The game of College Baseball is starting to see a ton of parity. We have a Big East squad in Louisville making their first appearance in an NCAA Regional. They went into Missouri this weekend and defeated both Miami and Missouri twice. The Cardinals are just one of the northern teams that got through a regional as Michigan went into Vanderbilt and beat the Commodores twice. Vanderbilt was the number 1 overall seed in the tournament. The Texas Longhorns were also shocked by UC-Irvine and Arkansas went down to Oklahoma State. San Diego also went 0-2 in the Regional they hosted at San Diego State.
We also saw seven ACC teams receive bids to the NCAA Tournament but only two ended up getting into the next round of the tournament. The FSU Seminoles were a huge disappointment as they started the season with a perfect 23-0 record before losing to Jacksonville. The Seminoles were flawed as they did not have the pitching staff like the top teams in the country. They were exposed with only a two deep pitching staff in Bryan Henry and Michael Hyde. The history of the Seminoles have always been a strong hitting team but fail in the NCAA Tourney because of the lack of pitching depth. They have been to the CWS the most times without winning a title by making it 15 times to Omaha. Is it the coaching? I don’t think it is Mike Martin’s Sr. fault but his entire coaching staff needs to do a better job in recruiting better players. He needs to focus on getting some lights and pitchers that can dominate games like Jacob Thompson.
Tallahassee Democrat Article on Mike Martin and 2008
Virginia also bowed out of the tournament early this year but the injury bug hit the Cavaliers as they headed down the stretch. Greg Miclat had surgery on his torn labrum before the Boston College series while Brandon Guyer and Brandon Marsh each got injured in the NCAA Regional knocking them out of the NCAA Tournament. This meant the Cavaliers were missing a whole third of their lineup in which they were not able to overcome. The Cavaliers will lose All-American candidate Sean Doolittle but return Jacob Thompson who will headline the starting pitching rotation next season.
Daily Progress Article with O’Connor
I will be starting my Super Regional Previews on Wednesday and I expect to be done them by late Thursday evening so come back for some great Super Regional coverage.
