The big news of the week is the NCAA’s decision to uphold penalties against the Arizona State baseball program. The long and short of it is, the Division I Infractions Appeals Committee has upheld a one year NCAA postseason ban for the Sun Devils, meaning ASU will not be allowed to participate in the 2012 NCAA Baseball Tournament.

The decision stems from violations of “lack of institutional control” when Pat Murphy was still the head coach in Tempe.

The NCAA handed down its initial decision earlier this year and before the 2011 NCAA Tournament. A lot of college baseball fans were miffed that ASU was still allowed to participate in this year’s tournament. However, the Sun Devils were allowed to do so, because they appealed the NCAA’s ruling.

That appeals process that allowed them to participate in this year’s tournament is really no different than the appeals process for professional sports. If an MLB player receives a 10-game suspension for a fight he is allowed to appeal that suspension and he is still allowed to play during the appeals process. If he loses he sits. If he wins he plays.

ASU lost, and now Tim Esmay’s Sun Devils must sit during the 2012 NCAA Tournament.

No Holding The Tigers…

Missouri baseball coach Tim Jamieson

The SEC and Missouri formally announced one of the worst kept secrets in college sports over the weekend. The Tigers are leaving the Big 12 after a 104 year affiliation with the conference (most of it as the Big 8).

Mizzou baseball coach, Tim Jamieson, has led the Tigers to great success during his 17 seasons in Columbia, with eight NCAA Regional berths in that span. He has also sent players like Detroit Tigers pitcher Max Scherzer and Texas Rangers second baseman Ian Kinsler to the big leagues.

Things will get tougher for the Tigers in the SEC though. Missouri will compete in the SEC’s Eastern division, along with two-time defending national champion South Carolina (which calls the “other” Columbia home). Other schools in the division are Florida (two straight CWS appearances), Vanderbilt (2011 CWS), Georgia (national runner-up in ’09), Kentucky, and Tennessee.

Texas A&M is joining the SEC along with Missouri for the 2012-2013 academic year. The Aggies will be in the SEC West with LSU, Alabama, Arkansas, Auburn, Mississippi State, and Ole Miss.

The Will of A Bulldog…

Former Fresno State baseball player, Dan Gladden, was recently inducted into the Fresno Athletic Hall of Fame. Gladden was undrafted by any Major League team after his last year at FSU in 1979, but he convinced the San Francisco Giants to give him a tryout and went on to an 11-year MLB career with the Giants, Twins and Tigers. He helped Minnesota win the World Series in 1987 and 1991 and is currently a Twins broadcaster.

Sunny Shines On Giese…

It didn’t take Oklahoma long to fill the vacancy filled by the departure of Tim Tadlock. Sunny Golloway has hired Jack Giese as pitching coach to fill the void that was created when Tadlock left recently to become the Associate Head Coach at his alma mater, Texas Tech.

Giese has been a pitching coach for the last two years in the Tampa Bay Rays minor league organization. His previous collegiate coaching experience was at Howard College in Big Spring, Texas, which won the 2009 NJCAA national championship. He recruited six Sooners who played for Howard.

Brian Wilson in LSU gear before going on the Gameday set Saturday. He tweeted this pic @BrianWilson38

The Beard Lives On…

Did you catch San Francisco Giants closer, Brian Wilson, Saturday on ESPN’s College Gameday in Tuscaloosa? Wilson made a guest appearance on the set to make predictions for Saturday’s game. No surprise, the former LSU pitcher picked his team to beat Alabama. Taking a page from Lee Corso, Wilson donned a tiger head with a beard to make his pick known.

Holland Going Bluegrass…

Texas Rangers pitcher Derek Holland will hit the banquet circuit this winter. The quirky left, who did Harry Caray and Arnold Schwarzenager impersonations for FOX during the World Series, will be the keynote speaker at the Eastern Kentucky University Diamond dinner on Jan. 29. Holland played junior college ball at Wallace State in Alabama.

Swishalicious…

Ohio State alum, Nick Swisher, just donated $500,000 to his alma mater to help the school install field turf at Bill Davis Stadium. The New York Yankee outfielder was recognized over the weekend at halftime of the Ohio State-Indiana football game.

Swisher was the 2000 Big Ten Freshman of the Year. He was the 16th overall pick in the 2002 MLB Draft and was featured prominently in the book Moneyball, which spawned the current Brad Pitt movie.

Speaking of Stadiums…

We mentioned in our last Notebook installment that UC Irvine head coach, Mike Gillespie, has a cameo as an Oakland A’s coach in Moneyball. Long Beach State’s Blair Field had a cameo as well. The field was used to double as Oakland’s spring training facility in the movie.

Speaking of Stadiums II…

Texas A&M – Corpus Christi is getting a face lift to both its baseball and softball facilities. Chapman Field will have the surfaces of both the softball and baseball fields will be completely rebuilt, with new dirt and sod being brought in to replace the current surface along with new irrigation systems. The bullpens for softball and baseball will also be rebuilt, with baseball’s to be enclosed within the field. Both fields will also get new windscreens around the perimeter of the fence.

The baseball facility will also add an eight-pole lighting system to allow the Islanders to play home night games on campus. In conjunction with this, new seating will be brought in to expand baseball’s bleacher seating capacity to nearly 700 at Chapman Field (not including available berm seating), with the existing baseball bleacher seating being moved over to softball.

What was probably the biggest happening of the fall took place over the weekend in Nashville, when Vanderbilt hosted Cal State Fullerton for a pair of games in the DeMarini Fall Classic. The Titans and new head coach, Rick Vanderhook, took both games in  the exhibition series.

Fullerton took game one by a final of 10-8. The teams combined to allow 7 unearned runs thanks to single errors charged to each team. Titan starter, Dylan Floro, earned the win by allowing just a run on a hit in 4.0 innings of work. Grahamm Wiest got the win in relief in game two for Fullerton. He tossed 5.0 shutout innings with 5 strikeouts.

