Which regionals/regional games are you looking forward to? UNC/LSU is a no brainer to me. The All Louisiana/Texas Regional in College Station should be pretty fun too. Look for UL-Lafayette to come out that Regional beating A&M in the Final.
I think ECU falls in It's own regional to Wake. Cue the violins and the "ECU got an unfavorable draw again" stuff cause they are going out again. IF they don't fall in regional play they would most certainly lose to the Vols barring injuries or a Christmas miracle in June.
While I don't think Tulane wins the Corvallis regional, I am certainly hoping they do. I do think they make the Final in a rematch vs UC Irvine. That would be a great rematch considering Tulane wouldn't mind dishing payback to UCI after a home sweep at Turchin early in the season.
As we've seen, there are upsets every year, so with that in mind, I have to think Tulane is the most likely candidate to pull one as fomar as 4 seeds go. They went on an absolute TEAR in the AAC Tournament which included 2 run rule victories which saved their bullpen for the title game vs Wichita State. Tulane averaged a tad over 11 runs per game in the four games they played(again, two of them being 7 inning games). Couple that with their pitching having been straightened out since the UCI series, that Corvallis Regional will be fun.
I'm looking at the Athens Regional as my sneaky fun regional; Georgia and Georgia Tech are rivals an both can rake. 2-seed UNCW and Army both can pitch a little bit; 25th and 19th respectively in the country in staff ERA. It's an interesting mix of teams, not to mention you have Charlie Condon, Drew Burress, and Tanner Thach all in the same venue? I'm here for it.
@brendan-stepek That'll be a fun one for sure. Squeeze Play on ESPN+ will be working overtime on my phone.
Nicholls State SP Jacob Mayers beats UCI which is then eliminated by Tulane who loses regional to the Beavers.
https://geauxcolonels.com/sports/baseball/roster/jacob-mayers/6159
I think it's so hard to look at the brackets in baseball and get excited about #3 & #4 seeds. There's a couple of teams that make noise every year but rarely is anyone really predicting them. Rather, it seems, they stun a 1 seed out of nowhere and then go on a bit of a tear. Think Stony Brook in 2012, Davidson in 2016, etc
If you feel that teams carry momentum from the conference tourneys then Tulane, Evansville, Southern Miss, Duke, Vandy, South Carolina, etc would be definite teams to watch. I tend to think that's overplayed, and often a deep run in the conference tourney can leave your team gassed.
I think it'll be fascinating to see how the Big 12 teams fare this week. By all accounts it was a down year for that conference. Was that because they beat up on each other (because there's certainly roster talent) or because it's just a down year. OU and oSu are both hosting and both are among the favorites to get bounced by power 5 #2 or #3 seeds.
The "big" ACC & SEC 2 seeds are what I'm most fascinated by because they have talent aplenty but have been up and down most of the year. Duke, Wake, Miss St, Vandy, S.Caro, LSU... All could win and the majority of them might be betting favorites.
I'm pretty fascinated by the West Coast hosts. I'm one of the few believers in the Beavers it seems. But those three host sites all avoided even a single ACC/SEC entrant. I think Arizona is the most likely to go down to DBU or WVU
And finally, which mid-majors jumps up and makes a run? "Every 8 years" is a thing, right? If so 2024 is the year we're due a mid-majors champ following up on 2008 Fresno and 2016 Coastal. ECU could be if Yesavage and their 2 named closer are right but I think they lose their own regional. Louisiana probably has the best path if they can somehow knock off A&M and texas then beat the UCSB regional winner. But give me Dallas Baptist to potentially make a run out of the Tucson regional.
Oregon State regional won’t be decided til Tuesday unless they move that final game to early morning Sunday. Big storm.
@david-anthony I expect we'll see more than a little shifting of start times around the country with the weather in the NW as well as Texas and the mid-South.
So now that all Day 1 games are officially finished (KState/LaTech rain delayed and finished today) we have some interesting results...
#1 seeds go 14-2 with ECU and Arizona headed to the Losers bracket.
But #2 seeds only go 5-11 on the day. Ouch.
Wow. Just WOW. Not a single #2 seed made it through to the Supers. Amazing.
- Ten #1 seeds
- ZERO
- FIVE #3 seeds
- And Evansville
There's two #1 v. #1 matchups, five #1 v. #3 and one #1 v. #4
Gonna be a great show again!!
