College Baseball thread
 

Just one spot remaining to see who goes to Omaha. Coastal Carolina and East Carolina play this afternoon for the final berth.

It was a crazy weekend for the regionals. Three of the biggest comebacks in postseason history happened, with the biggest being Okie State coming back from being down 12 runs to win by 14 :eek:

Meh, Rutgers made the Big10 final, had 40+ wins and were snubbed with their only loss to Michigan. College baseball sucks! :)

This weekend made me remember why I never watch college baseball. All the pacing of MLB with 200% more hits and walks. I can remember when my daughter would have a softball DH at roughly the same time as the guys were warming up for their DH and we'd be finished with both games before the end of their first game.

I watched a couple of innings here and there, but sitting through multiple 4-5 hours games is not what I call entertaining. I did enjoy watching Miami get knocked out of their own regional before the finals, though.

Pretty crazy for Coastal to make it this far in the regional. Virginia went up early in the elimination game 6-0 then Coastal scored 7 straight unanswered runs to win then came out firing against and East Carolina team that had won like 20 in a row until then, and never looked back. Game starts in about 40 minutes

I'm looking at a college baseball scoreboard on ESPN and actually there are quite a few deciding games left besides Coastal today-10 or so. So lots of drama left today

Lots of baseball left for today.

You are correct, my bad. Not sure what I was looking at this morning. Here are today's games to see who goes to the Super Regionals:

Coastal Carolina v. East Carolina
Louisville v. Michigan
Florida v. Oklahoma
Stanford v. Texas State
Maryland v. UConn
North Carolina v. VCU
Arkansas v. Oklahoma State
Arizona v. Ole Miss
Southern Miss v. LSU
Vanderbilt v. Oregon State

and maybe Auburn v. UCLA. Auburn was up 9-0 when the game yesterday was suspended. If UCLA has a comeback, there will be a second game.

Virginia Tech qualified for the Super Regionals for the first time in modern program history and will play the winner of Florida/Oklahoma in Blacksburg.

We watched a fair bit of baseball the past few days, what with the "you gotta be kidding me" pairings (for my household) of both UT and GT and Miami and Ole Miss*

My biggest takeaway from the weekend might very well be how bad college baseball defense seems to have gotten. I knew that most teams suffer from a scarcity of pitching but damn, some of the defense was atrocious.

Some of the weakest #4 seeds I can recall in a while offhand, and some top seeds that felt overrated to me. Otherwise, a mixture of genuinely good dramatic games AND games with drama manufactured by not very good teams being paired.


*the kid actually opted out of watching that one saying, reasonably, "that's more stress than my life needs"

hehe Jon's son. Looks like two or three of the early starts are now delayed. Unfortunately not Coastal as they are down 4-0. :(

They moved the Louisville game up from 6pm to noon to try to get ahead of the rain and it didn't work. But there may be enough of a window to get it in before the next round comes through this evening.

Looks like the rain delay hurt Louisville. Up 7-3, now down 9-7 since the game restarted.

apparently Coastal made East Carolina mad...sheesh

Coastal had a 2 run homer in the 9th to show they had a little spark left, but then it ended, 13-4 East Carolina moves on. :( It really was a good season for the Chants-at the beginning of the season, it did not look like they were going to have much of a pitching staff, and were the only SC based school to make the regionals.

I made the GT/UT connection but failed on the Ole Miss and Miami one.

You can cheer for the Longhorns now to take down the Pirates. :D

That's okay still have Southern Mississippi from the Sun Belt to root for, (and almost Texas State!)

Tennessee has been in the discussion for best college baseball team ever this year and they got punched in the mouth by ND yesterday. They're currently up 1-0 in the 4th in game 2 but need two win this one today and game 3 tomorrow to get out of the Super Regional.

How dare you sir! The best ever team is clearly the 2016 World Series Winner, Coastal Carolina :)

I believe you meant Fresno State featuring one Aaron Judge!

That team needed 4 Aaron Judge's.

Still won it all

Wait, what? I don't remember Judge playing on the national championship team. I'm pretty sure he wasn't a freshmen until a few years later.

UPSET ALERT!

It got away from the Vols with a quickness, that's for sure.