After going to the College World Series for the first time earlier this year, Vanderbilt has a lot of turnover in both the starting rotation and the everyday line-up.

Aces Grayson Garvin (13-2, 2.48 ERA) and Sonny Gray (12-4, 2.43 ERA) are both gone to the professional ranks, so Kevin Ziomek and Sam Selmon made the Saturday and Sunday starts, respectively.

Selmon tossed 5.0 shutout innings in his Sunday start, but the bullpen allowed 9 runs over the next 4.0 innings. He made just seven relief appearances as a sophomore in 2011. Ziomek gave-up 5 runs, but just one was earned in 2.0 innings. The lefty from Amherst, Mass. was 3-0 with a 1.59 ERA as a freshman last year with five starts and 22 relief outings.

Vanderbilt returns players like Tony Kemp, Mike Yastrzemski, Anthony Gomez, Riley Reynolds, and Connor Harrell from the CWS squad, but they lost their top RBI men in Aaron Westlake (18 HR, 56 RBIs), Jason Esposito (9 HR, 59 RBIs) and Curt Casali (7 HR, 53 RBIs).

Freshman phenom Chris Harvey caught one game and spent time as the DH in both games. He was a combined 1 for 7 in the series His lone hit was a solo home run in game one. It was Vanderbilt’s only long ball of the weekend. Harvey graduated high school early and is spending what would have been his senior year of high school as a freshman with the Commodores.

First baseman Carlos Lopez was 5 for 8 at the plate with 2 RBIs for the Titans. Outfielder Austin Kingsolver was 5 for 9 with 3 RBIs and a triple.

Both teams now prepare for their tough 2012 season openers in February. Tim Corbin and Vanderbilt open with a three game series at Stanford, while Vanderhook and Fullerton open with a three game set at Florida.

Raising More Than A Little Money…

Missouri and Iowa recently played a pair of exhibition games in Columbia as well. Mizzou won the first game 9-1, with the two teams tying 3-3 in the second game, but the outcomes were really the sub-plots to the weekend.

The real story was the fact that the exhibition games raised for than $12 thousand dollars to benefit the Joplin, Mo. Little League. Diamonds there were leveled after a tornado ravaged the entire Joplin area last May.

Ticket sales generated a total of $3,710, the sale of former Mizzou baseball jerseys raised $2,250 and $4,081 was collected in private donations.

All of the money raised will go directly to helping rebuild the fields for Joplin Little League. Following the tornado, the Little League received plenty of supplies and equipment but was left with the daunting task of rebuilding its fields.

Speaking of Missouri baseball, Texas Ranger second baseman, Ian Kinsler, is a Mizzou alum.

The Rhody Raffle…

For the Fourth straight year Rhode Island baseball is raising money for its program in a unique way. The winner of a raffle will have their choice of $10,000 in cash or a pair of Boston Red Sox season tickets.

The raffle runs through March 20, 2012, and is a significant fundraiser for the Rhode Island baseball team. All proceeds go directly back to the program to help offset the costs of travel, equipment and facility improvements.

An entry in the raffle is $100. Click Here to enter.

Robinson Renovation…

UCLA recently announced that it will add nearly 600 more chairback seats at Steele Field at Jackie Robinson Stadium. The project is expected to be complete by this December. Once it’s done, the stadium will seat 1,820 fans. 290 seats will be installed above each dugout to accommodate the expansion. 2012 will mark the 32nd season for Jackie Robinson Stadium.

Releasing Schedules…

2012 schedules continue to be released by individual schools on a regular basis. Our Schedule page has links to those (that we know of) that have been released to date. Expect schedules to continue to be released from now through early February.

We will once again publish a list of some of the top non-conference schedules from across the country once they are all releases. Some of the current front-runners include Stanford, Cal State Fullerton, TCU, and Wichita State. Check out the schedule page to check all of the schedules that have been released so far.

Moneyball Mike…

If you have seen the movie Moneyball, you may have been thinking (as I did) “I’ve seen that guy before”, during one of the scenes. UC Irvine head coach, Mike Gillespie, had a cameo in the Brad Pitt film. Gillespie had a non-speaking role playing former Oakland A’s coach, Ken Macha, while the A’s staff was meeting in an office. By the way, Gillespie looks much more like Macha than actor Phillip Seymour Hoffman resembles then A’s manager Art Howe.

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The Ax Man Cometh…

If you have spent any time watching the MLB Playoffs, Baseball Tonight or the MLB Network this season you have likely heard the incredible story about how Milwaukee’s John Axford has gone from cell phone salesman to Big League closer in the course of the last few years. However, that’s not even half of the journey that “Ax”, “The Ax Man” – pick your moniker – has gone through to get to where is is now.

Axford, who posted a 1.95 ERA with 46 saves for the NL Central champs this season, turned down the Seattle Mariners after they drafted him in the seventh round of the 2001 MLB Draft. He opted to play instead at Notre Dame, where he went to the College World Series as a freshman in 2002.

He was 5-2 that year after making 12 starts with five appearances out of the Irish bullpen. His fourth relief appearance was one of his most memorable. Axford entered game two of the Tallahassee Super Regional in the middle innings of what would be a 12-5 Irish loss.

In the fifth inning of that game, Florida State fans did what they always do-sang Oh Canada as the Seminoles prepared to bat in the home half of the inning. It’s doubtful the FSU faithful even gave thought to the fact that the lanky 6’6 Axford-a native of Port Dover, Ontario-was on the mound during their spirited chorus. “It fired me up a little,” Axford told me the next day.

