College Baseball
 

Any other big baseball fans out there?

Well, I'm not a stalker, but I do cheer for my Pepp Waves from afar in Seattle.

I love baseball, and since my husband went to Rice, this is the time of year that he can finally be excited about his school's athletic teams.

In 2004 the Rice baseball team won the first ever NCAA championship *in any sport* for the school!

At least they have that stellar education to fall back on.

Though Pepp has several NCAA championships, I can empathize. Does Rice at least have a football team?

They suit some guys up and send them out on the field... does that count?

Hey, that's one step up from us!

LOL. That's what I would say about Penn State baseball (at least they got a pretty new stadium last year).

Here's the rankings: http://www.baseballnews.com/polls/di...ntpolldivI.htm

I have to say Hotty Toddy for my Ole Miss Rebels! Oh and to cheer on my dad's favorite baseball team, The University of New Orleans Privateers!

Rivals.com has my Pepp Boys ranked #9. Woo-hoooo.

What colleges are known for great baseball programs?

Generally they tend to be in warm environments (the south, Calif., Arizona), because they definitely get the benefit of extra practice and players that grow up practicing year round. Some big schools like FSU, USC, UCLA, Ole Miss, Stanford and ASU are consistently good, but baseball's one of those college sports where smaller schools can shine, too. Rice, Pepperdine, San Diego and Loyola Marymount have consistently good programs. And then there are some state schools you never hear about in other sports but are great at baseball: Long Beach State, Cal St. Fullerton, Wichita State. Sometimes college baseball gets a black sheep in the mix, but it's often the same 30-35 schools battling for the top 25 every year.

Thanks, Peppy. I checked out rivals.com...does anyone know of a site that lists the top 50-100 schools?

I know it's pretty tough to make the team these days at Long Beach LMU, USD, CSUF and Pepperdine. Where do guys who want to play in college, but maybe aren't top 25 material try to play?

One thing to look at is Div. II or Div. III schools. They have some really consistantly good teams, too, but maybe their players don't get as much attention from some of the big recruiters. My brother wanted to play at Pepperdine soooooo bad, but the competition was stiff and so when he started getting letters from Chapman, he took a closer look and decided to go there instead. He was a pitcher there for his first year of college, before he burned out and transfered to WSU. At the time, Chapman was known as a good baseball program, but I have no idea the status of the program today.

Living in Omaha...you can kind of say that I have a pressing local interest. Surprisingly though, there are a lot of people who are die-hard CWS fans who really don't follow the season at all.

I definitely pay attention to the Big XII and it helps that my Huskers are playing phenomenally right now - makes it easy.

Other good baseball schools include, LSU, Miami (FL), and Texas (all of these are glaring omissions from the previous list). Nebraska used to be a doormat in the old Big 8 days, but since 2000 has been to the CWS three times and a top 8 National seed several times. You can also include Oklahoma State and Arizona as historically good teams.

I would definitely not include UCLA or Ole Miss in the previous list though.

The Wikipedia article showing CWS Appearances and titles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College...ces_.26_titles

Boyd's World does a pretty good job of predicting RPI's for teams during the season to give you an idea of where teams stack up.

http://boydsworld.com/baseball/rpi/currentrpi.html

The teams I listed was obviously in no way meant to be comprehensive. I only listed a few examples in a few categories (I do believe I mentioned Arizona, and Ole Miss and UCLA DO have good programs, whether they make it to Omaha or not. A number of teams that have very strong programs that simply don't make it to the CWS very often just because a number of teams are eliminated by that point of the playoffs.

ETA: Hmmm...maybe I was thinking of Mississippi St., not Ole Miss

Pepperdine just clinched its 31st consecutive 30+ win season. THAT is consistent!

GO WAVES

We are officially the #2 seed in the ACC tournament next week. There seem to only be three strong teams this year, Miami, UNC, and FSU.

Woo Hoo! The #20 Kentucky BatCats hit the 40-win plateau for the season this past Thursday.

The SEC is weak

My Huskers are imploding this weekend in Missouri, one week after taking A&M in what most people were calling the series of the year (game one went 16 innings - A&M won, Sunday turned into a doubleheader after rain on Saturday, and Nebraska engineered a 5 run bottom of the ninth to win the afternoon game, then came from behind again in the nightcap to win).

Not really sure what to make of what's happening. Midweek seemed like they were avoiding the emotional letdown by taking it to Creighton...but Mizzou is just lighting us up. We'll probably have to get to the Big 12 Championship game in order to reclaim our national seed.

BigRed-

Imploding would be the word to describe what I see happening to A&M down the stretch. They've damn near cratered after that 16 inning win in Lincoln. Its extremely disheartening.

i am definitely a HUGE baseball fan!!

