Nationals Arm Race

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. #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. #2 overall seed Vanderbilt survives a scare from ACC power Georgia Tech, who forced a monday playoff before Vandy won handily to advance.
3. Oregon State held serve by winning a couple of close games and then taking out Texas A&M to advance.
4. LSU beat in-state rival Louisiana-Lafayette to advance.
5. Cal State Fullerton reversed a trend of early tournament upsets and swept two games from Arizona State to advance.
6. UVA won a couple of nail biters before blowing out Elon to advance.
7. Florida State looked the most impressive of any National seed, outscoring its opponents 32-4 en route to its advancing.
8. Oregon couldn’t hold off traditional power Rice and was upset in its own regional.
9. NC State held off a pesky William & Mary to advance.
10. Indiana easily advanced over Austin Peay.
11. Mississippi State held off a surprising Central Arkansas to take its regional.
12. UCLA won a tough regional filled with Southern California heavyweights.
13. Oklahoma upset regional host Virginia Tech, which couldn’t overcome the only 1-4 seed upset we saw on the first day of regionals.
14. Kansas State battered its way to a regional title, beating each of the three teams in its group along the way.
15. Louisville made a statement on its selection as a regional host, mowing down two big-time programs en route.
16. 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.

Feel free to read on if you’re not a College Baseball guy, since I know some of my readers have questioned why I follow the college game.

The Field of 64 was announced today with all of the conference tournaments ending, and there were a few surprises in the seeds and field.

A quick guide to how the College World Series (CWS) field works: teams play in 16 “Regional tournaments” kicking off this coming weekend.  These are 4-team double elimination tournaments to determine a regional winner.  Then, the winners of each regional square off in a best-of-3 “Super Regional” the weekend of June 7-8-9 to determine the Eight (8) College World Series entrants.  Those 8 teams then are divided into two pots of four, play one additional 4-team double elimination tournament to arrive at a winner-take-all CWS championship.  The regions are hosted by schools; the CWS is hosted in Omaha, Nebraska.  When talking below about the “seeds” of the regional tournaments, the teams are seeded 1 through 4 within the regional tournament.  The regional host is the #1 seed, and the weakest entrant is the #4 seed.  This is not the same thing as talking about the “overall” seed; to make that distinction i’ll always say “tournament seeds” when talking about the overall tournament seeds.

Quick reference to current polls:

• WarrenNolan College Baseball RPI rankings
• Baseball America rankings 5/27/13
• USA Today Coaches Poll 5/27/13

Biggest snubs: Probably Seton Hall, Pittsburgh, and perhaps Auburn.  Notre Dame had a beef to, with a decent RPI, but were only the #7 seed in the Big East and lost the title game to the #8 seeded UConn and that was that.  Possibly Stanford, who were 5th in a 4-bid conference.  Campbell has a big beef; they were the #1 seed in the Big South, lose the title game 2-1 and miss out while the #2 seed (Coastal Carolina) in the conference makes it as an at-large.  Gonzaga was the #1 seed in the WCC but lost their last 7 games to take them from 32-14 to 32-21 and a missed tournament.  Nebraska isn’t technically a sub (they finished a game under .500) but had they won one more game they’d be in for sure.  Apparently Mercer was last in and Michigan State was last out, so we’ll say that Michigan State is a snub too.

Conference Distribution: As expected the tournament is dominated by the SEC (9 teams) and ACC (8 teams).  Surprisingly this year the mid-major Sun Belt conference has as many teams (4) as the Pac-10 (also 4).  Traditional Pac-10 powerhouses Cal, Stanford and Arizona all had down years.   The CAA surprisingly got 3 bids when upstart Towson won the tournament; i’m sure there are grumblings from the snubs above over the at-large bids given to William & Mary.

If the top 16 tournament seeds (aka, the regional hosts) hold serve, your super regional field would look like this (note the teams 9-16 are not “officially” seeded but to be honest they basically make sense and are ranked appropriately.  Its not as if the committee just pulls these names out of a hat).

• #1 UNC v #16 South Carolina
• #8 Oregon v #9 NC State
• #5 Cal State Fullerton v #12 UCLA
• #4 LSU v #13 Virginia Tech

• #6 UVA v #11 Mississippi State
• #3 Oregon State v #14 Kansas State
• #7 Florida State v #10 Indiana
• #2 Vanderbilt v #15 Louisville

Thoughts on the 1-8 tournament seeding: I would have had both Vanderbilt and LSU above UNC, but not by much and it may not really matter frankly.  I think BA’s rankings are wrong to have Vanderbilt above LSU the day after LSU beats them on a neutral field for the SEC championship.   Oregon State may be seeded slightly high, but as some have pointed out they may have slightly tweaked the seeds so that the two big guns from the ACC and SEC were balanced in the top 8 seeds.  Fair enough for me.  Cal State Fullerton is ALWAYS ranked too highly and always seems to fail to live up to their seeding; they face a tough regional with Arizona and New Mexico.

