KP, The post-season is always fun. My single biggest issue, and this is another Kramer legacy, is that facilities come into play when they are talking about post-season reward. You have fantastic teams that wind up stuck on the road as a 2 or 3 seed playing a team that finished middle in the pack in conference with a resoundingly pathetic conference tournament showing. Still, I'd bet that the SEC gets at least 10 teams in this year's tournament. At least. Funny, the SEC is known for being the deeper conference with the B1G and others being top heavy. However, in conference tourney play, the B1G for example has had nothing but upsets while the SEC has pretty much gone the way it was suppose to go. Since you're an Alabama fan, you may want to check out exactly how Auburn lost yesterday. It was the most Auburn thing ever to Auburn.
Forgetting the SEC for a minute... Consider the case of Florida State. There are very few good arguments you can make for them to extend their 40 year post-season streak other than the fact that they have a 40 year post-season streak... Yet there the talking heads were making a case for them.
Well everybody complains about the NCAA Basketball tourney, the selections, the seedings, where teams are sent...so I guess it's the same for baseball.
I think it's a lot different in baseball, but the element of complaint is still there. KP, What's hurting you guys is that Tanner Burns flipped from Alabama to Auburn a couple of years ago. That's one of Carson's good friends. He was a top national recruit and when he flipped, he took a few guys with him down to the Barn. Those guys are all now Auburn's best players and pitchers. Alabama isn't far away, they just need to find a way to get the best players in state to stay home in Tuscaloosa.
To be clear, the biggest gripe about college baseball isn't usually who gets in (although there are cases like FSU as Corey said) but who hosts the regionals. This year A&M is not a top 16 team and so shouldn't get to host a regional, but not all the top 16 have facilities that can support a tournament, so inevitably... somebody gets hosed into going on the road when they should be at home.
Yes Scott is correct. My beef is that, in the past, there have been several instances in which a team with great facilities (UCLA, Cal State Fullerton, LB State) who could easily accommodate a Regional have been stuck on the road going to SEC/and sometimes ACC stadiums that are brand new multi-million dollar deals. It's whacky. It comes down to money, really.
If you have the B1G network, today was a good baseball day for you on cable. 3.3 games of high quality baseball that are all competitive games played with passion and love for the game. The SEC tournament has been really high quality ball as well, but most have the games have gone the way they were expected to go. The Pac12 doesn't have a tournament, unfortunately, but one day they'll learn.
Man, Vandy is blowing the doors off of LSU. Vandy really is the class of the SEC by far. The B1G tournament has been a dog fight. I believe we have two Game 2 semi-finals tonight. That should be fun. I had to leave the Michigan/Nebraska paddling to go to Girl Scouts... The things we do for the ones we love so dear.
Ohio State loses to Minnesota 9-6 earlier this evening. Being a double elimination tournament we will play the Gophers again at 11: tonight. A costly error in the eighth inning allowed three runs. Our pitching corps is in poor shape at the moment. We are just not that deep in the pitching department.
KP, Agreed. Don, Minnesota just keeps rolling arms out there until one of them looks impressive. It should be a really even contest between those two. Nebraska got blasted in their first semi-final, but they showed they had some hair on their chest. They got behind, but they never gave up. It's not all too surprising that Nebraska beat Michigan in the rematch to head to the championship. Also, the season ended (regular) with Nebraska and Michigan playing a best of 3. Then they played in other 3 times in the tournament and blood was running high between those two. There was a few times I thought the benches might empty. I'm glad cooler heads prevailed.
SEC fans, can someone tell me why Ole Miss is in the title other than the fact that they are the defending tournament champions and are playing with a bit more confidence than they had during the regular season? I thought for sure that Georgia would take them down in the semi-finals. Still, I think Vandy takes the SEC.
Looks like our game with the Gophers will be played at 11:00 this morning, with the winner playing Nebraska in the Championship game. We might still have a chance although a long shot to be sure!
I know this is about baseball but I would like to mention that the Alabama softball team is going to the World Series in Oklahoma City. They won the National Championship in 2012 and are regulars in the WS. It is really fun to watch because they play with so much enthusiasm.
Terry, yes they did. The last two games were nailbiters. Texas came back from 5-0 to win game 2 and almost came back in game 3.
Buckeyes up 8-1 in the 7th inning and allow 5 runs to make it a close game. Final score 8-6 in favor of Ohio State. We will meet Nebraska in an hour or thereabouts for the championship game. Big Red fans will pack the stadium for a home game. I can hardly wait for the train!