Current Atlantic Sun leader USC Upstate has been one of the bigger surprises in DI baseball this season (Upstate photo).

With just three weekends remaining in the regular season, selection Monday is on the horizon for college baseball teams looking to make final statements to the NCAA selection committee. This CB360 Notebook special takes a look at a handful of conferences that could receive just one NCAA bid at the end of this month, what their current conference standings look like, RPIs of the top teams in the standings, and who could end up with the bids. Not every conference listed below will end up with just a single NCAA bid, but how things go down the stretch in the regular season and in their postseason tournaments (for those that have them) will greatly affect their bids and the bids of other leagues.

We’re not looking at the SEC, ACC, Big 12, or Pac-12 that are locks to get multiple spots in the tourney, we are looking at the conferences battling for a single spot and what some of them need to do to get multiple bids.

We will look at more conference races next week as well…

America East      Record      RPI

Stony Brook (34-10, 12-2)  119
Binghamton (18-18, 9-3)  201
Maine (22-19, 8-4)  210

Stony Brook, which won a school record 42 games last year, came into the season as the favorite to win the America East. The Seawolves have played like the favorite all year long. Maine claimed last year’s automatic NCAA bid after knocking-off Stony Brook in the conference tournament. Winning another postseason crown this year will be the only way the Black Bears gain NCAA entry this season.

Atlantic Sun       Record      RPI

USC Upstate (30-13, 13-5)  73
Belmont (28-17, 12-6)  60
Stetson (29-15, 11-7)  50
Kennesaw St. (28-20, 12-9)  81

South Carolina Upstate is the biggest surprise in the conference. In its first season of full DI eligibility, the Trojans have 30 overall wins and lead the conference heading into the homestretch of the regular season after being picked to finish last in the 10-team league. Upstate just completed a five year transition from Division II.

Stetson was the co-preseason favorite to win the A-Sun. The Hatters’ overall record is solid, and a good non-conference schedule with games against the likes of Florida State, Central Florida and Miami gives them the best RPI in the conference and the best chance for the league to receive an at-large NCAA bid if they don’t win the conference postseason tournament. Stetson and Jacksonville both received at-large bids last year, joining tournament champion Belmont in the NCAA Tournament. It marked the first time in four years the league received multiple bids.

Big series this weekend with Upstate at Stetson.

Atlantic 10          Record  RPI

Rhode Island (26-19, 11-4)  101
Dayton (21-24, 10-5)  196
St. Joseph’s (19-24, 9-5)  217
St. Louis (30-14, 11-7)  150

Charlotte was the preseason favorite to win a third straight A-10 crown, but the 49ers are sitting in the lower half of the conference standings at 20-23 overall and just 8-9 in conference play. Current leader Rhode Island was picked to finish second, while St. Joseph’s and St. Louis have both played a little above preseason expectations. Bottom line-the conference tournament champ will receive the 13-team league’s lone NCAA bid.

Big East           Record     RPI

St. John’s (29-16, 14-4)  35
Louisville (31-14, 12-6)  69
USF (29-16, 12-6)  82
UConn (24-20, 12-6)  77
Rutgers (26-18, 11-7)  79
Seton Hall (26-19, 11-7)  95

The Big East has shown itself to be a multi-bid league in recent years, and that should be the case this season. However, things could get interesting down the stretch. St. John’s and Louisville are on the most solid footing for a potential at-large bid and they play each other next week. What happens if a lower seed, like Seton Hall last year, wins the Big East postseason tournament puts things in doubt. That said, St. John’s benefitted from the de-emphasis on RPI last year when it received one of the final at-large bids with an RPI outside the top 60.

Big South             Record        RPI

Coastal Carolina (30-13, 12-3)  36
Radford (25-18, 10-5)  93
Campbell (33-12, 9-6)  104
Liberty (34-15, 10-8)  76

Things have pretty much gone as expected in the Big South this season. Coastal Carolina, which has won a league record five straight Big South titles, was the near unanimous preseason favorite to win another conference crown in 2012. The Chanticleers have won each of their conference series this season, including last week’s sweep of the team that was picked to finish second in the conference – Liberty. The Big South’s best chance for two NCAA bids is for Liberty or someone else to win its postseason conference tournament. With seven regular season games to go the Flames can also make a strong at-large case for themselves if they can get to 40 wins. Even if they don’t get to 40 they already have similar credentials as last year’s St. John’s team from the Big East that received an at-large invite.