Starts Wed, championship is Sunday at 1.

Nebraska screwed up getting a seed with their shenanigans last weekend, OK State, Irvine, or Fullerton will get it now. Losing is one thing, losing 22-9 is another.
Miami, UNC, FSU, Az State, Rice, and Texas A&M are all but guaranteed one at this point. I think NC State is going to be better than the 7 and 8 seeds.

Nice link!
FSU: 0/18 in CWS appearances... I say we're due!

I used to follow it a little, because I played baseball with guys who went on to college programs (a couple of D-1, others in lower divisions). Now, however, I mainly only follow it to see draft previews, so I can recognize some names after the major league draft.

One of my brothers' little brothers plays for UNF (D1) and we make fun of him endlessly while FSU beats them by 15 runs...

Haha - no one I played with went to a big program like that. They ended up at D-1 schools in the northeast.

I still like to brag sometimes about how I got a recruiting call from a coach after high school. Of course, it was a D-III school that had a hard time putting together a team, and would have taken anyone with high school varsity experience. But, those are just insignificant details...

Rice just got knocked out of the CUSA Tournament. First time Rice has been eliminated in two games since 1995.

Oh no!

wow... Rice and Texas are in the same regional.

Seeing as that my dad (big time UT alum) arrives tomorrow for a week's visit, and my husband has a passionate loyality to his school, Rice, well... I may have to disapear for a while.

It looks like my TCU is a 3 seed, but they are in the same regional as Okie State, who seems to be pretty good. I would love it if one year TCU was good enough to be a 1-seed and could host. They have a gorgeous new (in the last 5 years or so) stadium/complex that would make a great site.

Our adopted school of Vanderbilt (I worked there for 3 years while my husband did part of his medical training there) is a 2 seed, but I fear they blew their chance last year. So it goes with poor Vanderbilt. They find new ways to break your heart every single year.

My grad school, James Madison, is also in the tournment. So... plenty of teams to cheer for in our house this year. Hopefully we can have one of them make it to Omaha.

I saw that Columbia is in the tournament with a losing record (22-28) as is Texas Southern (16-32)!

Also noted that Florida and Florida State are in the same regional. Good luck to SECDom and PhiGam....

Fun times ahead!

A&M gets a pretty decent draw in their Regional. Granted DBU is pretty tough and actually took a game from the Ags in CS earlier this year, but A&M has had success against them(2 of 3) and Houston (W 13-6 in Houston) already this season. Hopefully the Ags can regain some confidence if they're able to come out of this Regional.

After that, its hard for me to decide if I'd prefer going to Rice for a Super, or hosting the 'sips in College Station. Law of averages just tells me that if we get another crack at the horns we should win one :)

Kitso
KS 361

I'm pretty pleased with Nebraska's draw. UC-Irvine will be tough, but manageable. Playing at home will be a big help, and we should be able to put our Friday starter - Johnny Dorn against UCI when we play them.

Anyways, the Big XII should be pretty disappointed about the 8 national seeds...went from looking like a 100% sure thing of having 2 in there to none...Both A&M and Nebraska really played their way completely out of those, but essentially are the 11th and 10th national seeds respectively based on the super regional pairings...Okie State failed to capitalize.

Pepperdine (#2 seed) takes on Arkansas (#3 seed) in the Stanford regional. UC Davis makes up the final team. I'm glad we at least got to stay in California. GO WAVES!

Univ of San Diego is playing Long Beach State. Go Dirtbags!

TELL me that's not a picture from 5 seasons ago....cause I submit that A&M's victory THIS season against Cougar High is a lot more relevant than a regional hosted 5 years ago, by a different coach and different team.

Way to throw the shocker though Cougar High, gotta make ya proud.

Kitso
KS 361

Amazing I post a pic and you automatically resort to the name calling. But hey I’m sure if U of H does get the opportunity to face A&M again they won’t be using their freshman mid-week starter.

As far as the “shocker” goes it’s been a part of U of H long before it had any pop culture significance and yeah it does make me dam proud to see it being thrown up at Olsen. Hopefully I’ll get a chance to see it again this year.

Pic that has just as much relevance to this regional as the one you posted.......

http://i22.photobucket.com/albums/b3...lacehelmet.jpg



Oh, and I'm willing to bet A&M won't be using its mid-week starter either this go around ;) Here's to a good weekend of Baseball, good luck against DBU, they're a legit 2 seed and have played some of the Big 12 teams tough.

Kitso
KS 361

It's a picture, brosef. Tssk, Tssk, Tssk....typical overly-sensitive, inferiority complexed Aggie. He was obviously just giving you a little shit. Calm yourself down.

This is just pure greatness by the way:

http://www.ericsiegmund.com/images/f...06rosebowl.jpg