The Road to Omaha: 2015 College Baseball Thread

Kind of interesting timing for this after the championship series was SEC-ACC.

 

I really enjoy college baseball. It doesn't get near the attention in 99 percent of the country as football and basketball, but it's fun to go to a game where the outcome means something. And most places the games are free or cheap.

 

I thought 30-26 Ole Miss was overseeded at a 2. Yeah, they had the No. 1 SOS, but at some point you have to actually beat a few of those teams. I just think they got that seeding more on reputation than on what they actually did this year.

Also, a few folks in these part were complaining about Southern Miss not getting in. They had a pretty good case: 37-18-1 record, RPI in the low 50s, pretty good record vs. teams in the top 100 (swept Ole Miss & Tulane). However, they also lost of 2 of 3 at home to Oakland (10-30something, RPI around 250) and went 1-2 in conference tournament on their home field, then watched the No. 8 seed win it. So no real complaints here.

 

Ole Miss did win its share. It did go 6-4 against Louisville, Florida, Vanderbilt and Texas A&M, with three of those six wins coming on the road. They also won an early series from Wright State, which was hovering around No. 50 in RPI, and won a game against LSU even if it didn't win the series. No doubt a good last two weeks of the season against a softer part of the schedule put it over the top, though.

As for Southern Miss, they just got crushed by the upsets. They were a team who put themselves in a good spot with a late surge -- they were muddling along before that winning streak -- then watched it turn to crap in about 48 hours once they lost to FAU and Texas, Michigan and Maryland all played their way in with strong finishes. They were worthy of getting in, but some other teams trumped them. Not much you can do about it.
I just hope it doesn't end up costing Scott Berry his job. He's a good coach and a good guy. It's amazing to me that they haven't been to a regional since 2011, with as solid as that program is.

 

If I were a reporter on that beat and thought briefly that I was going to be spending a glorious weekend in Santa Barbara, only to find out I was headed to Lake Elsinore instead, I might have quit on the spot.

 

Head of the Selection Committee worked at Oregon for 10 years. Another guy on the committee played for George Horton at CSUF. You think either of those guys are going to bat for Oregon State?

UCSB did not have one crowd of 1k this season, took second in an inferior league, and doesn't even have the infrastructure to host a regional. Oregon State has a history of NCAA success, has a great stadium, averages 3,000 per game, won its final six Pac-12 series, plays in a league that has won four national titles in the past nine years, and was 14-4-1 in its final 19, without two horrible losses to a bottom-feeder like UC Riverside.

So, given the good-old-boy network that is the Selection Committee, it makes perfect since to give a regional to UCSB.

Washington took 2nd in the Pac-12 last year at 21-9, was 39-15-1 overall and had a brand-new ballpark. It didn't get a regional and got sent to Mississippi.

Somebody at the Pac-12 office needs to get to work because clearly one of the top 2 or 3 baseball conferences in the country is getting hosed by the Selection Committee.

 

It's historic in the NCAA selection process: If there's a way to screw the Pac-12 (-10, -8, ect.), that way will be found!

 

Don't sleep on Radford in Vandy's regional.

 

Don't sleep with anyone at Radford unless you want a disease.

 

Hey! I have relatives in Radford. And I visit occasionally.

 

Go on ...

 

Well, everyone I know in Radford is disease free.

I can't speak for the Radford coeds though.