The eight for Omaha are set:

Texas A&M (42-18)
Oklahoma (42-22)
Texas (47-20)
Notre Dame (40-15)
Stanford (47-16)
Arkansas (43-19)
Mississippi (37-22)
Auburn (42-20)

This is the 75th College World Series. This will be the 38th time that the Longhorns will appear.

So much for being the best ever college team this year :)

Still a darn good team. On top of being a Vol fan, my cousin played baseball with one of the kids on this team from the time they were 6 years old. Given the question marks they had going into the season (replace 3/4 of the infield...LF moved to C...a good chunk of the pitching staff replaced). I wasn't sold on how good this team was initially. This was a season I'll take anytime.

I'm interested in what they do for next season. RF, CF, 1B, C, 3B are all gone. Possibly the 2B and SS. Tidwell as a SP is gone, the top two relievers are gone as well.

Maui Ahuna is coming in at SS presumably. Blake Burke takes over at 1B. Will Christian Moore move if Jorel Ortega stays to play 2B? Not stuff I'd suspect anyone outside of Tennessee will care about, but it keeps me going.

My wife wants to "root" for another team since the Vols are out...apparently I can't just route for them all to lose.

Most of my family are Arkansas fans, I suppose I could do that. I'm leaning more Texas or A&M. I do like Elko at Ole Miss and Sonny D out of Auburn, but I don't think much of either of those teams outside of those guys.

If you've followed him, Elko has such a Kirk Gibson vibe that he's hard not to like. Last year's injury and performance cemented him as a program legend. The antithesis of a "sit out culture" player. The rest of the team, eh, typically non-descript overall. They're definitely the solid underdog choice in remaining field (last at-large into the field, etc) so if that's her thing they're it.

Notre Dame (having eliminated UT aside) is an interesting option for unattached fans. There hasn't been a midwestern team win the CWS since Wichita State back in 1989.

Elko is definitely a Gibson-esque figure on that team. I'm rooting for him.

I just got scolded by my son for saying that Texas A&M need to get their crap together after their parents had to go to Omaha, Nebraska to watch them play.

He has his perspective as a player. I have mine as a parent.:lol:

Glad I was not the only one wondering if there was a mercy rule.

I'm not sure what to think of the CWS at this point (if Ole Miss hangs on for nine more outs)

Was the field seeded badly? (I personally didn't think so going in)
Did teams just get hot at the right time? (probably?)
Is parity more real than I / we thought? (maybe?)

To paraphrase that great American philosopher, it seems like all the seeds had a plan until they got punched in the mouth. Once that happened, none of them could recover.

Aggie grad here. Gone all weekend. Did I miss anything good? :)

Y'all lost to OU on Friday. Might have been another game yesterday, but I'm drawing a blank.

Winner take all for Ole Miss-Arky tomorrow.

Good ballgame tonight, regardless of the outcome

Not a big baseball fan but you made me look. WPS !!!

If you like old school pitching, today's Ole Miss - Arkansas game was an absolute delight.

Dylan DeLucia goes the distance with a complete game shutout for a 2-0 win that sends Ole Miss to the CWS Final for the first time in school history.
3 years since anyone threw a complete game in Omaha, 29 years since any SEC pitcher did it.

All I can say is that it was Maddux-like (except with more velocity), a performance for the ages. And it was necessary given that Arkansas got a great outing from Connor Noland as well.

OU will be a helluva challenge with their rested pitching staff but however it goes, the last two games between Ole Miss & Arkansas are some of the best baseball I've seen in years at any level.

Good luck, Rebels.

I just watched the game. Great pitching matchup. That shutout gives me just a little bit more hope that Ole Miss will keep OU under 10.

If only DeLucia could pitch all weekend (ala softball) I'd be more inclined to have some confidence.

The odds of 2 other pitchers matching that sort of performance tho? I ain't liking the odds. The extra game required to reach the final feels like it dims Ole Miss chances by a LOT. (which is how the ball bounces, I ain't complaining about it, just if-only'ing over it)

Okay, the odds of 1 out of 2 doing it are somewhat better.

Hmmm, That is a tough call. I guess rules are rules.

Sooner Nation may lose their minds if this goes against them.

Shockingly, the replays got both calls right I think.

The first was kind of obvious, the second had enough doubt that I don't think you could overturn.

No doubt on the first one. If that is how the rule is written, then that was the correct call. I always thought the batter had to try to get out of the way but I guess that is not the case.

