{"id":13884,"date":"2017-05-30T10:01:42","date_gmt":"2017-05-30T14:01:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=13884"},"modified":"2017-05-30T10:01:42","modified_gmt":"2017-05-30T14:01:42","slug":"cws-2017-field-of-64-announced-with-regional-predictions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=13884","title":{"rendered":"CWS 2017: Field of 64 announced with Regional predictions"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"CWS-2017_calendar-narrow\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Its that time of year again; Its College Baseball playoff season!<\/p>\n

On 5\/28\/17, a day before the entire field was announced, the 16 Regional hosts were announced<\/a>.\u00a0 These are also the top 16 seeds (though they only acknowledge the top 8 “national seeds”).\u00a0 The following day, the entire field was announced<\/a>.\u00a0 Here’s a look at the 16 regional tournaments w<\/span>ith some quickie thoughts.<\/p>\n

Each of these 4-team sets is listed in the “seed” in the regional, starting with the host. \u00a0I’ve organized them as they’ll meet in the super regionals.<\/p>\n

#1 Oregon State, with Nebraska, Yale and Holy Cross. \u00a0No challenges here for the #1 overall seed, which finished the season an amazing 49-4.
\n#16 Clemson, with Vanderbilt, St. Johns, UNC-Greensboro: Clemson draws the always-tough Vanderbilt, who may upset the Tigers.<\/p>\n

#8 Stanford, with Cal State-Fullerton, BYU, Sacramento State: tough draw for Stanford, who has a national seed for the first time in a while. \u00a0Fullerton is always a tough out.
\n#9 Long Beach State, with Texas, UCLA, San Diego State: wouldn’t be surprised to see the scrappy SDSU team make some waves here, nor would I be surprised watching Texas win this. \u00a0Texas may be one of the weaker #2 seeds, but the rest of this regional is weaker too.<\/p>\n

#5 Texas Tech, with Arizona, Sam Houston State, Delaware. \u00a0Texas Tech has quietly put together a monster season, and I see little to prevent them from sweeping through this regional.
\n#12 Florida State, with UCF, Auburn, Texas Tech. \u00a0We’ll get to the snubs below, but the fact that Florida State is hosting over UVA (not to mention Clemson) is kind of ridiculous.<\/p>\n

#4 LSU, with Southeastern LA, Rice and Texas Southern. \u00a0Odd to see Rice with a #3 seed, odder still to see SELA with a #2 seed. \u00a0LSU should breeze here.
\n#13 Southern Miss, with Mississippi State, South Alabama and Illinois-Chicago. \u00a0Tough draw for Southern Miss; Illinois-Chicago has one one of the best staffs in the country.<\/p>\n

#2 UNC with Florida Gulf-Coast, Michigan, Davidson. \u00a0Davidson’s first ever visit to the CWS tourney will be against\u00a0the #2 team in the land …though they’ll probably save\u00a0J.B. Bukauskas<\/strong> for the second game (likely against under-seeded Michigan). \u00a0Still, not much here to trouble UNC.
\n#15 Houston with Baylor, TAMU, Iowa. \u00a0Last team in TAMU, which did not suck in the SEC this year, probably makes this regional more interesting than Houston likely wants. \u00a0I could see either Houston or TAMU winning … but\u00a0based on Houston having kicked off their #1 starter .. i’ll go TAMU.<\/p>\n

#7 Louisville with Oklahoma, Xavier and Radford. \u00a0Good to see Radford representing the Commonwealth here; they’ll be two and out. \u00a0Louisville has the arms and shouldn’t be troubled by any of these teams.
\n#10 Kentucky with Indiana, NC State and Ohio. \u00a0NC State may give Kentucky a run for their money in this regional, but I don’t think they can beat them.<\/p>\n

#6 TCU with UVA, Dallas-Baptist and Central Connecticut. \u00a0The last time UVA got snubbed so badly, they went to a stacked UC-Irvine regional, battered\u00a0Stephen Strasburg<\/strong> in his final collegiate start, and made the CWS as a regional #3 seed. \u00a0Watch out TCU.
\n#11 Arkansas with Missouri State, Oklahoma State, Oral Roberts; I know little about any of these teams; Okla State is having a down year, Arkansas was 18-11 in the SEC West. \u00a0They’re a tough out.<\/p>\n

#3 Florida with South Florida, Bethune-Cookman, Marist. \u00a0Man, what an easy draw for Florida.
\n#14 Wake Forest with West Virginia, Maryland, UMBC. \u00a0Well, the West Virginia-Maryland game should be interesting; does either team have enough to beat a good Wake Forest team?<\/p>\n

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Easiest Regionals<\/strong><\/span>: Oregon State & Florida<\/p>\n

Hardest Regionals<\/span>:\u00a0<\/strong>TCU, Stanford<\/p>\n

Regional Predictions<\/span><\/strong> (in the order listed above): Oregon State, Vanderbilt, CS-Fullerton, Long Beach State, Texas Tech, Florida State, LSU, Mississippi State, UNC, TAMU, Louisville, Kentucky, UVA, Arkansas, Florida, Wake Forest.<\/p>\n

My Omaha predictions right now: <\/strong>#1\u00a0Oregon State, CS-Fullerton, #5 Texas Tech, #4 LSU on one side. \u00a0 #2 UNC, #7 Louisville, UVA, #3 Florida.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

DC\/MD\/VA rooting interests<\/span><\/strong>: UVA, Maryland, UMBC, Radford, plus Virginia-born players on UNC, NC State and Wake Forest rosters.<\/p>\n

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Snubs<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

The d1baseball.com guys think the last 3 teams out (roughly, ODU, Gonzaga and UConn) were more deserving than the last three teams in (roughly Maryland, St. Johns and TAMU). \u00a0But they also admit that its nit picking to some extent. \u00a0There were 6 or so “stolen bids” when the non-favored team won a 1-bid conference tourney … leaving a lot of deserving teams on the sidelines.<\/p>\n

There’s some oddities in the draw<\/a>; too many Big10 teams, which was only the 7th ranked conference, yet the Conference USA (higher ranked) only got two teams in (this goes to the ODU snub).<\/p>\n

But the biggest, least defensible decision was to give Clemson the #16 seed\/last host over UVA. \u00a0UVA beat Clemson 10-2 in the ACC tourney<\/a>, finished with a better conference and overall record<\/a> than Clemson, and (to say nothing about Clemson’s hosting) had similar arguments for hosting versus Florida State. \u00a0Then to add insult to injury … UVA gets sent to TCU’s regional. \u00a0Did UVA piss off the committee for some reason?<\/p>\n

Marquee Draft-related players to watch<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

I won’t go through all 64 teams, but here’s some of the more interesting names to keep an eye on:<\/p>\n