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Monday - May 25, 2009

Regional musings

Texas gets the #1 overall seed!

I like it and hate it. It's been forever since the #1 seed won the CWS (Miami in 2001). The last time one of the top 8 seeds won was Rice in 2003. Time to turn that around, eh?

The teams in the Austin regional (printable bracket):

1. Texas (official site)
2. Texas State (official site)
3. Boston College (official site)
4. Army (official site)

The Army selection is interesting. And, this is the first time in 42 years that BC's made the field. As always, I'd rather see teams we haven't faced in the year so am sorry to see Texas State again. I was rather expecting the committee to pair up Rice and A&M again 'cause they've done that the last couple of years. No, they've gone back to pairing Rice with LSU and they're pairing the Aggies with us. The winner of our regional plays the winner of the Ft. Worth (TCU) regional:

1. TCU
2. Texas A&M
3. Oregon State
4. Wright State

'Glad to see Oregon State back in. Not so glad to see them coming this way, though. Heh.

Here's the entire field:

I honestly can't believe the Big 12 got 8 teams in. I know I should root for lots of Big 12 teams to get into the tournament but Baylor lost 12 of 14 down the stretch...and they don't even have 30 wins on the year. And, OSU didn't make the conference tournament. I don't see how you make it into the regionals if you couldn't even make it into the conference tournament. Both of those picks just seem wrong. If you're one of the "power conference" schools, you should have to get 30 wins and make the conference tournament in order to make it into the field of 64. If you can't do that much, your spot should go to someone else.

And, they're saying...again...that due to the economy, they're trying to limit the amount of travel. What? You've paired up Louisville with Cal State Fullerton...and TCU with Texas. Why not switch Louisville and TCU? Send each bracket winner half-way across the country. Two halves make a whole...right? I'm a little perplexed, frankly, at TCU even being a host. What about Virginia instead? Their RPI and poll rankings are similar and Virginia has 7 more wins. It hardly seems fair to send Virginia to possibly the toughest Regional in the country while letting TCU host.

Oh well. I'm mostly happy. Texas is hosting again. And will host the next round if they take care of business. So, Hook 'em!

Posted by Joanna at 2:02 PM