NCAA Baseball Committee Drops the Ball … Again

By Jorge Bannister
Fan Fanatic Sports Staff

For the second year in a row, Larry Templeton and the NCAA Division 1 Baseball Committee screws one of the Top 8 seeds in the Regional tournament.

Last year it was the top-seeded Miami Hurricanes. This year it’s No. 6 UC-Irvine. If the Anteaters show any anger toward the NCAA Division 1 Baseball Committee, so be it. It’s a legitimate beef.

Jim Morris expressed his disappointment in an interview on ESPN about his No. 1 Hurricanes receiving the teams in its regional. Who were they? Oh, you know, just Missouri, Ole Miss and Bethune Cookman & the toughest Regional in the entire tournament.

This year, UC-Irvine has to go through Virginia, San Diego State and Fresno State just to make it to the Super Regionals.

Fat chance.

Fresno State is the defending National Champions. They are a -- you guessed it -- four seed in the Irvine Regional. The Bulldogs were a four seed last year and won the College World Series. The other two teams in the regional are Virginia and San Diego State. Virginia won the ACC title, and San Diego State boasts the best pitcher in college baseball today, Stephen Strasburg (13-0, 1.24 ERA).

It doesn’t matter if Virginia is going to face Strasburg, the Cavaliers -- who I have winning this regional (more on that later in the week) -- boast the third best ERA in the nation at 3.33.

Yep. No cakewalk.

Thank you again, committee, for ruining what is supposed to be the greatest time of the year for your game. I just can’t take them seriously.

Rhode Island Screwed, Too
Another team screwed by the committee was the University of Rhode Island.

The Rams defeated Miami -- at Miami -- and split a mid-week series with Oklahoma State.

When discussing the process of picking teams, Templeton, who is the director of athletics at Mississippi State, said that the fact that URI didn’t win the Atlantic 10 Conference in either the regular season or postseason was a big factor.

Really? A 19-6 record in the conference and a trip to the conference tournament finals means nothing? Interesting.

I’d rather see URI in the tournament than either Georgia Southern or Gonzaga, two- and three-seeds, respectively, in the Fullerton Regional. Hell, they should be there over Utah, who is 26-29.