NCAA Tournament Updates

[martymoose]

Last game of the regionals is going now...

Texas A&M vs Arizona

Top of the 4th 0-0

[WuDrWu]

Aggies advance, beating the Wildcats 3-0.

[shocker3]

DBU vs Cal Would be awesome if DBU got the games at home.

It would be, but of course it went to Cal.

Now, that's supposed to go off bidding, so I'll be interested to see what happened there.

Dallas Baptist has a very nice field but their stands only hold about 500. I bet they either put in a very small bid or did not bid at all.

[shocker3]

Rice was the only national seed not advancing to a super.

The committee did a pretty good job with the national seeds going 7 for 8, but they didn't do so well with the other number 1 seeds as half of them failed to advance (4/8).

3-#3 seeds (DBU, Cal, Miss. St.) advanced to the supers and 2-#2 seeds (Stanford, UCONN) made it.

[billybud]

Miss State (RPI #17) was no shocker...as expected, it was between them and GT. Neither Austin Peay nor Southern Miss were near as strong.

DBU was a surprise.

Cal was the highest rated behind Rice in that regional. Once Rice went to the loser's bracket, Cal was advantaged.

I don't know what to say about UConn. They are streaky. Lose by 12 and then win a game by 13.

[billybud]

Overall...10 of the 16 Super Regional slots were #1 seeds.

The only #3 seeds that will meet in the Super are Cal and DBU.

[ShockerFever]

Gooooooooooooooooo Aggies!

[billybud]

Yeah..the Aggies are a good team...shutting out Arizona was impressive and Wacha looks like a heck of a right hander.

I am just glad that FSU made it to a super regional. The Nole pitching is mighty shallow and often inconsistent. But the boys do hit sometimes in big streaky innings.

No Nole fans expected too much from this team because of the pitching weakness once past Gilmartin...but at least the 29th straight regional streak continues.

[WuDrWu]

Boy it must be tough playing all those road games. That is impressive.


Did that Stetson game count as a road game?


When was the last time FSU played a scheduled road non conference game?

Outside of Florida?

[Ta town]

Yeah..the Aggies are a good team...shutting out Arizona was impressive and Wacha looks like a heck of a right hander.

I am just glad that FSU made it to a super regional. The Nole pitching is mighty shallow and often inconsistent. But the boys do hit sometimes in big streaky innings.

No Nole fans expected too much from this team because of the pitching weakness once past Gilmartin...but at least the 29th straight regional streak continues.

They play in the ACC...where it's actually harder to not make a regional than to make one.

[KC Shox]

Interesting to see Cal in there. At the beginning of the season, the university cut baseball and this was going to be their last season. Then the alumni got together and donated millions of dollars to the program to keep it going. Nice little side story for that program.

[billybud]

Boy it must be tough playing all those road games. That is impressive.


Did that Stetson game count as a road game?


When was the last time FSU played a scheduled road non conference game?

Outside of Florida?

FSU played some tough teams...

They played ten games with the teams currently numbers 1,2, and 3 in RPI...twenty games against teams in the TOP 16 (took two of three on the road against #16 Georgia in oOC).


(by the way, the whole "leaving Florida" ploy is a red herring. Playing 450 miles away in Miami is much tougher than playing 250 miles away in Athens, Georgia. Same with playing Stetson OOC down in Deland. Good teams are where you find them...Playing Florida in OOC, #3 RPI, in four games in four different cities around Florida and beating them three of those games is an achievement.)

[billybud]

And..when your SOS is ranked #4...you really don't have to apologize for your schedule. Your team is in a "baseball rich environment". Win against good teams and it is all that one can ask.

If your schedule is ranked in the 100's, you might want to travel more to play tough opponents and bring the SOS in to the 70's. Teams with more paucity in scheduling opportunities do have a disadvantage at building SOS.

I do note that FSU played 10 games with teams that are National seeds won their regional and are thus seeded #1 in their super regional. That, in itself, is a schedule.

[martymoose]

If I were FSU, I wouldn't leave Florida either. More home games = more money....it's not like they need the road games to improve their RPI. Some say teams need to go on the road and play good teams to prepare for the post season, well if they play top teams in conference on the road and play all their post season games either at home or on a neutral field, that argument doesn't really stick.

[billybud]

I looked at the Texas Aggies schedule...they did not play a single OOC game out of the state.

Here is the breakdown on FSU on the Aggie board..UGH! but true.

"Pitching

"The achilles heel has been the pitching staff. It's not an overpowering staff. It's all about location with them. They are expected to hit spots. If they are on, they are effective but it's been tough for them to put together good back to back outings."