A few things have been stirring in my mind lately...
1. Is Arizona State really that good, or is the rest of the Pac 10 just down this year? The Sun Devils (29-8 overall) lead the conference with a 13-2 mark heading into this weekend's series at Cal. Oregon State and Washington State are the next closest league contenders with 8-4 Pac 10 records. Those two teams have respective overall marks of 23-9 and 19-17. The only other team in the conference with an overall record better than .500 is USC (20-17, 9-6).
2. Will the Big 12 get a team to Omaha this year? Texas, Baylor and Nebraska all advanced to the 2005 College World Series, but the Big 12 has not had a representative at Omaha since. Texas leads a half-dozen Big 12 teams that will contend for an NCAA regional bid, but all of those teams have head-scratching series losses in conference play. Will that competition give them a leg-up in the post-season?
3. Who will be this year's Fresno State? As of now the Bulldogs (18-20) could follow Oregon State's lead by being the second straight defending national champion to miss the NCAA tournament the following year. They're batting just .268 with a 5.51 team ERA. As for candidates for this year's Cinderella: I wouldn't want to be a #2 seed at an NCAA regional and have to play West Virginia. It's a line-up full of though outs that all "ding it". For that reason, I also wouldn't want to have to face the Mountaineers with my third or fourth starter on the mound. (Think Louisville two years ago.)
4. Can Eastern Illinois keep going without Brett Nommensen? The centerfielder is having surgery to repair the hamate bone in his right wrist, and a 4-6 week recovery time sinks the rest of his senior season. He was hitting .521 with 11 home runs, 13 doubles, and a nation's best 1.670 OPS at the time he was injured. EIU is 27-8, and has lost just once since Nommensen was injured, but a return to an NCAA regional will be tougher without their catalyst.
5. Who's the best team in the brutal SEC? Georgia staked a claim by taking 2 of 3 from Arkansas last week, but LSU won its series with the Bulldogs earlier this month before dropping two games to Tennessee last weekend. The Razorbacks are at Tennessee this weekend, and finish with conference series vs. LSU, at Alabama and vs. Ole Miss. The top 3-4 spots in each SEC division could turnover before the conference tournament starts a month from now.
No comments:
Post a Comment