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The Road To Omaha


Greggulator

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The Road to Omaha begins this Friday. I think this is the best sporting event in the country, even beyond March Madness. I got into it a few years ago via this pool I'm in. It is insanity.  Here is why:

1) The format is incredible. It's a 64 team tournament like March Madness. The College World Series itself is the final eight teams. But what happens is the NCAA gives 16 teams the top seeds. They each host a four-team pod in the regionals. These are all double elimination mini-tournaments that start Friday. If it breaks right, then we get something called "If Necessary Monday." This is a winner-take-all battle. It's great. After this is the Super Regionals. Winner of Pod A will face the WInner of Pod B (and so on) in a Best 2-out-of-3 series. The the final eight head to Omaha where it is another double elimination tournament until one wins. 

It is utter chaos. There is nothing like it when the host of a pod loses its first game. 

2) The games themselves can be nuts. The combination of metal bats (which improve offense) and a lack of pitching depth (even the best teams have essentially 2 starters, 1 quality reliever and a bunch of whatever) means no games are safe.

3) The managers do not care at all.  Your starter pitcher threw 110 pitches over eight innings yesterday? He will be a relief pitcher the next day and then a starter again the day later. In a jam and headed into extra innings? Why not use your shortstop who pitched all of three innings all year and leave him in? 

4) The atmosphere is nuts in a lot of places. College baseball has a huge cult following in a lot of areas. It's really crazy to hear a marching band during a baseball game. Or seeing cheerleaders. A few stadiums will have 3,000 seats but have giant outfield tailgate/standing room areas. Or a dorm room can easily be a target for an outfielder who can rake.

5) Upsets and Cinderalla runs happen. Coastal Carolina won it all two seasons ago. Columbia had Miami on the ropes a few years ago. Stony Brook made it to Omaha. (Also: Any team in the northeast is automatically a Cinderella team. The shitty weather makes them suck. But UConn and St. John's both have chances to black some eyes en route to the tournament.) The two really good mid-majors this year are Stetson (who are hosting a regional) and Tennessee Tech (Top 25 team this year).

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College World Series in both baseball and softball is really and truly the worst part about not having cable. Such fucking amazing drama, for all the reasons you mentioned. I was like crazy into the 1989 Wichita State team that won, for some reason. I think that 10 year old me just dug their unis.

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I only just saw this. I am staying in Athens at the moment, and the Athens Regional has been my first ever live baseball.

There's been issues with lightning here, so we only just had Game 6. Duke ground out a W, so we will now play Game 7. Obviously I hope we pull it out, but it has been a great experience though my sunburnt knees may disagree.

Duke were almost first team eliminated, and probably the 2nd lightning delay saved them, but pulled out a crazy 9th innings to put Campbell out. I was thinking that maybe luck was on their side. It seems that way.

If Georgia win, then they host the super regional this weekend.

Go Dawgs!

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Sadly, Troy did win the 2nd match as well (deservedly so to be honest) to take the Regional. Oh well, I can concentrate on getting drunk and watching bands next weekend. Duke go on to play Texas Tech in the Super Regional.

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Regional round finished today. In the d1baseball.com bracket challenge, I got 10 of 16 regional winners correct, which is better than I thought I would do.

Super Regional matchups for this upcoming weekend, best of 3 series, starting Friday.

Auburn at Florida

Duke at Texas Tech

South Carolina at Arkansas

Tennesee Tech at Texas

Washington vs Cal State Fullerton (both teams were seeded third, home team will be announced when NCAA officially announces the Super Regional start times tomorrow)

Vanderbilt vs Mississippi State (same as above, but both were seeded second)

Stetson at North Carolina

Minnesota at Oregon State

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  • 2 years later...
4 hours ago, Dolfan in NYC said:

Fuck it, let's make this the CBB thread: 

 

 

The real star of that is the director who had a camera there AND got switched to it in time for the catch.

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I just want to pop in here and thank @Greggulatorfor FINALLY making me understand how the college baseball playoffs work!  I've been confused by that for years.  Hell, I've even shot college world series games (often from about the same place that commentator made the awesome catch; foul balls are not fun!) and I still didn't get it.  Thanks for breaking that down.

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  • 1 month later...

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Regional pairings announced for the CWS. Cal-Irvine's EATERS jersey is the clubhouse leader for me. EDIT: Now with hats!

Anyone know why ODU is "hosting" the Columbia regional on USC's field?

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On 6/2/2021 at 10:18 AM, Pete said:

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Regional pairings announced for the CWS. Cal-Irvine's EATERS jersey is the clubhouse leader for me. EDIT: Now with hats!

Anyone know why ODU is "hosting" the Columbia regional on USC's field?

I believe that this year because of COVID you had to apply to have a stadium host. ODU for some reason decided not to do so.

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Also,  I cannot insist enough that everyone watched this. If you have ESPN3 or the like, they have a studio show called Squeeze Play that does live look-ins at the 40,000,000 games going on or will have a “Quad Box” showing all four games at once. 

There have been so many awesome things already. It is March Madness times 500000. 

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4 hours ago, Greggulator said:

Also,  I cannot insist enough that everyone watched this. If you have ESPN3 or the like, they have a studio show called Squeeze Play that does live look-ins at the 40,000,000 games going on or will have a “Quad Box” showing all four games at once. 

There have been so many awesome things already. It is March Madness times 500000. 

As the resident uniform dork, this is like Christmas morning for me with all the awesome college duds. Love the outfield beer shower in Oxford for the Rebel grand slam just now.

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OH MAN. Tennessee with a walk-off grand slam (apparently the NINTH dinger of the game) to beat Wright State 9-8 in Knoxville. The hitter (Drew Gilbert) Cadillacs all the way around the bases and throws his helmet 100 feet in the air BEFORE he even touches home. What I wouldn't give for the umpire to call him out for unsportsmanlike conduct... I don't even care if that isn't a thing.

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Florida was ethered 19-1 by South Alabama (worst home loss since 1974) to get bounced from the CWS... and that isn't even close to the craziest scoreline today after the Irish mauled UConn 26-3. What is it with the nutty scores this year?

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On 6/4/2021 at 9:55 PM, Hail Sabin said:

James Madison punched their Ticket to the Semi Finals of the WCWS becoming the 1st unranked team to go 2-0 in the WCWS. 

JMU softball is the best story in sports right now. Their pitcher last night pulled off an all-time play last night in the bottom of the 7th (only 7 innings in softball) to save the game.

 

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1 hour ago, Pete said:

Florida was ethered 19-1 by South Alabama (worst home loss since 1974) to get bounced from the CWS... and that isn't even close to the craziest scoreline today after the Irish mauled UConn 26-3. What is it with the nutty scores this year?

The UConn game they probably let some random freshman relievers finish up since they have to now win three games in a row to try and sneak to the Super Regionals. 
 

Florida I have nothing for you other than they just suck. 

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The crowds at a lot of these games have been absolutely insane. Fans started hopping on top of the dugout at ECU when they took the lead late. Miss State, Arkansas, Columbia and TCU have also been pretty chaotic. And so is The Love Shack at La Tech.

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