Nationals Arm Race

The busiest weekend in College Baseball has past; here’s a run down of the opening weekend of the College Baseball playoffs. There were a TON of upsets, including a historic one, and a lot of great games to recap.

Resource links to help with this:

• Your final top 25 heading into the post-season according to d1baseball, baseballamerica, and usatoday Coaches poll.
• WarrenNolan’s RPI rankings are a very important part of the seeding and selection process, as we’ll discuss in a bit.
• 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

Here are Quick Regional Recaps of the 16 regional action, ordered by National Seed super Regional matchup. that means, the pairs of regionals being reviewed (#1 UCLA regional and #16 West Virginia regional) will determine that Super Regional. The eventual winning team is bolded.

• #1 UCLA regional: an absolute stunner as the top seed not only loses its first round, but for just the 3rd time in my memory fails to advance out of its own regional. They didn’t even get to the regional final! St. Marys beats them twice to eliminate the nation’s only team ranked #1 all year, but then the Gaels couldn’t take out #3 seed Cal Poly, who shocks the field and advances to the super regional. Pundits say this says a ton about Big 10 baseball and how weak it is. That may be fair. UCLA still endeavored to play a tough non-conference schedule (they were #28 in SoS so it’s not like they played a bunch of weaklings). But they came up short.
• #16 West Virginia regional: this was one of those regionals you’ll remember for a while. #3 seed Kentucky was in the driver’s seat, but host WVA scored 5 in the 9th late on Sunday to force the winner-take-all game Monday, then walked it off in the bottom of the 10th. Afterwards, the entire crowd sang John Denver’s Country road in unison along with their team, a video that gave me chills. I tell you what, it doesn’t get any better than this. West Virginia moves on, somehow.
• #8 Florida Regional: baseball powerhouse Florida was in full control of this regional … until they weren’t. Troy, one of the last teams into the tournament and one that many thought should have been left out for (In particular) Mercer, beat Florida on their home field twice in the final to head to the super as a #3 seed. Troy beat Florida 16-11 and then 10-2, results that are going to have Fla’s coach looking for pitching in the transfer portal for sure.
• #9: Southern Miss regional: Southern Miss hosted, but they didn’t show up, going two-and-out. UVA was eliminated by powerhouse Jacksonville State (kidding), and the region’s #4 seed Arkansas Little Rock advanced to the super regional.
• #5; UNC regional: North Carolina cruised to the regional title without really being pressed, beating ECU twice. VCU impressed with a win over Tennessee, but otherwise this was a simple region.
• #12: TAMU regional: Texas A&M was in the driver’s seat, then suddenly Southern California couldn’t make an out. USC, after losing its first game 5-4, won by the following scores in order: 19-6, 15-4, 14-3, and 7-1, the last two beatings over host TAMU to advance. USC was an RPI anomaly heading into the event, with a top 10 RPI but just a 1-11 record against Q1 schools. Well, they’re 3-11 now, and I wouldn’t want to face this offense. Phew.
• #13 Nebraska regional: to little surprise, the over-seeded Nebraska team fell to both baseball powerhouses in ASU and eventually winner Ole Miss, who cruised to the regional title.
• #4: Auburn regional: All credit to Milwaukee, who beat Auburn to open the region and made them beat them two more times before falling. #4 National seed Auburn survives somehow and advances.

And, the eventual CWS Bottom Half:

