The NCAA field of 64

What TPM said!!

Oregon State ends up in the Dallas Baptist bracket. Yeeeeeeuuuck. 

Those Texas brackets could be interesting with all the rain they've been having for what almost a solid month!  Good luck to Oregon State

Hook' Em Horns...

Go Illini!

The Big 10 is improving in baseball. Five teams are in the tournament. Maybe it was a matter of getting rid of the whiner coaches (weather) and bringing in winners.

Geaux Cajuns!

Leggett continues the run and finds a way. Go Tigers!

Not a good time to be playing, much less opening up with Texas. Arguably the hottest team in the country right now...

A couple random thoughts as I drink my morning coffee and look over the brackets for the first time with a fine tooth comb.....

 

I'm looking forward to seeing some teams I haven't been able to see all year.  Missouri State, and Dallas Baptist for example.  I've had more than my fill of SEC and ACC on our local airwaves.  Give me something new to see in HD....please!

 

There is no surprise UCLA is the top seed.  They just have that right formula of great starting pitching, excellent defense and manufactured offense that never stops because their guys are fast and can hit.  Boy, they are good.

 

The Big 10 got a lot of teams in this year..more than I ever recall.  Let's see how they do.  We've got lots of HSBBWeb posters' sons at blue blood baseball schools and many underdog schools from non-power conferences.  Rest assured parents of underdogs, I'll always be pulling for YOU!  I "love me" some UNDERDOG!

 

Columbia (Ivy League) and UVA (ACC) are 3 seeds in their respective Regionals.  Columbia is getting a lot of respect for winning the Ivy three years in a row.  If the committee is going to put UVA in as a 3 seed should they have bothered,  or put a different at-large school in? It sure looks like an after thought.  Just thinking out loud.

 

I'm waiting for Louisville to explode.  Are they the UCLA of the East but with bigger bats? Their style of play reminds me of UCLA.  If an ACC team is fortunate enough to make it to the CWS, how many times are we going to hear "it has been 60 years since Wake Forest won the College World Series"?  I'm setting the over/under at 637 times we'll hear the announcers remind us Wake Forest won the NCAA CWS baseball title in 1955.

Bumping.... 

 

http://www.ncaa.com/interactive-bracket/baseball/d1

 

 

Any upset predictions for today?  I have one bold prediction.  Whoever wins the ECU vs Columbia game today will win the Miami regional.  

 

Anyone?  Bueller?

Sounds good to me!!

Columbia is halfway home on your prediction Fenway.  Rooting for them big time... great showing for he Ivy League.  I was frustrated yesterday with the Bases Loaded feed as the Columbia/Miami game seemed to get little attention. Go Lions!!

 

Meanwhile, the Texas A&M/Cali games have just been fantastic.

VCU has impressed, go A10.

Random thoughts....

 

The bases loaded format is about 25% really cool and 75% totally annoying.

 

Cal vs. A&M going to game three. Classic so far.

 

UCLA vs. MD very compelling too.

 

Really odd to see how some venues are jammed and some are almost empty.  Kind of like MLB that way, and sometimes really mysterious. You get the feeling that everybody in Texas loves going to baseball games, except Houston, where they apparently have other things to do.

Bases Loaded is Awesome! Watched a ton of baseball this weekend, and I love this format!  Really cool...

Yeah, it's pretty cool - like watching a golf tournament.  But if you're rooting for a particular team the constant cutting away is tough to handle. 

So, yesterday i had the ESPN Bases Loaded feed on the HD-TV going as well as:

 

-2 laptops computers in full screen mode with ESPN3

-1 Desktop computer in full-screen mode with ESPN3 games

 

watching Radford, VCU, Columbia, and other games.  I couldn't keep my eyes open last night to see if UVA punched their ticket.  God bless the internet (specifically...Al Gore) and College Baseball.

 

Texas A&M and California was the best games this weekend.  Incredibly exciting to watch.

 

Definitely pulling for Columbia to seal the deal tonight!

 

 

point one above made me laugh, point 2 is spot on!! that would be awesome!!

I had USPNU chromecasted to my TV and loved their converge flipping from game to game. Good stuff. 

 

Some of these games are really slugfests. Wow. Can't just be the new ball. 

 

Pulling for Columbia, UCLA and Cal.  

 

Wife and I had the UCLA/Maryland game on our 50inch in HD, USC/Virginia on the laptop, and CSUF/Pepperdine on my iPhone 6.....Wild weekend for college baseball.

