{"id":18528,"date":"2024-06-20T12:34:05","date_gmt":"2024-06-20T16:34:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=18528"},"modified":"2024-06-20T12:34:06","modified_gmt":"2024-06-20T16:34:06","slug":"2024-cws-coverage-omaha-group-play-and-finals-preview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/?p=18528","title":{"rendered":"2024 CWS Coverage &#8211; Omaha Group Play and Finals preview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>We&#8217;re to the final of the 2024 CWS tournament; here&#8217;s a recap of group play in Omaha.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Resources\/links I use heavily during CWS time:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Here&#8217;s D1Baseball.com&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/d1baseball.com\/college-baseball-tournament-central\/\">Tournament Central<\/a>, my favorite place to track the tourney.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>ESPN&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/college-sports\/story\/_\/id\/40137717\/college-baseball-2024-mcws-ncaa-tournament-watch-schedule-scores\">tournament coverage home page<\/a><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Here&#8217;s the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ncaa.com\/news\/baseball\/article\/2024-05-26\/2024-ncaa-baseball-bracket-mens-college-world-series-scores-schedule\">NCAA.com field of 64<\/a> with some great data points at NCAA.com<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>In the Top&nbsp;Bracket<\/strong> ( #1 Tennessee, #8 Florida State, #12 Virginia, #4 UNC )<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>In the opening games<\/strong>, UNC tied the game in the 7th and walked-it off on star <strong>Vance Honeycutt<\/strong>&#8216;s bottom of the ninth RBI single to win it 3-2.  Tennessee came back to score FOUR in the bottom of the ninth, three of them with two outs, to steal a win from Florida State.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In the first elimination game,<\/strong> Florida State cruised past UVA to send the Cavaliers home 2-and-out.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In the winner&#8217;s bracket game<\/strong>,#1 Tennessee cruised past #4 UNC 6-1 to take control of the group.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In the play-in game<\/strong>, Florida State took out UNC to earn a rematch with Tennessee for the title game.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In the group final<\/strong>, Tennessee cruised past FSU 7-2 to win the group going away.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Final Group standings<\/strong>: Tennessee, FSU, UNC, UVA<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>In the Bottom Bracket<\/strong> ( #3 Texas A&amp;M, Florida, #10 NC State, #2 Kentucky)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>In the opening games<\/strong>, Seeds held as #3 TAMU and #2 Kentucky held serve to move to the winner&#8217;s bracket game.  Kentucky continued the trend of late-game comebacks so far, getting a HR in 9th to tie it and send it to extras, and then walking off with a homer to win it in the 10th.  TAMU got 3 runs early and made it stick against Florida.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In the first elimination game,<\/strong> Florida eliminated the one ACC team in the group, getting a 3-run homer from its star Caglianone and making the lead stick.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In the winner&#8217;s bracket game<\/strong>, TAMU exploded for 5 runs in the sixth to break up a 0-0 game and Kentucky didn&#8217;t get a hit until there was 2 outs in the 7th to never challenge.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In the play-in game<\/strong>, which was delayed by weather, Florida destroyed #2 Kentucky with 7 in the first and with a final score of 15-4 to get another crack at TAMU in the regional final.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>In the group final<\/strong>, TAMU blanked Florida 2-0 to win the group going away and advance to the final.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Final Group standings<\/strong>: TAMU, Florida, Kentucky, NC State<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Analysis\/commentary<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Well, you can&#8217;t ask for much more than #1 versus #3.  Both teams dominated this entire off season, with only an 11-10 blip against Evansville being a loss either team has suffered.  The CWS was stocked, and the two best SEC teams have advanced to the final (with all due respect to #2 Kentucky of course).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Projected 1st Rounder Performance:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We&#8217;ve been tracking the same crew of players since the opening round; there&#8217;s a few 1st rounders who were in Omaha; here&#8217;s how they performed (note: TAMU is in Omaha but their projected top 5 pick is out with a broken ankle).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Jac Caglianone<\/strong>, 1B\/LHP Florida: 2-3 with a dbl and a BB in game one. 1-3 with a 3run HR in game two, which he also started but got pulled at 33 pitches in the first.  In game 3; 2-2 with 3BBs and a solo homer in Fla&#8217;s destruction of KY.  Went 2-4 in Florida&#8217;s shutout to exit.  What a CWS.  Caglianone probably convinced the entire MLB world how good his bat is and how unreliable he is on the mound for the final time<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Cam Smith<\/strong>, 3B, Florida State: 1-3 with 3BB in the opener. 1-3 with a dbl in game 2. 0-5 in game 3.  0-4 in Game four.  A dud of a CWS.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>James Tibbs<\/strong>, OF, Florida State: 1-6 with 4 Ks (ouch) in the opener. 0-2 with 2 BB in game 2. 1-4 with 2BB in game 3.  Just 1-4 in the final.  After a fantastic super regional, he no-showed the CWS unfortunately.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Vance Honeycutt<\/strong>, CF, North Carolina: Just 1-5 in the opener but that one hit won the game in the bottom of the 9th. Went 1-3 with another HR in game 2. 3-5 with a third straight HR in the last.  Honeycutt certainly left scouts with a heck of an impression and probably made himself some last minute money by pushing his draft stock into the mid 1st round.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Christian Moore<\/strong>, 2B, Tennessee: 5-6 and hitting for the cycle in the opener (!!), 1-4 in game 2.  2-4 with 2 runs in the gruop final.  Solid CWS<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Billy Amick<\/strong>, 3B, Tennessee: 2-4 in the opener. 0-3 in game 2.  2-5 with 2R in the group final.  4-12 for the CWS group stage but with little in the way of power.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-css-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>CWS Preview and Prediction<\/strong>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think i like #1 Tennessee to enter as #1 and win as #1.  Normally i focus on pitching matchups, but neither Tennessee or TAMU really is driven by pitching.  TAMU&#8217;s workmanlike advancing without their best player is impressive for sure, but will probably be the difference maker.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We&#8217;re to the final of the 2024 CWS tournament; here&#8217;s a recap of group play in Omaha. Resources\/links I use heavily during CWS time: In the Top&nbsp;Bracket ( #1 Tennessee, #8 Florida State, #12 Virginia, #4 UNC ) Final Group standings: Tennessee, FSU, UNC, UVA In the Bottom Bracket ( #3 Texas A&amp;M, Florida, #10 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-college"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18528"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18544,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18528\/revisions\/18544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalsarmrace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}