While Axford’s 4 2/3 innings in that loss won’t go down in the Irish records books, they were important none the less. Axford did that day what a pro does. He did the same thing Tim Wakefield did for the Red Sox in the 2004 ALCS when he chewed-up 3 1/3 innings in relief in a blowout loss to the Yankees-he held the line. Notre Dame, led by current LSU skipper Paul Mainieri (current Virginia head coach Brian O’Connor was his pitching coach), knocked off the top ranked Seminoles 3-1 the next day to advance to Omaha.

Axford made one relief appearance at the CWS, but it would be the last NCAA Tournament appearance of his career. While teammates like Steve Stanley and Brian Stavisky were drafted that year by Billy Beane and eventually mentioned in Michael Lewis‘ book Moneyball, Axford is one of just two players from that ’02 team to make it to the MLB (they other was Matt Macri who missed the postseason due to injury).

He pitched for Mainieri and O’Connor again in 2003, missed all of ’04 after Tommy John surgery and then complete his collegiate career at Canisus in 2006.

But it wasn’t the elbow surgery that held Axford back as much as his problems with control. The Ax Man had 133 strikeouts, but walked 109 with 21 wild pitches in his two seasons under the Golden Dome. Things were no better as Canisus, where he walked and struckout 79 with 15 wild pitches in 70 innings, while going 3-8.

The guy who was considered by some publications to be the top prep player in Canada in 2001 could lather and rinse, but he just couldn’t repeat. Axford could be brilliantly dominant one day and then dumbfoundedly disastrous the next. Think Nuke Laloosh.

It was never more evident that two midweek starts for the Irish in 2003. Axford struckout 12 with no walks in 7.0 innings in an April 9 win over Western Michigan. However, he followed that start with 5 BB and just 4 K in a win over Central Michigan. Throw-in a 7 BB performance in 2 1/3 innings of relief in a Big East Tournament loss to Rutgers that May and it’s easy to see why it took the guy who now sports the second most recognizable facial hair in the Big Leagues to matriculate his way to Milwaukee.

Ask anyone who knows John Axford though, and they will tell you he is as good a person as he is a pitcher. He’s a case study in perseverance paying off over the long haul. Axford is doing now what he did that day in June in Tallahassee-holding the line.

The Dan Man Can…

Dan Johnson

Tampa Bay Rays first baseman, Dan Johnson, is another big league player with college connections. Johnson is probably now best known for his two-out, two-strike home run in the bottom of the ninth last week against the Yankees to help propel the Rays into the AL Playoffs. Like Axford, Johnson is also well traveled.

Johnson started his collegiate career at Butler University in Indianapolis before transferring to a junior college and eventually Nebraska. He batted .361 with 25 home runs and 86 RBIs in 2001 to help the program reach its first ever College World Series.

The 32-year-old made his Big League debut with the Oakland A’s in 2005. He stayed there through 2008, when Tampa Bay claimed him off waivers. Johnson then spent the 2009 season with the Yokohama Baystars in Japan. He has spent the last two seasons back in Tampa. His last hit prior to last week’s dramatic home run was in April.

Johnson and Axford are among 175 former college players on the 40-man rosters of this year’s MLB Playoff teams. Click Here to see more.

Who Needs High School…

Vanderbilt's Chris Harvey

Bryce Harper is probably the most famous player to skip his final year of high school to prepare for a future in baseball, but he is not the only one. Harper skipped his last two years of high school to enroll and play for a year at a junior college before the Washington Nationals made him their top draft pick.

Like Harper, Chris Harvey has jumped from high school to college early. However, unlike Harper, Harvey is doing at a higher level – both academically and athletically.

Harvey, a catcher like Harper, should be a senior at Germantown Academy in Pennsylvania, but instead he is working toward a shot to be Vanderbilt’s catcher in a year Tim Corbin‘s Commodores are coming off their first College World Series appearance.

The 6’6 Harvey was projected by many to go in the first three rounds of the 2012 MLB Draft, but the itch to play college ball was something he could not resist.

“It’s something that I wanted to do for a while,” Harvey recently told Max Preps. “This gives me an extra year of college, it helps me become a more well-rounded person, and the academics had a lot to do with it. I always wanted to come to Vanderbilt, and to be honest, me and my family weren’t really depending on what we were hearing [from Major League scouts and teams]. I think they basically all said what I wanted to hear.”

Other players who left high school in recent years to begin their college careers early include Levi Michael of North Carolina and UCLA’s Trevor Bauer. Things worked out well for both of them, as both made it to Omaha with their teams. Bauer was the third overall pick by Arizona in this year’s MLB Draft, while Michael went 30th overall to Minnesota.

Who Needs Two?

Speaking of Vanderbilt, tickets are on sale now for the DeMarini Fall Classic between the Commodores and Cal State Fullerton. The two games will take place October 22 & 23 at Vandy’s Hawkins Field in Nashville. The Titans are led by first year head coach Rick Vanderhook, who was an assistant on UCLA’s 2010 CWS runner-up team. Vanderhook was hired after Dave Serrano left Fullerton to become head coach at Tennessee.

Missouri and Iowa Lending A Helping Hand…

The Missouri and Iowa baseball teams will play a pair of fall exhibition games this weekend (October 8 & 9) and the proceeds from the games will go to a worthy cause.

All proceeds from those games will go directly toward rebuilding Joplin, Missouri’s Little League baseball programs, which were ravaged by tornadoes last May. Saturday’s baseball game will be held prior to the Missouri-Kansas State football game. First pitch for the exhibition is set for 12:30 (Central Time) and kickoff for the football game is at 2:30 pm. Sunday’s game starts at 1 pm.

Fans who can’t attend the games but would like to donate to the cause can contact Missouri director of baseball operations, Evan Pratte, at 573-882-1917 or via e-mail at prattee@missouri.edu.

CLICK HERE to see a video with Mizzou head coach Tim Jamieson further discussing the Joplin relief effort.