The latter kinda cuts both ways for me, in this sense.

It would have required some pretty fast reactions to be able to intentionally move into a pitch going down and in like that. If I question whether the move into the ball was intentional on that basis, then I have to give the benefit of the doubt that he couldn't have gotten OUT of the way either.

I wish it had been more obvious but it just wasn't for me.

Incredible. I mean, 7-14 in the conference, last team into the field.

Don't let the Rebs get hot indeed.

And I'm absolutely aware of why I enjoyed watching the semi finals and finals so much: it was baseball the way I always liked it.

I haven't seen games like those in a long time, at any level. Had these been the 17-14 games college baseball can produce, I can't imagine I'd have been nearly as engaged as I ended up.

But the pitching -- from not just Ole Miss but from Arkansas and Oklahoma today -- THAT'S the game I used to love

A banner day for Coastal Carolina sports yesterday-first ever player to go in the first round of the MLB Draft (Eric Brown to MIL) and current track and field runner Melissa Jefferson coming off a surprise win at the US Nationals, made it the finals of the 100 meter relay in the World Championships where she finished 8th.

Getting some strong "deja-vu" from the 2016 National title team this season from Coastal. Beating most teams they face ranked or not, lots of hitting, tearing up the Sun Belt right now, nationally ranked in most polls.

I guess we now know why the OH gaming commission suspended betting on AL baseball games a few days ago.

It’s a wild story that would probably already be in 30 for 30 production if it was football or basketball. I don’t know if there was (or can be proved) any intent from the coaches side, but the level of stupid to leave an electronic trail of communication and then immediately turn around and place large bets (apparently in multiple states?) is pretty impressive.

Gonna put this one here since college baseball is mentioned. I don't think athletes all of a sudden decided that they all were going to start gambling. I wonder what is making the authorities start looking for the gambling that was going on.

LINK: https://www.espn.com/college-sports/...ncaa-violation

One of the benefits of the new modern legal apps is that there's real-time analysis of betting patterns by the platforms, the leagues they do business with, and law enforcement, and the platforms are quick to blow the whistle on athletes use their services. I don't think any of that was the case in the same way when people were betting on the offshore sites.

Interesting. I am not familiar with those apps but it make sense.

NJ: ACCC college baseball coach resigns, earpieces found in helmets

If ya ain't cheating, ya ain't trying.

I don't see that was supposed to work. They are playing in an sparsely populated stadium. Of course, one of the fielders was going to hear the speaker in the helmet especially if the runner is being held on by the first baseman.

The incident starts at 49:42

RCSJ GLOUCESTER vs ACCC BASEBALL - SAT APR 22 - GM 1 - YouTube

Coastal claims the Sun Belt title, have won 16 straight Sun Belt series, Likely to host a regional, woot!

Ah yes, the ACC baseball tournament. That time of year when the worst postseason format in all of sports gets dusted off.

Longhorns closed the regular season strong with a sweep of Top 10 West Virginia, and finished with a share of a 3 way tie for the conference title. They won the tiebreakers over WVa and Okie State and will be the #1 seed for the conference tournament next week.

Doesnt quite fit here, but that LSU/Rajin Cajun 2-game softball series yesterday was insanely entertaining and fun.

I spent all weekend with Covid in a hotel room watching softball. Always fun to watch LSU lose (not a fan of the coach, nor the brother of a former player who still shows up to mug for the camera behind home plate).

The McNeese/Washington game last night was an absolute heartbreaker. McNeese was the heavy underdog and pulled off a 1-0 win in game 1, forcing the If game and had a 6-0 lead going to the 7th ... and lost. I can't even imagine what anyone attached to that program is feeling today.

The other amazing thing that occurred this weekend was UCLA, the #2 seed with only 4 losses all year and an NCAA high 52 wins, going "2 and 'Q" in their own regional, losing to Grand Canyon and Liberty. I watched a couple of their games in the Pac12 tourney and they clearly were not playing well, but that's an embarrassing exit at home. As a result, San Diego State is in, playing at #15 Utah to go to WCWS.

All of this is academic because Oklahoma is going to destroy everyone. One loss all year. They've made the competitive college softball championship part of the game no fun anymore. They were already a machine, and then the transfer portal became a thing, and it's pretty much unfair the roster they are able to put together every year. Someone could beat them in the WCWS this year (it happened a couple of years ago), but there's no way anyone is beating them 2 in a row (they came out of the losers bracket to face FSU in the championship, FSU got game 1, then OU steamrolled for 2 wins and the championship). I don't even see the chance that scenario happens this year though.