Biggest over-seed amongst the 16 hosts: none really; they’re by and large the 16 best teams this year.  Perhaps Va Tech or Kansas State.  Indiana is highly ranked but was from a one-bid conference whose #3 seed had a losing record on the season.  Louisville  may struggle to win its own regional with Miami and Oklahoma state to contend with.

Most aggrieved #2 Regional seed: Probably Clemson, who is mostly identically ranked as South Carolina, its arch rival, and now it has to go there to advance.  Also perhaps grumbling about their lot in this tournament are Oklahoma and Arkansas, both of whom are higher ranked in the coaches poll than their regional hosts (Virginia Tech and Kansas State respectively).

Easiest Regions for the Hosts: UNC gets three mid-major teams, none of which seem that challenging.  UVA’s region looks even easier; their hardest test is UNC-Wilmington.  LSU has in-state rival Louisiana-Lafayette to contend with but little else.

Toughest #3 Regional Seeds: Probably New Mexico; who blew away their conference and are ranked #17 in the coaches poll.   Oklahoma State is #19 in the coaches poll and is regionally seeded behind Miami.  Mercer (RPI #29), Troy, San Diego and Florida (who barely earned their way in by achieving a .500 record with the Nations 2nd hardest schedule) are also going to be tough #3 seeds to contend with.

Who is the next Fresno State (aka, the next #4 regional seed to come out of nowhere to win): Tough one in this tournament; most of the #4 seeds are automatic bid teams with RPIs in the 180-200 range.  Wichita State has a rich college baseball history and is a #4 regional seed despite winning the WAC.  San Diego State could surprise, as well as St. Louis.  But most of the #4 seeds are early tournament fodder.

Big-time Draft Prospects to keep an eye on, by team: Likely #1 overall pick Mark Appel‘s season is over as Stanford failed to qualify for the tournament (drafting teams can now rest; Stanford has no more chances to abuse Appel on pitch-counts for the rest of his college career).  The rest of the names here are all considered 1st or 2nd round prospects by Keith Law or Baseball America and they’re listed in rough order of where they’re likely to be drafted in the 1st and 2nd rounds.  The Nats don’t pick until the end of the 2nd round, but should have a shot at some of the names at the bottom of this list:

• Jonathan Grey, Oklahoma’s #1 starter and 1-1 candidate.
• Kris Bryant, San Diego’s record-breaking slugger and likely top-3 pick.
• Colin Moran, UNC 3B
• Ryne Stanek, Arkansas’ #1 starter who’s stock has slightly fallen this year.
• D.J. Peterson, New Mexico 3B/1B
• Hunter Renfroe, Mississippi State OF
• Jonathan Crawford, Florida RHP
• Trey Ball, Indiana LHP
• Bobby Wahl, Mississippi RHP (and Springfield VA native as discussed in my local draft prospects post last week).
• Ryan Eades, LSU RHP
• Trevor Williams, Arizona State RHP
• Jason Hursch, Oklahoma State RHP
• Michael Lorenzen, Cal State Fullerton OF/RHP
• Alex Balog, San Francisco RHP

Let the games begin!

Logo via wikipedia

Today’s distraction:

The word came out over the weekend: The California Institute of Technology’s division III baseball team snapped a 10 year, 228 game losing streak by beating fellow baseball powerhouse Pacifica over the weekend.

Which of course begs the question; CalTech has a baseball team!?

(note: you must visit www.d1baseball.com, your absolute best resource for all things college baseball).

With the completion of the final Super Regional games yesterday, including the exciting last game of Super Regionals where Arkansas scored in the top of the 10th to beat #4 seed Baylor 1-0, the 2012 College World Series (CWS) field is set.  Four of your top eight national seeds made it to Omaha (Florida, UCLA, Florida State and South Carolina).  First, a recap of the Regional action

Regional Recap

Regional winners.