Schedules, Schedules and More Schedules…

Now that October is here, we will continue to see more and more college baseball teams release their 2012 schedules. we will link them along with team rosters on our master Schedule Page as they are released.

Long Beach State has the best non-conference slate that I have seen so far. Cal, UCLA, USC, Oregon, Arizona State Washington State, and Wichita State are all among the teams the Dirt Bags will face in 2012.

Virginia is headed to the College World Series for the second time in the last three years after Monday’s dramatic Super Regional clinching win over UC Irvine.

Photo journalist Dave Wolpert was there to capture some of the images from the weekend’s games in Charlottesville. Contact us to find out how to purchase any of these shots!

Virginia head coach Brian O'Connor gets a shower after Monday's dramatic 3-2 Cavalier win.

Kenny Swab (35), Mitchell Shifflett (5) and John Barr (7) celebrate the Super Regional win.

Kenny Swab (35) and David Coleman (9) congratulate Jared King (13).

Irvine's Jimmy Litchfield (16) and Dillon Moyer (24)-the son of longtime Big League Jamie Moyer

Two-way standout Brian Hernandez

Hall of Fame coach Mike Gillespie (19) and Virginia skipper Brian O'Connor exchange line-ups prior to the Super Regional game one.

Virginia closer Branden Kline

ACC Pitcher of the Year Danny Hultzen

Hall of Fame head coach Mike Gillespie (19) and Virginia skipper Brian O'Connor exchange line-up cards prior to the Super Regional's game one.

Danny Hultzen from the stretch

Anteater head coach Mike Gillespie

Danny Hultzen

Irvine's Jordan Fox and Virginia's Jared King

Big West Pitcher of the Year Matt Summers

Keith Werman

Danny Hultzen

____________________________________________________________________________________________

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By CB360 Contributor Jack Blanchat

The final games of the Pac-10 season for the Cal Bears and the Stanford Cardinal showed two teams that appear to be heading in opposite directions, even though both are headed for the postseason once again.

Stanford once again utilized its great pitching to take the first two games in the series up in Berkeley by scores of 3-2 on Friday and 4-2 on Saturday. The Stanford bats woke up in the third game, part of a Saturday doubleheader, and the boys in red and white were leading 7-1 in the bottom of the fourth when foul weather set in and ended the game for good.

With the series victory, Stanford finished the season on a high note by beating two top-25 Pac-10 teams in back to back weeks (Arizona and Cal). Cal, on the other hand, hobbled across the finish line with three consecutive series losses in the Pac-10, albeit against three of the better teams in the conference (Oregon State, UCLA and Stanford).

Once again, pitchers Mark Appel, Jordan Pries and Chris Reed all pitched very well, and for the second week in a row, the Cardinal didn’t need much offense to have a winning weekend.

Appel went seven and one-third innings while only giving up one earned run and walking nobody in Friday’s 3-2 win. Reed gave up a hit and a walk, but he closed out the final one and two-thirds innings with the game on the line to seal the victory, which helped Appel’s record to 5-6 and earned Reed his seventh save of the year.

The story was the same in the first game of the scheduled doubleheader on Saturday, but this time Pries was the winner, as he went seven and one-third innings, giving up two unearned runs, one walk and just six hits. Reed closed out the game after he came in during the 8th with a 4-2 lead, runners on the corners and one out. Reed got a fielder’s choice groundout on a dramatic play at the plate and a flyout to rightfield to squash the Bears’ rally, and got a double play in the ninth to end the game.

Despite the losses, Cal’s pitching staff did well over the weekend also, with Erik Johnson striking out 11 Stanford hitters in Friday’s game, and Justin Jones settling down after giving up four runs in the first four innings to finish eight full innings with the Bears down just 4-2 before Reed closed things out for the Cardinal.

Despite the Bears’ solid arms, the offense is a major concern for the boys in blue and gold. Cal has scored just 33 runs in its last 14 Pac-10 games, an average of just 2.3 runs a game. They have been facing off against some excellent teams in that time span – Arizona State, Oregon, Oregon State, UCLA and Stanford – but the offensive struggles will most likely mean an early exit for the Bears unless they can turn things around in the batting cages before the NCAA regionals.

Stanford’s offense didn’t score a ton of runs either – just enough to get the victories – but a couple key cogs in the Cardinal offense had good weekend. Sophomore Tyler Gaffney extended his hitting streak to 17 games this weekend with consecutive 2-for-4, one run, one RBI days at the plate. Fellow sophomore Stephen Piscotty went 2-for-4 with an RBI on Saturday and had a double, a single, and a walk in the second half of the doubleheader before the game was called due to rain.

Senior catcher Zach Jones went 3-for-5 on Saturday and scored three runs in two games (he also had a double and a single in the rainout game) to raise his batting average to .268 this year. This was a particularly impressive feat because Jones was hitting .130 through 16 games, but Jones has finished the regular season by hitting .323 in the last 36 games, and he leads the team in extra-base hits with 31.

Both these teams will be interesting to watch in the regionals – the Pac-10 has been strong this year, and the Cardinal and the Bears both have some nice pieces going into the postseason, both teams have a tough draw with Stanford heading down to Cal State Fullerton and Cal traveling to Rice, but with a little bit of luck, and the offense,
defense and pitching to syncing up, the Bay Area rivals could find themselves advancing to a Super Regional.

Click the image to enlarge!

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By CB360 Contributor Kris Anderson

Monday was a somber day in Eugene, Ore., as the Oregon Ducks learned that they were not selected to the NCAA Baseball Tournament’s field of 64.

Horton

Despite winning nine of their last 12 games and finishing the regular season by sweeping then No. 6 ranked Oregon State,  the preseason top-15 Ducks proved that three strong weeks could not save themselves from an 11-16 Pac-10 Conference record.

