I know it’s not March Madness or the BCS (thank God), but the brackets for college baseball’s National Championship were announced on Monday. Even though it doesn’t have the hype that the BCS has surrounding it; nor does it bring-in the hundreds of millions of dollars that the NCAA Basketball tournament generates in March, the college baseball tournament might be the FAIREST way to determine a national champion.
The opening weekend 16 Regionals that are their own, separate, 4-team, double elimination tournaments. One bad loss won’t cost a good team a chance at their dreams—but 2 losses will. But for teams that endure the opening weekend, that’s only the first step in the journey towards a national championship.
If a team can survive the first weekend of tournament play, the next challenge is a head-to-head series against another of the best 16 teams in the nation. For those 8 teams that win their series on the 2nd weekend; their biggest challenge STILL awaits them. For the teams that win their opening regional and then win their head-to-head Super Regional, they earn their spot in the 8 team, double-elimination College World Series in Omaha, Nebraska.
College basketball has their “Road to the Final Four,” college baseball has the “Road to Omaha.” For anyone that has attended the annual classic in Nebraska, they’ll tell you it’s one of the best atmospheres in all of sports. Take 8 of the best teams in the nation; add a college championship environment and the stadium that’s been hosting the event for almost 60 years.
As announced by the NCAA, here are the Top 8 National Seeds for this year’s tournament:
1. Texas Longhorns
2. Cal State Fullerton Titans
3. LSU Tigers
4. North Carolina Tar Heels
5. Arizona State Sun Devils
6. UC Irvine Anteaters
7. Oklahoma Sooners
8. Florida Gators
• The Regionals will take place this weekend starting on May 29th.
• Winners of the Regionals will earn the right to play in the Super-Regionals, which start on June 5th.
• All of that is simply a precursor to College World Series that starts on June 13th at Rosenblatt Stadium.
The College World Series won’t bump soap-operas off of CBS for a month and it won’t have around-the-clock coverage on ESPN—but if you love sports, you should carve out some time to check out a few games during the tournament. I look forward to it every year—there must be a reason why!
Matt Reitz is the Editor-In-Chief here at ViewFromMySeats.com and former NHL Writer for ProHockeyTalk on NBCSports. When he’s not shoving a mic in the face of NHLers or explaining why home teams should wear white, he’s usually trying to figure out what song to play next on his iPod. It’s a never-ending job.
