(Photo by Michael Bacigalupi)
By Chris Marler
There was no madness in March. The NCAA Tournament that delivered more often than Waffle House during a Sunday hangover changed its menu this year. Gone were the Cinderella stories and 12 versus 5 Seed upsets on Thursday afternoon for the first time in forever.
College baseball picked up the slack, and through the first two and a half days the NCAA Baseball tournament has given us everything we seemingly missed out in basketball.
Parity everywhere
Winning game one is always important. Teams that won game one in a regional advanced to the Super Regionals 93% of the time. Teams that won game one also started off 2-0 in the Regional 81% of the time.
Starting Friday it was obvious that this year’s tournament was not going to be chalk. The underdogs and lower seeds weren’t scared of Power Fours, Regional hosts, or national seeds. A total of 12 underdogs and lower ranked seeds won game one. That’s nearly 40%.
By Sunday nearly half of the Regional hosts were facing elimination games and needing to win three straight to advance with seven of the 16 Regional hosts one game away from an early Summer vacation.
March wounds never healed
I wrote this in March before Georgia was halfway through their SEC slate. The offense was good enough to get to Omaha. However, that pitching staff was a bigger liability than Joe Pesci in Casino.
UGA’s offense was great on Friday, and Sunday. On Sunday, their bats were alive early and often. They were nearly as loud as their mouths were all game. UGA fans fed the trees multiple times and let the visiting Cowboys know all about it.
It was great theater, and at this point, over the top celebrations after home runs or strikeouts are nothing new in the world of college baseball. However, if you’re UGA there has to be some restraint knowing you weren’t the home team and someone still had to toe the rubber and get at least three outs.
The Bulldogs blew a 7-3 lead early in the game, and in the ninth inning did what they did all season: give up runs.
Oklahoma State fed the trees 15 times this weekend, including twice in the ninth inning to send UGA home and advance to the Regional finals.
Cooled off quick
When someone shows you who they are, believe them. That’s the saying I always hear on my girlfriend’s Bravo shows after a Real Housewives breakup right?
Listen, Vanderbilt was a really good team this year, and were arguably the hottest team in all of college baseball at the end of the season. However, being given the No. 1 overall seed when they were on the fringe of even being a top eight national seed before Hoover, was a bit much.
Still, it’s shocking to see how bad they were in Regionals. They become the first No. 1 overall national seed to not make a Regional final ever.
That’s what happens after you go 2-for-17 on the weekend with runners in scoring position. Especially when both those hits came in the final inning of the game they were eventually eliminated in.
Biggest winner of the weekend
LSU. Until they weren’t.
Heading into Sunday night LSU felt like they were the biggest winner of the weekend. Not only were the Tigers 2-0, but they hadn’t even allowed a run yet. Even better for the Tigers is that they’ll avoid Clemson next weekend if they do advance to Super Regionals. The No. 11 Seed Clemson Tigers were one of four national seeds who failed to make the Regional finals and are out of the tournament. That means the Tigers would host an unranked West Virginia next week with a trip to Omaha on the line.
However, an unexpected butt whooping from UALR on Sunday night forced a win or go home between the two teams on Monday. LSU will now have to beat a suddenly hot Trojan team to continue their season.
Where things stand
Ten teams punched their ticket to Super Regionals, while 12 others play their do or die game Monday afternoon or night.
The teams who’ve advanced:
- Louisville
- UTSA
- UCLA
- Coastal Carolina
- Duke
- FSU
- Auburn
- Arkansas
- Arizona
- West Virginia