Big Ten              Record          RPI

Purdue (34-7, 14-4)  5
Minnesota (27-20, 9-6)  130
Indiana (22-23, 9-6)  116
Nebraska (28-16, 8-7)  80
Michigan St. (27-15, 8-7)  51
Illinois (25-19, 8-7)  57
Penn St. (22-22, 8-7)  136

B1G’s best chance to get two NCAA bids is for someone to beat Purdue in the postseason conference tournament. The Boilermakers are an absolute lock for a bid, despite having the credentials to host a regional, they don’t even know if that will happen. Purdue is in the process of building a new stadium that won’t be done until July. Their best bet to host looks like playing at the Ft. Wayne Tincaps’ minor league facility, but that’s a drive of more than 2 ½ hours to the northeast. The Boilers are at UCLA for three games this weekend with a possible national seed on the line.

Back to the bids though. Michigan State and Illinois, last year’s regular season co-champions, play a big series this weekend in Champaign. The winner has the only likely chance for an at-large berth by season’s end. Nebraska’s RPI won’t climb enough with Indiana, Minnesota and Michigan (116, 130, 230) in the RPI remaining.

Big West             Record            RPI

Cal St. Fullerton (27-14, 9-3)  13
Long Beach St. (21-21, 11-4)  56
Cal Poly (26-17, 9-6)  65
UC Santa Barbara (23-19, 9-6)  115
UC Irvine (24-17, 8-7)  67

Preseason favorite and perennial NCAA Tourney team Cal State Fullerton is the only lock for a bid this season. The Titans took two out of three games earlier this year from current second place team Long Beach State and those two close the regular season with three games in Long Beach. That series looms large since the Big West does not hold a postseason tournament.

Irvine and Santa Barbara face off this weekend. The Anteaters still have a chance to get back in the mix with two midweek games against San Diego (26 RPI) and another vs. UCLA. Cal Poly just got a nice win over Pepperdine (27 RPI), but their chances to get more style points are long gone. Poly’s remaining series are against UC Davis (197), Cal State Bakersfield (161), Santa Barbara (115), and UC Riverside (147).

The fact that WCC teams San Diego, Pepperdine and Gonzaga all have top 30 RPIs severely hinders the Big West’s chances to receive two or more bids.

Colonial               Record          RPI

UNC Wilmington (27-7, 17-4)  48
Hofstra (26-17, 14-7)  120
George Mason (32-17, 15-9)  103

One of the problems the CAA has is the team with the second best RPI in the league, VCU at 92, is just 25-20 overall, 11-13 in league play and in eighth place in the current conference standings. James Madison was the overwhelming preseason favorite to win the CAA, but the Dukes are sitting in ninth place at 15-29-1 and 9-15 in the conference. Wilmington is sitting on solid ground and has a chance to add several more wins with 11 left in the regular season. An RPI building opportunity comes next week when they travel to Chapel Hill to face North Carolina.

Horizon            Record          RPI

Wright St. (31-14, 16-5)  110
Valparaiso (23-20, 15-6)  156

Wright State and Valpo go head-to-head in Dayton, OH this weekend with the top seed in the Horizon’s postseason tournament on the line. The Raiders have become the team to beat in recent years in the six-team league, earning two of the last three automatic bids by winning conference tournament crowns. Wright State and Valparaiso are the only teams in the league with winning records this season.

Virginia Tech celebrated a pair of weekend walk off wins over Miami (Dave Wolpert photo).

Another wild weekend of college baseball is in the books. The weekend started with seven CB360 Top 50 matchups going to extra innings on Friday and ended with a total of 13 series sweeps (41 total Top 50 series). The only sweep by an underdog came when Southeastern Louisiana took three games from No. 37 Texas State in Southland Conference play.

An interesting MLB milestone with a college connection was reached Sunday when the Arizona Diamondbacks’ John McDonald collected his 500^th career hit. McDonald is the last former Providence College player still active in the Major Leagues. Providence cut its baseball program after the 1999.

1,444…Career wins for Stanford head coach Mark Marquess with Sunday’s 4-2 victory over Oregon. The victory ties him with long time Virginia Tech coach Chuck Hartman (1960-2006) for No. 5 all-time among Division-I coaches.

Stephen Piscotty

600…Career Division One victories for Oregon head coach George Horton after Saturday’s 5-0 series clinching win at Stanford.  The win not only gave Horton the milestone, it also gave the Ducks their fourth straight Pac-12 Conference series victory and moved them into a tie with Arizona atop the conference standings.

7…RBIs by Stanford’s Stephen Piscotty in Monday’s 19-6 win over rival Cal. It was Piscotty’s second 7-RBI game this season. He also did it in an 18-5 win over Vanderbilt back on February 19. Piscotty leads the Cardinal with 37 RBIs this season.

600…Career wins at Oregon State for head coach Pat Casey after Saturday’s 12-2 win over Arkansas-Pine Bluff. Sunday’s win put him 12 victories away from tying Jack Riley for the most wins in Beaver history.