• #1 Florida
• #16 NC State (in a slight “upset” over SEC power house Vanderbilt)
• Unseeded Oklahoma (over #9 seed UVA and ranked team Appalachian State)
• #8 South Carolina
• #5 Oregon
• Kent State (over #12 Purdue and highly regarded Kentucky; see more below)
• Arkansas (over #13 Rice, probably slightly overrated as they always seem to be)
• #4 Baylor
• #2 UCLA
• TCU over #15 Texas A&M
• Stony Brook over #10 Miami and 20th ranked UCF
• #7 LSU
• St. Johns over #6 seed UNC
• #13 Arizona
• #14 Stanford
• #2 Florida State

10 of the 16 teams went chalk in the regionals.  The 16 Regional tournaments featured only one “major” upset, with #6 national seed Chapel Hill getting upset by the unheralded St. Johns.  Local favorites UVA (the #9 national seed) went up against a tough region and came out short, falling early to Appalachian State before Oklahoma took the regional.  Other “seeds” that lost in the Regional round were #12 Purdue (to Kent State), #13 Rice (to Arkansas), #10 Miami (to Stony Brook) and #15 Texas A&M (to TCU).

Of these lower seeds, clearly Miami was over-rated (BA ranked #23 but getting a 10th seed) and went up against what most people called “the best #4 seed in the history of the tournament” in Stony Brook, a team that boasted the best record in the nation and was at the bottom end of the BA top 25 rankings at season’s end.  Texas A&M was probably well seeded but had a pretty non-descript record against fellow top-25 teams and wasn’t a surprise to get upset.  Lastly the Purdue regional; lots and lots of press about how Kentucky was “screwed” out of a top seed (BA ranked #11, 12-6 against top 25 teams and clearly playing in a tougher conference than Purdue).  However, as with the infamous UVA/San Diego State/UC Irvine regional a couple years ago, all that complaining went for naught as a surprise team (Kent State) ended up winning the regional.  Both Stony Brook and Kent State eventually showed they were no fluke … as we saw in the Super Regionals.

Super Regional Results/Recap

• #1 Florida d #16 NC State
• #8 South Carolina d Oklahoma
• Kent State d #5 Oregon
• Arkansas d #4 Baylor
• #2 UCLA d TCU
• Stony Brook d #7 LSU
• #13 Arizona d St. Johns
• #2 Florida State pounded #15 Stanford

Baseball America had great previews of the super regionals in two parts here and here.

The three best teams in the land (Florida, Florida State and UCLA) each advanced with some ease.  Florida State in particular pounded two of the better college pitchers out there in Stanford’s Mark Appel (#8 overall drafted) and National’s 3rd rounder Brett Mooneyham en route to two blow-out wins.  They look tough.

#8 national seed and two-time defending champion South Carolina advanced to the CWS for the 3rd straight year but fall on the side of Florida, who cruised through their regional and played most of their season against ranked opponents (18-10 on the year against BA top 25 teams).  This looks like it will be a dog fight, as South Carolina ace Mike Roth continues to defy the odds and get wins despite not having top-of-the-draft stuff.

The greatest stories out of College Baseball though belong to Stony Brook and Kent State (Stony Brook was featured today in a story by SI’s Joe Lemire).  Both teams not only made their first super regional appearance but also make their first ever College World Series appearance.   To have two such teams in the CWS is great for the sport and is reminiscent of the great Fresno State run to the title a few years back as a similar #4 seed.  By way of comparison; a #4 regional seed winning it all is somewhat akin to a #13 or worse seed winning the entire NCAA basketball tournament.  We all go nuts when a mid-major makes the final four … as GMU did as “only” an #11 seed.  The highest ever seed to WIN the NCAA tournament was #8 Villanova in a cocaine-driven upset of Georgetown.  I think both cinderellas will meet their match in the CWS, but its still a great story.

CWS Predictions

Group 1: Florida, South Carolina, Arkansas, Kent State

Group 2: UCLA, Stony Brook, Arizona, Florida State

Top Half: I think Florida will outlast South Carolina in the upper half.   Arkansas isn’t to be counted out though; they beat Florida 2/3 AT Florida this season, but lost two of three against South Carolina.  I’m guessing South Carolina handles Arkansas before showing up depleted and getting run over by the #1 team in the country.  Kent State continues to just be happy to be there.

Lower Half:  Florida State has already shown it can bombard a Pac-10 team (UCLA lost 2 of 3 at home to Stanford in the regular season), whil Arizona and Stony Brook seem like also-rans.

Final: All things considered, an all-Florida, ACC/SEC challenge for the title is fitting, since those are easily the two best conferences.  Florida rides its extensive experience against top teams and wins the title.