After an exciting season, America’s most underrated sport marches closer to crowning a champion. This weekend, the home stadiums of the top eight teams in NCAA Division I baseball will host the Super Regional tournaments.
For the uninitiated, the NCAA college baseball post-season takes place in four tiers. Last weekend, the top 16 teams hosted the double-elimination Regional tournaments. The winners of those tournaments play in this weekend’s Super Regionals, which are best-of-three series. Those eight winners will move on to the College World Series (CWS), which has taken place in Omaha, Neb., since 1950. The final two teams to emerge from that double-elimination series will play in the CWS Finals, another best-of-three series.
Seven of the eight host teams will play in the Super Regionals. The University of Arkansas, a team that was ranked number one at one point in the season, didn’t advance. Two teams, the University of Evansville and West Virginia University, are playing in their first Super Regional, while the University of Georgia (Go Dawgs!) is playing in the Supers for the first time since 2008 and Clemson University is in its first Super Regional since 2010.
Five teams from the Southeastern Conference (SEC) will play in the Super Regionals, but what’s interesting is that the last four CWS champions, all SEC teams, haven’t made it this far in the playoffs this year. Additionally, five teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) are playing. The other conferences with teams in the Super Regionals include the Missouri Valley Conference, the Big East Conference, the Big 12 (two schools), and the Pac-12 (two schools).
ESPN's Ryan McGee suggests that we could see four SEC and four ACC teams making it to Omaha in what he calls the "Game of Southern Thrones."
"The record for most teams from one conference is four, accomplished by the SEC on four occasions and by the ACC once," he writes. "Should we end up with four from each, someone please be sure to pack some extra barbecue sauce on the way to Nebraska."
Flashback to Last Year’s College World Series: The College World Series Will Bring the Fireworks on Monday Night. Here's a Totally Not Unbiased Look.
Here are some of the storylines to watch this weekend. Top-ranked Tennessee faces playoff rookie Evansville in Knoxville, Tenn. The Tennessee Volunteers have been hard to beat all season long, but the Purple Aces will do their best. The University of Connecticut is coming off an almost error-free performance in its Regional, but it faces a tough foe in eighth-ranked Florida State.
Both Kansas State and 12th-ranked Virginia swept their Regional games and face off in Charlotteville, Va.; one of Virginia’s stars is a former quarterback turned baseball player. First-time Super Regional contender West Virginia has a tough foe in perennial powerhouse North Carolina, who made its way to the Super Regional in an exciting extra-innings game, defeating defending champs Louisiana State University.
The University of Kentucky has been hard to beat this year, but Oregon State will try its best. Both Oregon State and the University of Oregon are the last Pac-12 teams to play in postseason baseball. Oregon will face off against another tough SEC foe in Texas A&M.
The University of Florida struggled in the latter half of its season, but the Gators came back to life in the Regional. Florida will face Clemson, but will Clemson rely on trickery to win the Super Regional the way it did against Regional foe Coastal Carolina?
Last but not least — definitely not least in my eyes — the Georgia Bulldogs make their triumphant return to the Super Regionals in Athens, Ga., under first-year head coach Wes Johnson. They face a somewhat familiar foe in North Carolina State University, who played the Dawgs in the 2008 Super Regional, the last time UGA made it this far in the postseason.
McGee writes that "supers weekend is also the last chance for college baseball to do a little showing off for the national sports audience in the friendly confines of some of the most colorful venues and crowds to be found anywhere in the sports world, not just the college sports world." It's an opportunity for the host schools to show off what is such a criminally underappreciated sport, and hopefully, college baseball will pick up some new fans along the way.
It’s going to be a fun weekend with lots of twists and turns. I’m sure you can guess who I’ll be cheering for, but I’m excited about the whole slate of games. This is why I love college baseball so much!
Sports are a lot of fun, but sometimes it can be tough to cut through the woke nonsense that has invaded every part of our culture these days. You can help us report on culture through an unfiltered lens by becoming a PJ Media VIP.
Not only does your VIP membership come with some terrific benefits — exclusive content, podcasts, access to the comments section, and an ad-free experience — but it also helps us stay independent and avoid the self-appointed gatekeepers of the left-wing narrative.
VIP Gold gives you VIP benefits across the entire Townhall family of sites and live chats like Five O’Clock Somewhere. It’s all a great value on its own, but if you use the promo code SAVEAMERICA, you’ll get 50% off! There’s never been a better time to join the cool kids as a PJ Media VIP.
Author's note: I accidentally referred to West Virginia University as the University of West Virginia, but I fixed it. My sincerest apologies to all Mountaineers.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member