54…Years since Florida had swept a regular season series from intrastate rival Florida State prior to doing it last week. Just a day after seeing FSU replace them as the No. 1 ranked team in the country, Florida downed the Seminoles 6-3 in Tallahassee. That win, combined with a 9-2 victory on March 13 in Gainesville and a March 27 4-1 win in Jacksonville, gives the Gators their first sweep of the ‘Noles since 1958. It was also Florida’s 100^th all-time victory against Florida State.

7…Total losses by Florida State this year – almost half of them (3) have come at the hands of the Gators. The ‘Noles also dropped Sunday’s series finale to Boston College.

19…Consecutive wins by Baylor after sweeping Kansas State over the weekend. The Bears have moved within one victory of the program record consecutive wins set in 1985. They had to overcome deficits of six runs and four runs to win the last two games of the series in Manhattan to improve to 15-0 in Big 12 Conference play. The 15 straight wins to open conference play is eight better than the previous Big 12 record.

9…Years since Virginia had been swept in a home series prior to dropping all three home games over the weekend to North Carolina. The Cavaliers had won 15 straight home games and 16 straight ACC series prior to seeing the Tar Heels win all three games by a total of seven runs.

21…Straight non-conference games Kentucky had won prior to being pounded 12-0 by Bluegrass State rival Louisville Tuesday in Lexington. It’s the largest margin of victory for Louisville in the series with their rival. It also marked the Cardinal’s first win over a No. 1 ranked team (Collegiate Baseball Poll) since 2005.

16…Years since a team had swept a doubleheader from Arkansas prior to Kentucky taking two from the Razorbacks on Saturday to clinch the series win against their SEC rival. The 5-4 and 2-1 victories also marked the Wildcats’ first series win in Arkansas’ Baum stadium since 2002 and just their second series win there in program history. Arkansas had won nine consecutive home series prior to the losses.

Lance Breedlove

408…Career wins by Purdue head coach Doug Schreiber after a weekend sweep of defending Big Ten champion Illinois. The wins continue the Boilermakers (28-5, 10-2 Big Ten) on one of the best seasons in program history, while also giving Schreiber the program wins record that was previously held by Dave Alexander – for whom Schreiber played from 1983-86.

25…Consecutive shutout innings pitched at home by Purdue pitcher Lance Breedlove after tossing 7 2/3 scoreless frames in the Boiler’s game two win over the Illini. The senior from Long Beach, Ca, who was primarily a reliever last year, has not allowed a run at Lambert Field dating back to May 2011. Breedlove is 6-2 with a 2.23 ERA this season, with a microscopic 0.55 ERA in Big Ten play.

5…Runs that scored with two outs in Francis Marion’s 5-4 upset win over No. 13 South Carolina. The win came on Wednesday night in Florence, SC at the dedication of the Division II school’s Cormell Field at Sparrow Stadium. South Carolina beat Francis Marian 5-3 in 1974 at the dedication of the “old” Cormell Field.

46…Consecutive games Alabama’s Taylor Dugas had reached base prior to having that streak snapped with an 0-for-4 day in Saturday’s 7-1 loss at LSU. The Lafayette, La native is still batting .336 with 18 walks and has been hit by pitch 13 times this season.

1…Complete game this season by the Cal pitching staff. It came courtesy of Matt Flemer, who held Washington to two runs and four hits in Saturday’s 5-2 win. Flemer, a senior, also earned the first complete game of his career in what his 73^rd career appearance and 17^th start. The victory clinched Cal’s first Pac-12 Conference series win this season.

7…SEC wins by Tennessee this season after Saturday’s 5-4 upset of Florida. The seven conference victories under first year head coach Dave Serrano matches their total from a year ago.

.184…Opponent batting average by the UCLA bullpen in 109 2/3 innings this season. The Bruin pen has a 1.97 ERA in 2012 (3.40 overall team ERA), and came-up big over the weekend in helping the Bruins hand Arizona its first series loss

Ronnie Richardson

of season. David Berg, Zack Ortiz, Grant Watson, Ryan Deeter, and Scott Griggs combined to allow just an unearned run on four hits with four strikeouts and a walk 8 1/3 innings in the series in Tucson. The unearned run was the difference in Friday’s 4-3 loss. UCLA (24-8, 10-5) is in third place in the Pac-12 behind Arizona and Oregon.

23…Times hit by pitch this season by Central Florida’s Ronnie Richardson. The UCF centerfielder now holds the program’s single season record after being plunked in back to back trips to the plate in Sunday’s 12-3 win over Southern Mississippi. The junior has 53 career HBP to his credit. Combined with 26 BB and 39 hits he has a team best .492 OBP in 2012.

4…Consecutive Conference USA series wins by UCF to open the season after taking two of three games from Southern Mississippi over the weekend. Terry Rooney’s Knights had never won even two straight series to open conference play prior to this year. UCF (30-8, 9-3) is also one of five DI teams to win 30 games this year.