I'm rooting for UCLA, CSUF (only due to Big West affiliation), Virginia (if UCLA knocked out tonight)....I really like Brian O'Connor & his group of kids.  Lastly, I'd love to see the Ragin Cajuns of UL-Lafayette move on...my son became good friends with a few of their players in the Alaska Summer League last year.

Gators, gators, and gators are my choice.

Gators...Schmators.....who cares

 

I am with bsbl I really like the Rajun Cajun's. 

 

 

I'm a CSUF Titan fan, and I think the Fullerton/Louisville super regional is a great matchup, particularly the potential game one pitching matchup of Eschelman v. Funkhouser. Eschelman has put up absurd stats his entire Titan career and his ERA, K's and K to BB ratio this season are just silly,

All I can say is what about the freshman pitcher at LSU, Alex Lange. Off the charts good. And he is doing this as a true freshman in the SEC. If our bullpen performs, I really like LSU chances to win national championship #7. That team can flat take and play defense. Geaux Tigers!!

All I can say is what about the freshman pitcher at LSU, Alex Lange. Off the charts good. And he is doing this as a true freshman in the SEC. If our bullpen performs, I really like LSU chances to win national championship #7. That team can flat rake and play defense. Geaux Tigers!!

Just checked scores...yikes... looks like an Ivy playing in Omaha is not in the cards this year. 

How many games could a baseball fan watch, if a baseball fan could watch games? He'd watch all the games that a baseball fan could watch, if a baseball fan could watch games.

No one told me Vanderbilt was a three touchdown favorite.

 

http://www.ncaa.com/game/baseb...1/vanderbilt-radford

Yesterday was a great reminder of why I pull for underdogs...because there is very little parity across the 64 regional teams which is great (I'm not complaining).  The difference in funding, facilities  and the talent depth is extreme.  Holy crap, did anyone notice Texas A&M's sports complex....somebody's doing a great job of bringing in some big (as in Texan sized) alumni donations and corporate sponsorship.  Wow is all I got.  Possibly Texas A&M could host the 2024 Olympics in College Station?

 

One of my three underdogs made it. Radford lost big.  Columbia lost big.  The VCU Rams are onto the Super Regionals.  I know it is baseball (not basketball), but "Havoc" live there too.  

It's getting so a lot of college programs have nicer facilities than minor league teams. Without them they can't compete for recruits.

There's not a single PAC12 team in the supers. I wonder when the last time that happened was? 

Makes you wonder whats going on with the conference.

According to Aaron Fitt (D1Baseball.com), it's the first time since the field was expanded to 64 teams that a Pac12 team has not reached the supers.

Here on the west coast, the only team in the sweet 16 (supers) is Cal State Fullerton....I'm cheering for them, Virginia (golfball's son), and the Ragin Cajuns!

As far as fans in the stands I think it was who is playing. What I saw in Illinois this weekend was when 2 of other 3 wher playing you had those followers (maybe 75-120 for each team) and maybe couple hundred Illinois fans that purchased tickets for all games. (there was one game between Wright State and Ohio that probably had 400 fans in stands but announced attendance was 1400- my guess is those that had prepaid just didn't come because it was cold). When WSU played Illinois it was packed and that was Monday at 2pm. When ND played Illinois Sunday afternoon it was a complete sell out.

 

so in answer to your question, I think it is who is playing and that is reason for having top seeds host versus going to neutral sites for all.

BTW I am now rooting for Miami and Missouri St because WSU beat them once and lost twice to each of them earlier in the year and Illinois because they put WSU out of tournament . Cause if Illinois wins it all then, of course, if they hadn't gotten us in regionals WSU would have run to CWS .  Gotta love linear logic 

Gig'em Aggies!  Yes, it's a great complex and a great school.  Kyle Field is going to be amazing when it's ready in about 100 days.  Haha about the Olympics.  We would love to share some of our Aggie hospitality!

 

As far as Houston goes, for many years, UofH was a commuter school.  In the past 5-10 years, it's become much more of a residential university but still has a huge number of Houston residents who commute there.  The fan/alumni base is not as strong as Texas A&M, UT, TCU, DBU or Rice. 

 

 

Great win for Fullerton today, now the hard part - closing it out. Classic Titan Baseball. However, I must say, what's up with the Louisville pants? Worst baseball uniform I have ever seen.

I actually like the Louisville pants.  However, I thought the Vanderbilt black pinstripe uniforms were the worst things I've ever seen in any sport....so that includes men's & women's figure skating.  They are butt ugly.