LOUISVILLE, KY -- Did anyone else look at the NCAA Super Regional brackets and see Louisville and check to see if you were looking at basketball?
I saw Louisville this year and they play a good team game, exposing weaknesses and using their strengths to hit and hit and hit that weakness until something gives, similar to when the British went after the Bismarck. Except Louisville didn't have to sink the Bismarck to get to the Super Regionals.
All they had to do was whack an overrated Miami Hurricanes team, then take out host and overrated Missouri Tigers. I know Mizzou had the high upside sophomore staff led by Crow with an 8-0 record. Wait, was that 8-0? Yeah, that's the first thing I saw. I have yet to see a team with a dominating ace that didn't have 10 wins or an ERA below 2.00.
(I know, Greg Reynolds had sub-par numbers last year for Stanford heading into the regional, but it was questioned if they should have ever been in the tournament before they kicked in the front door of the Austin Regional and left the Longhorns giving themselves the shocker.)
Another question I had was with the choice of Patterson Field, the home field of Louisville. It's actually a pretty good facility for a northern school, leaving me to wonder if Louisville should host over Oklahoma State's Allie P. Reynolds Stadium (a stadium named after a guy who could barely break 80 MPH).
Hey, let's send Oregon State out to Fisher Stadium in Ann Arbor. I guaruntee the Maize and Blue won't have a problem selling out that joint, and when boosters have to actual come and pay there, you'll see a parking garage and 30 luxury suites within a year (provided they have stopped the funds to buy out Jim Tressel from his Ohio State contract... which at last count, the going rate was just a tad above the national debt).
I can't fathom how close schools like Michigan and Louisville are to making the trip to Omaha. Has it really been three years since Missouri State upset Nebraska in the regionals, knocked off Ohio State (on one of the biggest hose job calls to Tony Piazza on a 2-2 breaking pitch that surprised everyone including the umpire), then got to Omaha, realized they didn't belong there and got run by Miami and LSU. Welcome to Omaha, Bears!
Take your typical southern school. Whether it's ACC/SEC or mid-major conference, southern schools actually get respect for being there, mostly because people have heard of them. Northern schools have a reputation, but it's provided by the name of their football school. It's quite rare to see Louisville, Michigan, Penn State, etc... in Omaha because the southern expansion has taken them out of it.
Now, the NCAA Committee is doing everything to even out the field including making almost all northern regionals so the regionalization will almost have to include northern schools. Some are up to it, others prove it's a big mistake. Take for example Penn State, who won the Rutgers-hosted regional in 2001. Rutgers barely made it past Army, the No. 4 seed that year, only to see Penn State upset a sketchy North Carolina squad. Next up for the Nittany Lions, Texas. That was 2-and-done, faster than you can imagine.
The marquee teams from the north in college baseball are Ohio State and Notre Dame. They built the better facilities and had the better teams for a couple years. In fact, Baseball America was so infatuated with Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish could lose to almost anyone and still retain a Top 10 position as long as they won a game that week, even if it was a midweek against Valparaiso. All dreams came true when the Fighting Irish went into Tallahassee in 2002 and knocked off Florida State behind a stunning performance by pitcher (and Florida native) Chris Neisel in the third game of a best-of-three. This allowed Notre Dame to go to the College World Series where they had a comeback win over Rice, but lost a pair to Stanford in the battle of snootiest alums.
Ohio State is the marquee team representing the north and midwest. The Buckeyes blew through everyone back in 1999, hit a grand slam to beat Cal-State Fullerton in the first game of the Super Regional and then dropped two straight to a Titans team that didn't do much in Omaha that year.
Now what? Top seeded Vanderbilt is out, along with Florida State and Texas. Rice practically has a police escort to the National Championship. The odd thing is that No. 1 was bounced by Michigan, while Louisville wasn't going up against a National Seed, but have the equivalent of the No. 10 seed bracket. Since Oklahoma State knocked No. 7 seed Arkansas, that means one of these two teams is expected to get slobberknocked in the first round of Omaha by the winner of Rice and Texas A&M (nice try, but it's going to be Rice). Thanks for coming, enjoy the sights and sound of Omaha.
But here's a thought, maybe the yankees have a shot. Not the New York Yankees, they always have a shot (usually a couple if they're out in Toronto with hot blonde Iowa strippers), but the northern teams. Could this be the year Michigan or Louisville makes a run?
Oklahoma State has been to Omaha before. In fact, the entire field could be expected to show up in Omaha or has in the recent past. But what if? What if Louisville or Michigan won the college World Series?
I saw Louisville this year and they play a good team game, exposing weaknesses and using their strengths to hit and hit and hit that weakness until something gives, similar to when the British went after the Bismarck. Except Louisville didn't have to sink the Bismarck to get to the Super Regionals.
All they had to do was whack an overrated Miami Hurricanes team, then take out host and overrated Missouri Tigers. I know Mizzou had the high upside sophomore staff led by Crow with an 8-0 record. Wait, was that 8-0? Yeah, that's the first thing I saw. I have yet to see a team with a dominating ace that didn't have 10 wins or an ERA below 2.00.
(I know, Greg Reynolds had sub-par numbers last year for Stanford heading into the regional, but it was questioned if they should have ever been in the tournament before they kicked in the front door of the Austin Regional and left the Longhorns giving themselves the shocker.)
Another question I had was with the choice of Patterson Field, the home field of Louisville. It's actually a pretty good facility for a northern school, leaving me to wonder if Louisville should host over Oklahoma State's Allie P. Reynolds Stadium (a stadium named after a guy who could barely break 80 MPH).
Hey, let's send Oregon State out to Fisher Stadium in Ann Arbor. I guaruntee the Maize and Blue won't have a problem selling out that joint, and when boosters have to actual come and pay there, you'll see a parking garage and 30 luxury suites within a year (provided they have stopped the funds to buy out Jim Tressel from his Ohio State contract... which at last count, the going rate was just a tad above the national debt).
I can't fathom how close schools like Michigan and Louisville are to making the trip to Omaha. Has it really been three years since Missouri State upset Nebraska in the regionals, knocked off Ohio State (on one of the biggest hose job calls to Tony Piazza on a 2-2 breaking pitch that surprised everyone including the umpire), then got to Omaha, realized they didn't belong there and got run by Miami and LSU. Welcome to Omaha, Bears!
Take your typical southern school. Whether it's ACC/SEC or mid-major conference, southern schools actually get respect for being there, mostly because people have heard of them. Northern schools have a reputation, but it's provided by the name of their football school. It's quite rare to see Louisville, Michigan, Penn State, etc... in Omaha because the southern expansion has taken them out of it.
Now, the NCAA Committee is doing everything to even out the field including making almost all northern regionals so the regionalization will almost have to include northern schools. Some are up to it, others prove it's a big mistake. Take for example Penn State, who won the Rutgers-hosted regional in 2001. Rutgers barely made it past Army, the No. 4 seed that year, only to see Penn State upset a sketchy North Carolina squad. Next up for the Nittany Lions, Texas. That was 2-and-done, faster than you can imagine.
The marquee teams from the north in college baseball are Ohio State and Notre Dame. They built the better facilities and had the better teams for a couple years. In fact, Baseball America was so infatuated with Notre Dame, the Fighting Irish could lose to almost anyone and still retain a Top 10 position as long as they won a game that week, even if it was a midweek against Valparaiso. All dreams came true when the Fighting Irish went into Tallahassee in 2002 and knocked off Florida State behind a stunning performance by pitcher (and Florida native) Chris Neisel in the third game of a best-of-three. This allowed Notre Dame to go to the College World Series where they had a comeback win over Rice, but lost a pair to Stanford in the battle of snootiest alums.
Ohio State is the marquee team representing the north and midwest. The Buckeyes blew through everyone back in 1999, hit a grand slam to beat Cal-State Fullerton in the first game of the Super Regional and then dropped two straight to a Titans team that didn't do much in Omaha that year.
Now what? Top seeded Vanderbilt is out, along with Florida State and Texas. Rice practically has a police escort to the National Championship. The odd thing is that No. 1 was bounced by Michigan, while Louisville wasn't going up against a National Seed, but have the equivalent of the No. 10 seed bracket. Since Oklahoma State knocked No. 7 seed Arkansas, that means one of these two teams is expected to get slobberknocked in the first round of Omaha by the winner of Rice and Texas A&M (nice try, but it's going to be Rice). Thanks for coming, enjoy the sights and sound of Omaha.
But here's a thought, maybe the yankees have a shot. Not the New York Yankees, they always have a shot (usually a couple if they're out in Toronto with hot blonde Iowa strippers), but the northern teams. Could this be the year Michigan or Louisville makes a run?
Oklahoma State has been to Omaha before. In fact, the entire field could be expected to show up in Omaha or has in the recent past. But what if? What if Louisville or Michigan won the college World Series?
The NCAA would be on its high horse and moving the start date up to the last weekend of February would look like a marvelous decision. Northern people might take an interest in college baseball as well, which has been mainly a southern and west coast dominated sport over the decades.
I can tell you this, the South won't take kindly to this. This is the same region that hasn't seen an ACC team win the College World Series since 1955, and the ACC seems somewhat okay with this as long as they represent every year. But a northern school? Say it ain't so!
Michigan and Louisville have brought a new dimension to the College Baseball playoffs. They make stir the pot or they make get blown out of the water after achieving all-time highs in the regionals. Either way, I know which brackets I'm watching come Friday (well, okay, I'll be watching UCLA because I've actually seen them play this year), and they involved teams on the Ohio RIver or north of it.
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