CWS and could be a dangerous lower seed.
Picks: UNC, Rice, UCLA, LSU, UVA, Oregon State, Florida State, Vanderbilt.