Baseball 2015 NCAA Tournament Regional Round Overview
The selection show is in the books and the 64 team field is set for the road to Omaha. The committee, for the most part, did a pretty solid job of putting together this field. On the surface it would be easy to say that a Michigan State deserved to get in over Oregon because they swept the Ducks, but the reality is Oregon is peaking at the right time. Meanwhile, the Spartans stumbled down the stretch, including a series loss at Minnesota, and were very mediocre against the cellar dwellers of the Big Ten. Clemson also deserves credit for playing their way into the NCAA Tournament with a road sweep at Florida State, which is a task that is not easy to accomplish for any team since Dick Howser Stadium is a traditionally difficult place to win a series, let alone get a sweep.
The top eight national seeds have a very nice balance to them as you could arguably have flipped a coin with UCLA and LSU for the number one seed. Now, with the past track records of number one national seeds in the NCAA Tournament, if you are LSU you caught a break from the baseball gods by getting the number two national seed. First, LSU has a regional that they should be able to get through and get another shot at Houston in the Super Regionals. For UCLA, if you are going by name recognition than yes their Regional draw is a little tricky with Ole Miss, and Maryland coming to Los Angeles. However, the Rebels have had to scratch and claw all season long just to get to 30 wins and the Terrapins, while tournament worthy, have the challenge of flying cross-country over three time zones. That is never easy in the NCAA Tournament.
The Bruins will ride the starting pitching duo of James Kaprielian and Grant Watson in the starting rotation and David Berg in the closer’s role to get through this Los Angeles Regional without too much of a struggle as long they can get at least some timely hitting. On the opposite side of the Los Angeles Regional is the Lake Elsinore Regional, which has created a lot of controversy as UC Santa Barbara was awarded the opportunity to host despite playing nearly three hours away from campus. This has the recipe for disaster for the Gauchos if they don’t start fast in this regional. Fans aren’t going to make the drive for loser bracket games just for the sake of doing so. Thus, USC, Virginia and San Diego State have a golden opportunity in this regional to advance if they can hit the ground running and play well in all three phases, upset the Gauchos and move on to Super Regionals.
Other intriguing regionals that provide for number two or three seeds moving on include the Dallas Regional where Oregon State and Texas are on fire and perfectly capable of knocking out Dallas Baptist if they get rolling pitching wise. Indiana is going to be very dangerous in the Nashville Regional. They are getting healthier and have plenty of quality wins against Stanford, along with sweeps of Cal State Fullerton and on the road at Maryland. So going on the road to battle the defending national champions in Vanderbilt should not intimidate a Hoosier team that will be looking to atone for being upset by Stanford last year in the Bloomington Regional.
The Fullerton regional is the early nominee for the most likely regional to go the full seven games as the field of Cal State Fullerton, Arizona State, Clemson and Pepperdine is tremendous and is the posterchild of what a regional bracket should be with a great mix of regional and national teams. The team that can get to 2-0 in this regional is going to be in a huge position of strength as all four of these teams are going to beat each other up and play tightly contested games. Overall, this is one of the more balanced NCAA Tournament brackets that has been put together in the last few years and should provide college baseball fans with a very dramatic and potentially upset laden Regional round of baseball.