After learning of the tournament field, Ducks coach George Horton expressed his disappointment in not being selected, as well as the selection committee’s perception of college baseball’s western region.

“Those teams like us that thought they had an opportunity to play are devastated and confused,” Horton said on Monday. “You compare your numbers to others that get in, but ultimately, I didn’t think that west coast baseball was very well respected.”

Horton, who made six College World Series appearances and won a national championship during his 10 years as head coach of Cal State Fullerton, pointed to the fact that no national seeds were awarded to teams from the west. He also noted that western teams like Cal State Bakersfield, Gonzaga and Cal Poly—teams that were on the bubble—were not selected to regionals. He called the selections of three Big East teams and three Sun Belt teams “ridiculous.”

“I think the Fullerton regional and the Oregon State regional, they’re all tough, but that isn’t a typical western regional as far as level of difficulty, for me,” Horton said. “The UCLA one certainly is. For me, that’s the toughest regional on paper. And then the fact that all three of those teams match up with national seeds—one, three and six—I think is pretty ridiculous.”

Horton came to the defense of Pac-10 conference champion, UCLA , saying they “didn’t get much respect.”

“They played for the national championship last year, and have the same team back,” he said. “I thought the committee missed the mark there.”

“I thought the western region was under represented. I’m not taking anything away from the committee’s efforts or the national perspective in teams like St. John’s and some of those other team that got in. It’s too bad for western baseball and too bad for the Ducks. I don’t even know, ultimately, whether we were on the board….”

So, how does the west gain respect?

“You schedule all your games at home and play ‘Molly Putts University’ at home and get a bunch of great records,” said Horton, who has been the coach of the Ducks since the program was reinstated in 2009. “But that can’t happen because the budgets aren’t conducive to that, and we don’t have those kinds of stadiums like the ACC, SEC, Big 12 has.”

“They play all their games at home. They play weak opponents in the mid-week. Their leagues are very strong, make no mistake about it. But they all feed off each other because they all come into conference 24-3. And then whatever they do in conference, they do, and then they don’t lose a mid-week game.”

This season, Arkansas, for example, entered conference play with a 14-2 record, but went 15-15 vs. SEC teams. Also, they did not play any mid-week games against an SEC opponent.

Oregon played two mid-week games against No. 13 Oregon State, which they split. They also played two mid-week games against eventual West Coast Conference champion San Francisco and two against WCC runner-up, Gonzaga.

“In the west you play each other, so it’s almost like a conference wash where it’s fifty-fifty,” Horton said. “I’m a little west coast biased, of course, because I’ve been out here, but a third place team, a western team, a .500 team in the west, I think is a more difficult challenge than some of those teams that the others are playing. Not taking any respect from them. It’s always been a problem.”

“Every year you see two (Pac-10) teams, at least, in the College World Series, and the committee tends to forget that. I don’t know why.”

After the Ducks completed the sweep of their in-state rivals, the Beavers, Horton declared that his team had a 40-percent chance of being selected to regionals. After looking at tournament predictions and seeing how the committee treated teams from the west, he said 20-percent would have been more accurate.

The Ducks’ chances were also hurt by the results of certain conference tournaments, which Horton says he is not a “fan” of.

But none of that matters now. The Ducks will spend the off-season evaluating how a season that began with dreams of Omaha, is over before June.

By CB360 contributor Kris Anderson

What is the level of frustration for the No. 6 Oregon State baseball team after being swept by in-state rival Oregon? OSU head coach Pat Casey said it all afterwards with his silence.

Pat Casey

After the Ducks clinched the Civil War Series with a 4-1 win on Saturday and then were swept 6-0 on Sunday, Casey wouldn’t acknowledge the Beavers media relations staffer, and walked past a group of reporters and left the ballpark.

After dropping their first weekend series of the season against the USC Trojans, the Beavers had an opportunity to rebound against the struggling Ducks. But with a series sweep, the Ducks have gone from the roll of spoiler to a bubble team, and believing they deserve a spot in the field of 64.

“I think we’re a worthy team,” Ducks coach George Horton said. “In my heart of hearts, I believe we’re one of the 64 best teams in the country. I think we’ve earned the right to play in the 64-team tournament. I think we’ll make the committee proud.”

George Horton

Horton believes that the sweep gives the Ducks a “40 percent” chance of being selected to regionals. That will be determined when the committee announces the field on Monday (12:30 p.m. ET on ESPN).

Oregon received the help they needed from teams around the country on Sunday.

Both No. 11 Cal State Fullerton and No. 14 Texas A&M won their respective conference tournaments.

With the sweep, the Ducks’ RPI improved to 53, according to warrennolan.com.

Had Oregon not lost its series a week ago to Washington State, this weekend’s sweep might have assured them a regional bid. However, at this point, they would certainly be a surprise and debated selection.

For Oregon State, the last two weeks have been a Corvallis kerplunk. The Beavers have gone from the nation’s No. 2 team prior to the series against USC, to No. 6 and will probably not be a host site for super regionals, should they advance that far. They have now lost five in a row and six of their last seven.

The losses also cost them the Pac-10 championship, which UCLA claimed by taking two of three games from Arizona State.

The OSU offense was stagnant throughout the series. In three games, they scored just two runs, while committing five errors. On Sunday, Oregon starter Alex Keudell held the Beavers to only two hits through 8 2/3 innings, and retired 15 straight hitters before being pulled in the ninth inning.

If the Beavers are worried if their performance as of late will carry over into regionals next weekend, those who did talk to the media put on an act good enough for Broadway.

“No panic. We’re fine. We’re fine,” Beavers first baseman Jared Norris said. “Obviously this is embarrassing. Just got to get ready to go for next week.”

“It’s the same team, same guys, we just didn’t get the hits. It happens. It’s just baseball; stuff happens. Stuff happens all the time, and you just got to respond. We’re fine. We have a week to prepare, then we’ll be ready to go.”

The Oregon State bats, which have allowed this team to rally from behind throughout the season, were uncharacteristically quiet in the clutch. The Ducks victories in the first two games of the series were a result of key breaks and finding a timely hit. In the final game of the series, the Beavers didn’t have an answer on the mound or in the box. The Beavers used as many pitchers in the final game as they did in the first two games—six.

It was announced on Sunday that the Beavers would be a host for regionals next weekend; however, this will certainly be a long week for Casey and his squad.

Heading into this week’s Mountain West Conference Baseball Tournament there was no reason to be thinking highly of No. 6 seed New Mexico. Someone forgot to tell head coach Ray Birmingham.

Ray Birmingham

The Lobos had lost seven straight games heading into the MWC Tourney, but the first four of those losses came at Oklahoma and the last three setbacks were to conference rival TCU. Both of those teams have already eclipsed 40 wins this season as they shoot to get back to Omaha after trips there last year.

Birmingham’s Lobos have been seemingly unfazed by their late season misfortunes since arriving in San Diego, and now find themselves one win away from a return trip to the NCAA tournament. New Mexico (19-39) has beaten #3 seed BYU, #1 seed TCU and #2 seed Utah in succession to advance to Friday’s MWC Championship game against either TCU or Utah.

“This team has been through a lot,” Birmingham said after Thursday’s win over the Utes. ” There is a method to my madness and we’re getting there.”

That “madness” has included a brutal schedule this season after Birmingham guided New Mexico to its first NCAA bid in nearly five decades in 2010. The Lobos started the season by dropping three games at Arizona State (a fourth game was rained-out). Their non-conference slate also included games against Oklahoma State, Arizona, Texas Tech, Gonzaga and Oklahoma, finishing just 1-17 against those teams which are all in the NCAA conversation this weekend.

The Lobos also faced TCU, which was a preseason #1 team in some polls, six times (going 1-5) in conference play during the regular season.

“A lot of blogs said we had the hardest schedule in the nation and I believe we did,” Birmingham said after his team’s tournament win over TCU. “We’re not afraid to face the best now. We know how to face the best.”

New Mexico, a team with an RPI of 158 entering the week, is just the second No. 6 seed to advance to the championship game of the MWC Tournament. The only other team to do it was Utah in 2009. The Utes claimed the title that year.

TCU and Utah play at 6 p.m. ET Friday. New Mexico faces the winner at 10 p.m. A Lobo win would give them the tournament title and automatic NCAA bid. If the TCU/Utah winner beats UNM they would play an “if necessary” winner take all game on Saturday at 4 p.m. ET. All games are televised by the Mtn. Network and CBS College Sports (channels 616 and 613, respectively on DirecTV).

Missouri players celebrate after Thursday's win (courtesy Big 12).

Missouri is another team that is causing migraines for NCAA bubble teams this week. The Tigers brought just a 24-30 record into this week’s Big 12 Tournament, but they won four of their last five conference series to close the regular season. Those wins all came against teams with higher seeds in this week’s tournament: Texas A&M (2), Baylor (5), Kansas State (6), and Texas Tech (7).

Two teams Missouri did not beat during the regular season were No. 1 seed Texas and No. 4 seed Oklahoma State. The Tigers dropped all six match-ups to the Longhorns and Cowboys in back-to-back weekends at the start of April, but their fortunes changed in rematches this week in Oklahoma City.

Missouri knocked-off top-seeded Texas 6-4 on Wednesday and then held-off OSU 6-5 on Thursday to advance to the tournament semifinals. Missouri led Oklahoma State 5-0, only to see the Cowboys score five runs over the last two innings to tie the game before Eric Garcia‘s walk-off hit with one out in the bottom of the ninth inning.

“I’m really proud of these guys, not just this weekend, but the last five or six weeks,” Mizzou head coach Tim Jamieson said after his team’s fifth walk-off win of the season. “These guys read the blogs and read the websites much more than I do. They know we have to finish above .500 or win the tournament. We can’t finish above .500, so it’s pretty simple math.”

The Tigers now have Friday off and wait until Saturday morning at 10 ET to face the winner of Friday’s Texas-Oklahoma State elimination game. The eight-team Big 12 Tourney is formatted similarly to the College World Series, so if Mizzou wins Saturday it moves on to Sunday’s championship game (Texas A&M is 2-0 in the other four-team pool). If the Texas/OSU winner beats Missouri Saturday morning there will be a rematch that afternoon.

The Big 12 Championship game is Sunday afternoon at 2 p.m. ET on Fox Sports Regional Networks.

Elsewhere…

Auburn and Georgia were both teams with work to do to heading into the SEC Tournament, but the bubble has already burst for one of those teams. Georgia (29-29) eliminated Auburn (29-29) in more ways than one with Thursday’s 3-2 victory.

Since a team must finish above .500 to receive an NCAA at-large bid, Auburn’s season is now done. With that in mind, Georgia must not only beat South Carolina on Friday, but they would also have to beat Florida Saturday afternoon to meet the above .500 requirement. South Carolina fell 7-2 to Vanderbilt Thursday night, while Florida is 2-0 with wins over Mississippi State and Alabama.

The fact that Georgia and Auburn could both finish below .500 after qualifying for the SEC field could indirectly help the at-large cases of two teams that didn’t make it to Hoover. Three-time defending SEC champion LSU (36-20 overall) is home this week with an RPI of 23, while Ole Miss (30-25) awaits selection Monday with an RPI of 40.
The only realistic shot the Big East had to get two teams in the NCAA Tournament was for someone other than Connecticut to win its conference tourney. That’s closer to happening after defending champion St. John’s (34-18 and this year’s #2 seed) downed Pittsburgh 6-4 Thursday to improve to 2-0, while UConn (40-16-1) was upset 4-3 by #4 seed Seton Hall (31-23) to fall into the elimination bracket.

The Huskies (38 RPI) are still in good shape for an at-large bid, but anything other than a conference tournament title would all but kill any chances of hosting a regional for a second straight year.
Houston pulled-off its second straight upset at the Conference USA Tournament Thursday. The No. 6 seed Cougars downed No. 2 Southern Mississippi 7-6 a day after downing No. 3 East Carolina 8-5. As we reported earlier this week, Southern Miss. is without two of its top three starting pitchers, Geoffrey Thomas and Jonathon Thompson, who are suspended for academic reasons. Houston (27-30) now faces No. 7 Tulane (30-26).
It didn’t quite match Wednesday’s 20-inning marathon between Western Carolina and Elon in the SoCon Tournament, but Georgia Tech outlasted North Carolina State 6-5 in 15 innings Thursday at the ACC Tourney. Yellow Jacket Matt Hyde stole home in the top of the 15th to give his team the win in the longest game in ACC Tournament history. Georgia Tech, NC State, Clemson and Florida State all are 1-1 in Pool B.

No. 8 seed Arkansas-Little Rock has clinched spot in Sunday’s Sun Belt Championship game. UALR (22-32) has wins over No. 1 Troy and No. 4 Western Kentucky.

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What a day (and then some) Wednesday turned-out to be on the first full day of college baseball conference tournament play.

The day started at 9 a.m. Central Time with top-seeded Creighton‘s win over Bradley at the Missouri Valley Tournament in Omaha’s TD Ameritrade Stadium. The game was moved from Tuesday night due to rain. Wednesday’s action actually ended at 3 a.m. Eastern Time Thursday morning at the Southern Conference Tournament in Charleston, SC with Georgia Southern‘s 4-2 win over the College of Charleston.

Ross Heffley

Why did that game end so late? Because of the 20-inning game between Western Carolina and Elon that proceeded it. The eighth seeded Catamounts won that game 10-7 over the top-seeded Phoenix.

College Baseball 360′s Pete LaFleur was up working the Twitter feed most of the night (and into the morning). Here are some highlights, courtesy of him and team and conference SIDs from around the country.

• Following the nearly 400-minute game between WCU and Elon, Georgia Southern vs. College of Charleston started 12:30 a.m. (end 3:01 a.m.).
• Ross Heffley’s two-run home run in the top of the 20th inning provided the winning margin. Heffley’s home run came on his 10th at-bat of the game.
• Western Carolina starter Matt Benedict logged 8.0 innings, less than half of the 20-inning game vs. Elon (5R/3ER-6H-5BB-3K).
• Official game time of the WCU-Elon eternity was six hours and 33 minutes … Elon used 23 players (15 in the field, 8 pitchers), WCU 19.
• WCU most ABs without a out hit: Macon Smith 0-for-8 … Elon’s Garrett Koster 0-for-8; 3- & 4-hole hitters Sebastian Gomez & Ryan Kinsella both 0-for-7.
• WCU 1B/6-hole Tyler White lined-out to right field in 2nd inn. vs. Elon … but then he reached 9 straight times! (6-for-7, 2BB-HBP; 1 RBI). White’s six hits are a new SoCon Tournament record.
• Elon used eight pitchers who threw 307 total pitches. WCU used five pitchers who threw 332 total pitches. Benedict (131) and Johnson (113) both over 100. 639 total pitches combined were thrown in the marathon.
• The two teams combined for 34 strikeouts. Elon batters fanned 20 times. WCU pitcher Brandon Johnson notched a career-best 10 Ks.
• WCU left 20 runners on base, Elon stranded 13.
• The game is the longest in SoCon Tournament history. The previous record was 18 innings, originally set in 1996 and tied in 2009 by Elon and Wofford.
• Here’s the Box Score from the epic game.

Anthony Meo

Earlier in the day, Coastal Carolina pitcher Anthony Meo made history of his own. Meo fired the first no-hitter in Big South Tournament history to lead the top-seeded Chanticleers to a 5-0 win over Radford. Meo retired the first 16 batters he faced until Blake Sipe reached base on an error in the top of the sixth inning. The junior walked just one batter and fired 103 pitches to up his record to 9-3. Here’s the final box score.

The aforementioned Creighton was one of a handful of top seeds to lose a conference tournament game on Tuesday. After winning that 9 a.m. game against Bradley, the Blue Jays were back in action at 9:40 p.m. against Missouri State. The fourth-seeded Bears knocked-off Creighton 10-3 in the Blue Jays’ newly minted home park. The game finished after midnight in Omaha, and Creighton now comes back at 12:30 p.m. for an elimination game against Southern Illinois.

Matt Purke

TCU’s Matt Purke made his first start in more than a month in the Horned Frogs’ Mountain West opener vs. New Mexico. The sophomore has been out since mid April with shoulder issues. He looked anything but his old self in the sixth seeded Lobos’ 4-3 upset win over top-seeded TCU. Purke pitched just 4.0 innings and gave-up a run on four hits with two walks and two strikeouts in the no-decision. TCU will now have fans of bubble teams around the country the rest of the week.

Vanderbilt pounded Georgia 10-0 in the first round of the SEC Tournament to drop the Bulldogs to 28-29 overall and put a big hit in their NCAA hopes. In order to meet the NCAA requirement of finishing with a record above .500 to receive an at-large bid Georgia now needs to win three straight games.

No. 1 seed Texas and No. 3 seed Oklahoma both lost on the first day of the Big 12 Tournament. The Longhorns fell 6-4 to surging Missouri, while the Sooners lost 5-4 to Kansas State. In the past an opening-round loss wouldn’t have been a big deal in a tournament that featured a round-robin format, but the Big 12 switched to double-elimination this year. At 25-30, Mizzou has to win the tournament to receive an NCAA bid, but they are the team nobody wants to play this week in Oklahoma City. Texas now has work to do (starting with today’s elimination game vs. Baylor) to assure itself a top eight national seed. The Longhorns came into the week with an RPI of 12.

Eight seed Nicholls State upset #1 Texas State 6-0 in the first round of the Southland Tournament. No. 2 seed was the lone higher seed to win a first round game at that tournament.

Other notable Wednesday conference tournament upset victims: Florida State (7-0 to NC State), Rice (9-8 to UAB), Arkansas (7-4 to Alabama), East Carolina (8-5 to Houston), Troy (4-2 to Arkansas-Little Rock), and Stetson (15-3 to Belmont), Belmont has now beaten the A-Sun’s top seed three straight times in the last six days. The Hatters are likely to be a bubble team favorite as well.

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By CB360 Contributor Jack Blanchat

If you like good pitching, you missed out on a good series this weekend if you weren’t in Palo Alto, as the starting pitching for both the Arizona Wildcats and the Stanford Cardinal was tremendous all three days.

Stanford won the series with a 1-0 walk-off win in the 11th on Friday and a 2-1 eighth inning comeback win on Sunday after dropping the Saturday game 7-3, but both teams had some impressive performances on a sunny weekend in the Bay Area.

Mark Appel (courtesy Gostanford.com)

No starter went fewer than six innings all weekend, and Friday night saw two sophomore starters battle in a dramatic fight to the finish. For Stanford, righty Mark Appel went eight innings with nine strikeouts, one walk, and no runs, and for Arizona, righty Kurt Heyer went nine innings with ten strikeouts, no walks, and no runs.

Appel got a no decision even though his team won, but he tied a career high in strikeouts, and had his second-longest outing of the year in the aces’ duel. Appel had excellent command of his change-up and his curveball all night, and the youngster continues to add diabolical off-speed pitches to compliment his mid-to-upper nineties fastball.

Heyer was fantastic as well, as his accuracy with his running two-seam fastball and rapidly sinking change-up propelled him through nine solid innings before the bullpen eventually gave up the loss.

The two pitchers will undoubtedly be Friday night starters next year as well, but, more importantly, they give each team a chance against any squad going in to the postseason.

Appel continues to raise eyebrows, particularly because he has gone against a ton of tremendous Friday starters this season – Sonny Gray, Taylor Jungmann, Gerrit Cole, and Sam Gaviglio to name a few – and he has continued to get better as the season has gone along.

Heyer doesn’t have Appel’s overpowering stuff, but he is very hard for hitters to hit squarely, and he hits the strike zone so often that batters cannot afford to sit back, because he will strike you out (he has 122 K’s already this year).

Starters Kyle Simon and Konner Wade were also fantastic for the Cats on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. Simon went seven and one-third inning and kept the Stanford offense to three runs en route to a 7-3 win, stretching his record to 10-3 on the season. Wade threw six and one-third innings of shutout ball Sunday, gave up only one walk, and caused the Cardinal to hit into several double plays.

Kyle Simon improved to 10-3 with Saturday's win.

The Cats’ pitching rotation is solid top to bottom (perhaps it’s not just a coincidence that their names all start with the letter K), but the bullpen leaves some room for concern, particularly Bryce Bandilla, who got saddled with two losses this weekend. The setup man struggled with control in both of his appearance out of the pen, and even though he passed the ball to closer Matt Chaffee in both of those games, the damage was already done by the time Chaffee came in.

The Wildcat offense was uninspiring for most of the weekend, and except for DH Josh Garcia’s two-run home run and shortstop Alex Mejia’s 3-for-4 day on Saturday, the Cardinal pitchers had their way with the Wildcat offense, which currently has the second best team batting average in the nation.

One pitcher who had a bit of breakout weekend against the Wildcat offense was righty Jordan Pries, who had an exceptional start on Sunday for Stanford. Pries went seven innings with six strikeouts, and only gave up one run on a solo home run. The junior has gotten the loss or no decision in his last eight starts, but he finally looked like the Jordan Pries who beat Cal and Vanderbilt in the same week earlier this season. Pries threw all four of his pitches for strikes
and generally confused Wildcat hitters, showing the stuff that powered him to a no-hitter this past summer in the Cape Cod League.

The Cardinal also got an excellent performance from junior closer Chris Reed, who vultured two wins this weekend thanks to late-inning victories on Friday and Sunday. He extended his record to 6-3 this season (which nicely compliments his six saves), and he had great off-speed pitches as well as the nasty, breaking, mid-90s fastball that has been unhittable so far this season.

Tyler Gaffney

Stanford’s offense got a boost from sophomore Tyler Gaffney, who now has a 14-game hitting streak after reaching base in all three games this weekend, and right fielder Austin Wilson, who continues to show how much he has matured at the plate over the course of this season. The freshman hit two seeing-eye singles on Sunday, including the hit that scored the winning run, and he showed that he has adapted to college pitching by no longer swinging for the fences in every at-bat.

Sophomore centerfielder Jake Stewart also returned to the lineup after missing the last several weeks with appendicitis. Stewart was leading the team in extra-base hits and stolen bases when the illness struck, and the capable leadoff hitter will likely provide a big boost to an offense that has seen its stalwart hitter – shortstop Kenny Diekroeger – stuck deep in a rut. The sophomore went 0-for-3 on Sunday to drop his batting average below .300 for the first time all year after he was batting over .400 for the first third of the season.

Stanford ends up with a big series win to keep it at .500 in Pac-10 play, but this series was so close that it very easily could have gone in Arizona’s direction. Keep an eye on these two teams coming into the postseason – I expect them to both be two seeds in regionals, and they most certainly could upset a one seed due to their powerful pitching staffs.

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