2023 college baseball/softball thread

NCAA Selection Committee member 1: "Hey, let's put 13 or 14 regionals in the Southeast."

NCAA Selection Committee member 2: "Yeah, they never have rain or thunderstorms there!"

NCAA Selection Committee member 3: "Yeah, every game will go off like clockwork!"

NCAA Selection Committee member 4: "And let's put one in a city where there are no hotel rooms for the visiting teams or fans!"

 

A lot of people complain about replay across sports. But to me, it's worth the delay if it gets the call right. Tonight's Dabo U-Tennessee game is a good example. Bases loaded and one out in a tie game in the bottom of the 10th. Dabo guy hits a slow roller toward the middle. Vols get the guy at second and throw to first in hopes of completing the double play and getting out of it. Ump calls him safe. Tigers jump for joy. Celebratory music plays.
But wait. There's replay. Review clearly shows the throw beats the runner and the first baseman keeps his foot on the bag. The game continues. Two hours later -- or so it seems -- the Vols win.
Before replay, a bad call would have handed victory to the Dabos.

 

More hosts in trouble: Miami, Florida, Clemson and Kentucky all took losses, and Alabama is in a dogfight with Troy.

Also, Penn appears to be on its way to the championship round down in Auburn.

 

WTF was that guy running to first doing? Ball hit that slow, should have beaten it out easy.

 

Wild ending to Penn-Samford.
Samford cut a 5-0 deficit down to 5-3 and had runners at second and third with two outs (after having the bases loaded and no outs). Guy hits a grounder up the middle, shortstop's throw pulls the first baseman off the bag. Batter is safe and a run scores — but the trail runner rounds third too far. First baseman alertly sees it, throws across the diamond, and the runner is tagged for the final out. Penn hangs on to win and advances to the championship round.

 

Troy just threw the game away. Routine grounder to second. Bad throw for the Trojans' fourth error of the night.

 

Would have ended the game. The first baseman has got to get that ball, though. It was a bad throw, but not so bad that he couldn't have caught it and saved the second run if he comes off the bag.
Also, give some credit to Alabama. They tagged up both runners on a deep fly ball the batter before that, so they had second and third instead of first and third. Put themselves in position to score the extra run with some heads up baserunning.

... and now a triple that probably should've been ruled an error. Troy is just unraveling here.

 

Yep. Leave the bag. Catch the ball. Might even be able to tag the guy going by.

 

On Squeeze Play they made a good point that it was similar to the Penn-Samford play. In that game, the first baseman did leave the bag to corral the bad throw and was able to catch the guy rounding third. If Troy's first baseman leaves the bag, maybe he does the same thing.

 

Way under the radar, but from my area: Westmont College of Santa Barbara (or more specifically, the tonier area of Montecito) won the NAIA World Series, its first national title in baseball and first natty by a men's team since 1972. And as an "Oh, BTW," that's the last NAIA action (after seven decades) the school will ever see, because its moving to NCAA Division II.

https://athletics.westmont.edu/news...0k1W8Pu_xAkAx5XdjTfvOnAW3bNzw&mibextid=Zxz2cZ

 

Maryland brought in a freshman for the second pitching appearance of his career. Poor guy faced 4 hitters; walked 3 and allowed a hit. Now some other sucker is out there. 15-3 Deacs. Terps will play again in less than 10 hours.

 

It's always amazing that you get to the NCAA tourney, you're playing in your 61st game and you have to turn to a kid that's basically never pitched at all in the season. There's 11 guys on that roster that have thrown at least 28 innings this year. There's 15 that have thrown more innings than that kid. But that is who you turn to.