• #3 Georgia cruised to the regional title, giving up just five runs in three games. They are as advertised, and are now the CWS title favorites.
• #14 Mississippi State scored 39 runs in three games, blasting their way to the super regional.
• #11 Oregon got to beat a couple of their old Pac-10 teammates en route to the regional title.
• #6 Texas advanced in their own regional without having to deal with UCSB ace Jackson Flora, who they indeed saved for an anticipated winner’s bracket game two. Unfortunately, UCSB’s pitchers not named Flora pooped the bed against little-known Tarlton State and thus Flora was wasted on hapless Holy Cross, who he crushed for his final collegiate start. Quick: can you name where Tarlton State is, or what conference they play in?
• #7 Alabama wasn’t too troubled in its regional win, beating all three of its opponents on the way to the title.
• #10 Florida State hosted a crazy regional where the two lower seeds both won on opening day. Coastal Carolina had saved their ace Cameron Flukey for game 2, but a huge weather delay cut short his outing to just 3 1/3, wasting his final college start. FSU survived, but couldn’t overcome St. Johns of all teams, who wins as a #4 seed.
• #15 Kansas. Bravo to Kansas, who nearly everyone thought would lose to Arkansas in this regional. Instead, Kansas beat them twice to move on.
• #2 Georgia Tech scored 22 in its opener and topped #2 seed Oklahoma to take over the regional, but the Sooners had other plans, beating them late Sunday and then getting a walk-off homer in the bottom of the 10th to eliminate the #2 overall seed. Here’s the video; its at the 4:30 mark. He pulverized it to straight away cf, 390 and a 20 foot fence. Phew.

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Thus, your Super Regionals are (with the presumed host listed first):

• #16 West Virginia v Cal Poly
• Troy v Arkansas Little Rock: one of these two teams will be in Omaha. Amazing.
• #5 North Carolina v Southern California
• #4 Auburn vs Ole Miss
• #3 Georgia vs #14 Mississippi State
• #6 Texas vs #11 Oregon
• #7 Alabama vs St. Johns
• #15 Kansas vs Oklahoma

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Stats/Observations of the 16 regionals.

• 9 out of 16: Seeds/Hosts to advance, but the two top seeds (UCLA and Georgia Tech) are out.
• 6 regionals went to Monday extra game; lots of close regionals this year.
• Conference Breakdown of the 16 advancers:
  • SEC: 7 advancing (12 made the tourney)
  • Big12: 2 advancing (West Virginia, Kansas)
  • Big10: 2 advancing (Oregon and USC, both former Pac12)
  • ACC: Just 1 UNC (of the 9 teams that made the tourney, a pretty awful showing)
  • One each from Sun Belt, Big West, Ohio Valley, and Big East.
• Seed breakdown of advances
  • #1 seeds/hosts: 9
  • #2 Seeds: 3 (Southern California, Ole Miss, Oklahoma)
  • #3 Seeds: 2 (Cal Poly and Troy)
  • #4 Seeds: 2 (Arkansas-Little Rock, St. Johns)

Super Regional Prospect Watch. Man, lots of top prospects are gone, many surprisingly so. In fact, there’s only one name here that’s even projected to be a top 15 pick; Alabama’s Lebron. So, not a lot of star power in the supers.

• West Virginia v Cal Poly
• Troy v Arkansas Little Rock
• North Carolina v Southern California
• Auburn vs Ole Miss: Auburn is led by 2B Chris Rembert, a late 1st rounder, while Ole Miss’ ace is Cade Townsend, also a late 1st rounder.
• Georgia vs Mississippi State: Miss State’s Ace Reese is a late 1st round 3B prospect.
• Texas vs Oregon
• Alabama vs St. Johns: Alabama’s SS and leading hitter is Justin Lebron
• Kansas vs Oklahoma

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Super Regional predictions: Here’s what i think happens when these Regional champs meetup next weekend:

• #16 West Virginia v Cal Poly; hard to see WVA losing.
• Troy v Arkansas Little Rock: Troy is the better team, by far.
• #5 North Carolina v Southern California: I’d like to think UNC can hold the line, but USC impressed.
• #4 Auburn vs Ole Miss: they did not face each other in SEC play, but Auburn is the better team.
• #3 Georgia vs #14 Mississippi State: Georgia swept Miss State on their field in conference play, beat them in the SEC tournament, and I see no reason to think they’ll lose this Super Regional. I think its safe to say that Georgia was the CWS favorite at the beginning of this tournament, given that they’re the best team in the best conference, but now without UCLA and Georgia Tech they’re easily the team to beat.
• #6 Texas vs #11 Oregon; I favor the SEC team here, even if Oregon is good.
• #7 Alabama vs St. Johns; this one may get ugly.
• #15 Kansas vs Oklahoma; Kansas has been surprising teams all year, even if Oklahoma is more battle tested. I’ll go with OK.

Predicted CWS field: West Virginia, Troy, UNC, Auburn, Georgia, Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma