Eye On The College World Series

2017 College World Series Teams…

• Oregon State Beavers – (54-4) – Pac12 – #1 National Seed
• Florida Gators – (47-18) – SEC – #3 National Seed
• LSU Tigers – (48-17) – SEC – #4 National Seed
• TCU Horned Frogs – (47-16) – Big12 – #6 National Seed
• Louisville Cardinals – (52-10) – ACC – #7 National Seed
• Florida State Seminoles – (45-21) – ACC – Regional Host
• Cal St Fullerton Titans – (39-22) – Big West – Regional #2 Seed
• Texas A&M Aggies – (41-21) – SEC – Regional #3 Seed

Breakdown of this season’s CWS field…

•  By Conference: SEC (3) / ACC (2) / Pac 12 / Big 12/ Big West
•  By Seeding: (5) National Seeds / Regional Host (1) / 2 Seed (1) / 3 Seed (1)
•  By History of Success: (3) Prior Winners / (5) Seeking first National Title
•  Familiar Faces. Longest Omaha drought for this year’s clubs–just (6) short years.
•  No First Timers. All eight programs have made at least (4) or more appearances.
•  Win Streaks: Oregon St (21) / LSU (16) / Louisville (5). Each a perfect 5-0 in tourney.
•  Omaha streaks:  TCU making 4th straight trip / Florida reaches 3rd straight CWS.
•  12 National Titles won by the combo of LSU (6) / Cal St Fullerton (4) / Oregon St (2).

Super Regional Observations

One spot remains. The balance of power is up for grabs alongside the final charter flight to Omaha in today’s Wake Forest-Florida ACC-SEC showdown. The outcome determines which of these two power conferences will have three representatives in the College World Series. Based on Super Regionals already settled both conferences are assured of a pair (SEC- LSU, Texas A&M / ACC – Louisville, FSU), but only one conference will boast a national best trio of clubs.

2017 Super Regional matchups have had it all. Lightning delays, rare blown saves, costly botched infield pop-ups, walk-off winners…even a smooth-as-silk triple play turned by Sam Houston State in a rain drenched Sunshine State. What a weekend of baseball. The weekend was so good, weather extended it until at least Monday in Gainesville. Of the 16 completed games in the Super Regional round, well over half of them featured at least one key moment which turned the contest on a dime at some point later than the 7th inning stretch.

Home teams have performed better than usual. Visiting clubs claiming Super Regionals had been a strong trend in recent years. Not so this time around. For the first time in college baseball history home clubs won the first game of every Super Regional. To this point, Cal State Fullerton is the only club to punch a ticket to Omaha from outside the friendly confines of their own ballpark. In fact, heading into today’s resumption in Gainesville, home clubs have posted an impressive 14-2 record in the Supers. To put that in perspective, no one else besides the powerhouse Titans has even managed to win a single Super Regional contest. Keep in mind, however, the three-time CWS champs were in a very familiar ballpark less than a half hour from home-and that’s with LA traffic.

Overall tourney results have been about par for the course related to the national seeds. Prior to this season there had been 144 top 8 national seeds under the current format, with 81 of them reaching Omaha (that’s a clip of 56%). This year at least half the Omaha field will be made up of national seeds, with the potential for 5 of 8 reaching the promised land. Should the Florida Gators defeat Wake Forest later today and become the fifth to pack up and head for the midwest, it would also mean national seeds would have been a perfect 5 for 5 in the Super Regional round.

College baseball is experiencing a newfound power surge. If you love the long ball, this has been your year. The 2017 edition of the NCAA tournament has already produced over 220 home runs, with the Super Regional round not quite completed. This is easily the most since the new BBCOR bat package was adopted six years ago. For evidence that offense is trending upward, look no further than the powerful season Wake Forest has put together. The Deacons had already hit an even 100 bombs heading into Gainesville for their ACC-SEC showdown with the Gators. This makes the Winston-Salem wrecking crew the first club to reach a triple-digit home run total since the new bat era began in 2011. It’s likely the tournament could see a over 250 total home runs hit before the roughly 137 potential tournament games required for someone to lift the trophy in Omaha are completed. (Here is the breakdown on number of games: If every round of the tournament goes the distance 151 contests are necessary to complete the national championship tournament. This year’s edition is on pace for somewhere between 135-139 total games based upon the four remaining “if necessary” games in the current tournament format). Whatever the final number ends up being, the tournament is looking at somewhere close to two homers per contest this season.

The best teams in the country are streaking into Omaha. Oregon State, LSU and Louisville have not lost a single NCAA tournament game. Each club is a perfect 5-0, having swept through both rounds at home. The Beavers have not lost this month, winning twenty-one consecutive dating back to an April 29th defeat at the hands of USC. Remember, this was one of only three conference losses and just four total setbacks this season for the top seeded club from Corvallis. The ‘Ville reached Omaha for the fourth time in school history on the strength of a series sweep against rival Kentucky in the weekend’s bluegrass showdown, which the ‘Cards made look easy. As for the SEC champs, a string of sixteen straight victories will be on the line at TD Ameritrade Park. This includes a perfect SEC tournament performance in Hoover which set the post-season tone.

Super Regionals

SERIES BEGINNING FRIDAY, JUNE 9

Vanderbilt (36-23-1) at No. 1 Oregon St. (52-4)
9 p.m. (ESPN2), 9 p.m. (ESPN), 9 p.m. (ESPN2/ESPNU)

Cal St. Fullerton (37-21) at Long Beach St. (41-18-1)
6 p.m. (ESPN2), 3 p.m. (ESPNU), 3 p.m. (ESPN/ESPN2)

Davidson (35-24) at Texas A&M (39-21)
3 p.m. (ESPN2), 6 p.m. (ESPN2), 6 p.m. (ESPN2/ESPNU)

Kentucky (43-21) at No. 7 Louisville (50-10)
Noon (ESPN2), Noon (ESPN), Noon (ESPN/ESPN2)

SERIES BEGINNING SATURDAY, JUNE 10

Sam Houston St. (44-21) at Florida St. (43-21)
Noon (ESPN2), Noon (ESPN/ESPN2), **1 p.m./4 p.m./7 p.m. (ESPN2) or 8:30 p.m. (ESPN)

Mississippi St. (40-25) at No. 4 LSU (46-17)
9 p.m. (ESPN2), 9 p.m. (ESPN2/ESPNU), **1 p.m./4 p.m./7 p.m. (ESPN2) or 8:30 p.m. (ESPN)

Missouri St. (43-18) at No. 6 TCU (45-16)
6 p.m. (ESPNU), 6 p.m. (ESPN2/ESPNU), **1 p.m./4 p.m./7 p.m. (ESPN2) or 8:30 p.m. (ESPN)

Wake Forest (42-18) at No. 3 Florida (45-17)
3 p.m. (ESPN), 3 p.m. (ESPN/ESPN2), **1 p.m./4 p.m./7 p.m. (ESPN2) or 8:30 p.m. (ESPN)

All times are Eastern
Game times and ESPN Network subject to change

Regional Sites

Baton Rouge, LA – #4 LSU (43-17) / SE LA (36-20) / Rice (31-29) / TX Southern (20-32)

Chapel Hill, NC – #2 UNC (47-12) / FGCU 42-18) / Michigan (42-15) / Davidson (32-24)

Clemson, SC – Clemson (39-19) / Vanderbilt (33-22) / St Johns (42-11) / UNCG (35-22)

Corvallis, OR – #1 Oregon St (49-4) / Nebraska (35-20) / Yale (32-16) / Holy Cross (23-27)

Fayetteville, AR – Arkansas (42-17) / Missouri St (40-17) / OK St (30-25) / ORU (42-14)

Fort Worth, TX – #6 TCU (42-16) / Virginia (42-14) / DBU (40-19) / Central CT (36-20)

Gainesville, FL – #3 Florida (42-16) / USF (41-17) / Bethune-Cook (33-23) / Marist (32-21)

Hattiesburg, MS – Southern Miss (48-14) / Miss St (36-24) / South Ala (39-19) / UIC (39-15)

Houston, TX – Houston (40-19) / Baylor (34-21) / Texas A&M (36-21) / Iowa (38-20)

Lexington, KY – Kentucky (39-20) / Indiana (33-22) / NC St (34-23) / Ohio (31-26)

Long Beach, CA – Long Beach St (37-17) / Texas (37-22) / UCLA (30-25) / SD St (41-19)

Louisville, KY – #7 Louisville (47-10)/ Oklahoma (34-22) / Xavier (32-25) / Radford (27-30)

Lubbock, TX –#5 TX Tech (43-15) / AZ (37-19) / Sam Houston St (40-20) / Delaware (34-21)

Stanford, CA – #8 Stanford (40-14) / CS Full (34-21) / BYU (37-19) / Sacramento St (32-27)

Tallahassee, FL – Florida St (39-20) / UCF (40-20) / Auburn (35-24) / TN Tech (40-19)

Winston-Salem, NC – Wake Forest (39-18) / WV (34-24) / MD (37-21) / UMBC (23-33)

*Regionals listed alphabeticallly. Teams appear in order of seed with regular season record.

*Green = Regional Winner /  Grey = Eliminated

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or in the case of sport, how often they seem to circle back around to the familiar.

Turn back the clock to 2007.

Oregon State was completing a back to back run to national titles at the old yard in Omaha. Rosenblatt Stadium was abuzz with Beaver fever and at the same time in disbelief that the powerful North Carolina Tarheels, laden with eventual big league level talent, had been denied the crown by Pat Casey’s upstart bunch from the northwest for a second straight year.

Here we are, a decade later and those same two teams have returned to glory, sitting 1-2 atop the baseball world heading into this season’s championship run.

Will history repeat itself in 2017?

There was a time when the newly minted National Championship Series simply meant Corvallis colliding with Chapel Hill as a rite of summer passage, east coast versus west coast with everything on the line. For the first time since the mid-to-late 2000’s, the potential exists for this to ring true once more.

Oregon State has lost just four games all season, making the Pac-12 conference slate look all to easy this go around. North Carolina dropped just one weekend series in the powerful ACC. When national seeds were announced on Monday, these two familiar foes were once again consensus number one and number two selections respectively.

Only time will tell if we’ll be treated to further editions of the riveting drama that was their highly competitive championships battles from days gone by. Only the unfolding story across the next month of baseball will reveal if Omaha’s streets will once again be filled with heels of tar and rivers of black and orange.

This much we know, however, fans of both programs can relish a tournament return. Happy days are here again, including at least the potential for a renewed clash in the midwest summer heat.

photo courtesy: Omaha World-Herald