Yeah, women's softball is more enjoyable than college baseball.

Also insane was FSU throwing a 7 inning perfect game on 59 pitches with only 4 strikeouts. 17/21 batters put it in play and no one got on base.

Also insane was how Washington was down 0-6 in the top of the 7th and scored 7 runs to win it. Terrible pitcher management by the Mcneese State coach.

McNeese's #1 had already thrown a 100 pitch complete game in Game 1. She was brought in with the game tied and gave up the GW hit. I'm not sure they trusted any other pitcher and thought it best to roll with the girl who had pitched so well up to that point.

A similar thing happened to Kentucky back in 2014 at the WCWS. They had 1 workhorse pitcher who threw every pitch for the team for the past month. They had a 7-0 lead against Baylor and then the wheels fell off. Baylor scored 8 runs in the final couple of innings (aided by a couple of errors) and they left her in even though she was completely gassed, and lost 8-7. They simply didn't have anyone else they trusted and felt like she was the best option, even if she wasn't at her best.

Softball has evolved some over the past decade to rely more on staffs, but that's really, at most, 3-4 pitchers (and usually 1 or 2 aces who pitch the bulk of the innings). It's not like baseball. If a team has 5-6 pitchers, it usually means they have none.

Also insane was how LSU was trying to intentionally walk a batter with a 1 run lead and runners on 2nd and 3rd. The pitcher somehow couldn't do the intentional walk. The first pitch was a strike that got by the catcher and a runner scored to tie. She then got to a 2-2 count while still trying to intentionally walk the batter. She then threw another one down the middle and the batter hit it for a double.

That happens way more than you will believe. Pitchers don't really practice intentional balls and it's like a mental block forcing them to purposely throw to a target that far away from the plate but using normal pitching mechanics.

We lost a HS district championship game years ago partially because our stud pitcher couldn't throw an intentional ball and just like yesterday, girl lined a strike down the middle to the gap that scored what ended up being the winning runs.

Also, I remember a game when Caitlin was 12 and a team tried to do something similar against us. Winning run was on 3rd and they wanted to intentionally walk the batter to create a force at any base but the girl didn't know how to throw a pitch for an intentional ball so they told her to roll it in - and it hit some pebbles, popped over the catcher's glove to the backstop, and we scored the winning run.

The win probability chart from @UWSoftball's comeback win to claim the Seattle Regional ��

Powered by @643charts �� pic.twitter.com/DahNqTZln9

— D1Softball (@D1Softball) May 22, 2023

Woof!!!

Yeah, my wife used to pitch and said it's crazy hard compared to baseball. I was like, can't you just slow pitch it up there and she said it's just not something you do.

But back to McNeese, even if you only have 2 pitchers, up 6-0 you cant let a pitcher get slow burned like he let her. I could understand if Washington was just hitting homer after homer, but the girl was either throwing balls or meatballs to 8 batters.

The Longhorns blew their chance at hosting one of the 16 regionals. They lost their first two games of the Big 12 tourney.

WVU, too. :(

Miami advances to the semifinals but, man oh man, watching the ACCN coverage is just brutal.

Looking for something to watch and came across the SoCon tournament at 8 AM.

First off it's currently 50 degrees and very windy here in Greenville. Everyone looks miserable to be there first thing in the morning.

Second, it's supposed to get colder and then rain from about noon today til noon tomorrow.

Third, there's no longer a Greenville school in the SoCon for baseball. Furman dropped their team a few years ago. Just weird that they're still having it here.

Yeah they moved the Stanford/Duke softball super regional game 2 to 9am this morning. Stanford is 6 outs from advancing and I'm sure they are hoping not to have to try to squeeze a game 3 in over the next couple of days.

Just glad the Sun Belt tourney is in Alabama and not here in Myrtle, would have been no baseball until maybe tomorrow afternoon. Coastal is in the semis there

And they lost the first game of the double elimination round to Louisiana, and will play them again later tonight to stay alive

And now they have lost both :(

Well, OU almost got upset by Clemson in game 2 of the super regional - down 7-4 in the 7th, twice down to their final strike, they get a 3 run HR to tie it and then win in the 9th.

