Random Thoughts: 23 Days to Selection Monday

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We are now down to 23 days until Selection Monday. Here are some of my thoughts from the action on Saturday.

We will see on Sunday the first bid to the NCAA Tournament punched as Dartmouth and Columbia will face off in the third game of the three game Ivy League Championship series in New York. Columbia won Game 1 on Saturday by a score of 13-2 before Dartmouth won Game 2 15-12. I predict that Dartmouth will take it since they won the conference last year.

The odd story of the night was the power going out on the Cal-State Fullerton campus which suspended the UC-Riverside and Cal-State Fullerton game in the third inning. Power was not restored within an hour so the teams will come back tomorrow to finish the suspended game before playing their regularly scheduled one.

One of the best series of the weekend has been the Arkansas and Ole Miss series from Oxford. Arkansas took the first game of the series on Friday night 11-4 as the Razorbacks blew open a tight game with ten runs over the final three innings. On Saturday night, Ole Miss got an outstanding pitching performance from Aaron Barrett who pitched eight innings allowing only six hits and one run as the Rebels picked up the 3-2 victory.

The Louisville Cardinals picked up a terrible Big East loss on Saturday to last place Georgetown 2-1 in ten innings. GU’s Chip Malt had a game winning RBI single off of Louisville’s Derek Self. The loss was bad due to the fact that UConn swept Cincinnati in a doubleheader to expand their lead in the conference and Pitt picked up a loss to Seton Hall. If Louisville had won that game, they would have been in much better shape for the potential number 1 seed in the Big East Tourney.

The question in the WAC Conference this weekend was whether New Mexico State was for real? The answer is not yet as they dropped the first three games of their four game series against Fresno State. The Bulldogs won Game 1 of the series on Friday by a score of 21-11. In the doubleheader today, Fresno won the first game 12-4 and then the second game 16-10. ABC 30 out of Fresno did an excellent feature on Jordan Ribera who was leading the nation in homers entering the weekend.