That's a D1 record 48 straight wins. Just since 2019, OU has reeled off win streaks of 40, 40, 41 and now 48. It's not even fair at this point. It's like Connecticut women's basketball or the old UCLA men's basketball. Except in softball/baseball, you really can't expect to win every game. And yet they do.

18-41 Tulane gets hot at the right time and beats top seeded East Carolina to win the conference tournament and move to the regionals. Crazy

Coastal had a no-hitter thru 6 and a five run lead, but can't get anybody out yet so far in the 7th and have blown the lead

And yet they somehow got it to extra innings where they then lost 11-10

Womens world series started last night. Huskies-Utah game was PPD because they can't start after 11:00. Was played today. Here is the bitch. Losers bracket also played today, so whomever lost the game would have to play a second game today, an elimination game. Luckily Huskies won. Utah down 8-0 in elimination game. Kind of a raw deal.

Utah was the one team who could least afford to play 2 games in one day. They were already the weakest team in the WCWS and they got the fate they were probably going to get anyway. They just didn't have the pitching to survive.

3pm will be one of the most anticipated games of the season - OU vs TN. Tonight it's FSU vs UW. Today's winners have to be beaten twice not to make the finals, and then it's 2 out of 3 which - assuming OU makes it - will be almost impossible for OU to lose.

Chants start out with a grand slam in the 1st, let's see if they can keep this lead against Wilmington

Coastal gets a much needed complete game in the elimination game and wins 12-2. Pitcher gave up no walks, and a HR.

In a sign of how dominant OU is, Tennessee decided to start its 3rd best pitcher - a freshman - and once she gave up 3 runs, they pulled her and brought in a pitcher who had thrown 16 total innings on the year, and now they're using a freshman who barely pitched at all. This game will be a run rule by the 5th.

So in essence, Tennessee thought their best chance to get to the championship series was giving up this game against OU, and because the loser crosses over to the other bracket, they'll have to win 2 games against the winner of UW/FSU. If they can do that, they get OU in the champ series with OU never having seen their 2 best pitchers.

The announcers are pissing me off because they aren't considering the strategy at all.

I understand the strategy involved, but a flop in baseball/softball just seems "off" not sportsman/women like. It will be interesting to see if it works though.

Sun Belt looking good so far today with Coastal's win, Louisiana scoring 19 runs in staving off elimination, and in the 7th inning Southern Miss ahead of #1 seed Auburn by 4 runs.


Also looking like #1 seed Oklahoma State is going to be eliminated as they are behind 11-1

We had an amazing day. My daughters softball team is in the best of 3 championship against an undefeated team. We lost game 1 Thursday night. We won 7-2 today, played an amazing game. My daughter batted third and went 2-2 with a walk, RBI, SB, and 2 runs scored. The coach of the other team is a gigantic asshole so it was even sweeter. Final game is Monday.

After we had an end of season pool party at my house. All the girls swam and I grilled, one of the families owns a brewery so there was beer. Most of these kids have been friends since kindergarten, and they are accepting of the ones who haven't been, so it is great to see them grow together everyone had a blast. We have a gazebo with an outdoor TV and at one point they were all in there watching OU-UT game and were so in to it.

Now my daughters best friend on the team is sleeping over tonight.

This is what it is all about gents.

What age?

9-10

Do we have a college softball thread? Either way that was a great play by the FSU shortstop to end the game.

I've been posting about SB in this thread. Yeah, FSU seems to come up with that kind of stuff routinely. When they got knocked out in regionals at home last year, it was a shock.

Stop me if you've heard this before-Coastal out to a big lead early 8-0 over Rider, who almost beat Duke last night. If they can get another near complete game now it would be a big boost in the final against Duke.

Coastal had another strong performance from its starter, going into the 7th inning with a no-hitter before tiring and the bullpen showing again the opposite, but Coastal wins 13-5 and advances to face Duke at 6pm.


Clemson also had a no-hitter against Charlotte for a while, but now Charlotte has gone ahead late and has eliminated Clemson

Iowa/North Carolina in what you don't want today game-extra innings in the 12th right now

Coastal jumped out early big again, but Duke came right back and took the lead. Coastal tied it then took the lead late, and held on for dear life to win 8-6. Deciding game tomorrow.