.179…Batting average of LSU outfielder Arby Fields entering Tuesday’s game against Alcorn State. Fields has gone on a tear hitting .455 (10-for-22) in his last six games with a double, a triple, six RBI, seven runs, two steals and a .480 on-base percentage, while raising his overall average to .295. Fields is in his first season at LSU. He played football and baseball at Northwestern in 2009 and ’10 before transferring to a California junior college last year. He has primarily been a reserve outfielder this season.

13…Come from behind wins when trailing after the 5^th inning for Virginia Tech. The Hokies plated two runs in the bottom of the 9^th on Sunday to walk off with a 3-2 win over Miami. It was the second straight day they won in their last at-bat to take two of three games from the No. 8 Hurricanes. Pete Hughes’ Hokies (25-11, 7-11) are just the third VT team since 2000 to get to 25 wins before its 40^th game of the season.

18…Nation-leading saves this season by San Diego’s Michael Wagner. The sophomore saved all four Torero wins last week to tie the West Coast Conference single season saves record and move within five saves of the all-time Division One season record. Wagner had a pair of 2.0 inning saves against rival San Diego State and LaSalle and then worked an inning in each of the last two games against the Explorers to cap the weekend sweep. He has 31 strikeouts and nine walks in 22 appearances and 35.0 IP this season.

29…Of 39 games to start the season played on the road by Missouri Valley Conference leader Indiana State. The No. 35 Sycamores (28-9, 8-4 MVC) took two of three games at Bradley over the weekend for their fourth straight series win to open conference play. It’s their best MVC start since winning five straight series to open the 1998 season. Rick Heller’s squad needs just one win to match last year’s total. They play their next 12 and 15 of their last 20 games at home.

Florida State Celebrates Mike Martin's milestone 1,700th career victory.

This past weekend was a good one to be an underdog in college baseball. While CB360 Top-50 teams still won the majority of games, underdogs managed to win 41 of 106 head to head matchups against higher-ranked teams from Thursday through Sunday.

Many series, including No. 11 LSU at No. 1 Florida, began on Thursday last week because of Easter weekend.

Two coaches (see below) reached major milestone victories over the weekend, and, interestingly, they both did it with their team on the road.

Following is a “by-the-numbers” look at some of the weekend’s action.

1,700…Career wins for Florida State head coach Mike Martin. The veteran skipper reached the milestone with Sunday’s 8-4 Sunday win over Georgia Tech. FSU swept the series to improve to 14-1 in ACC play this season.

LSU's Paul Mainieri

1,100…Career wins for LSU head coach Paul Mainieri with Saturday’s series-clinching 8-7 win over No. 1 Florida. The Tigers had to overcome an early 7-2 deficit in Gainesville to reach the milestone for Mainieri, who has earned 236 of his victories in his five-plus seasons on the Bayou.

11…One run games played by LSU this season, after Thursday and Saturday’s wins over the Gators. The Tigers are 8-3 in those one-run contests, including a 7-2 mark in SEC games decided by just a single digit this season.

5…Losses in their past seven games by the once seemingly invincible Gators. Florida lost two of three to Ole Miss a week ago, followed by a midweek setback to North Florida and this past weekend’s two losses to LSU to fall to 25-7 overall and 7-5 in SEC play. The Gators were 17-1 at home this season entering the weekend before dropping the two games to the Tigers.

Marcus Stroman led the nation with 72 Ks last week.

25…Combined strikeouts in his past two starts, both losses, by Duke pitcher Marcus Stroman. The junior fanned 12 in a 1-0 loss to Georgia Tech last week and then struck out 13 in a 4-1 setback to Clemson this past Friday. Stroman has 85 Ks in 58 IP this season – a 13.2 strikeouts per 9.0 innings rate.

10…Home runs by Miami’s Pete O’Brien. The senior belted his team-leading HR in Friday’s win over North Carolina. He is in his first season at Miami after being allowed by the NCAA to transfer and play immediately after three years at Bethune-Cookman.

14…The combined home run total of O’Brien’s Hurricane teammates. The three home runs hit by three different ‘Canes are the next closest after O’Brien.

14…Years since Miami had shut out an opponent twice in the same series, prior to blanking the Tar Heels 8-0 and 4-0 this weekend en route to a series sweep. It also marks UNC’s first series loss and first three-game losing streak this year.

21…Straight home wins for Kentucky – a school record – after Friday’s 3-2 win over Ole Miss. The streak ended with Saturday’s 9-3 loss to the Rebels, but the Wildcats won Sunday’s series finale for their fourth series win in as many SEC series in 2012.

8-2…Oregon’s record against ranked opponents this season after taking the first two games of their series with UCLA. The Ducks and Bruins now are tied for second place in the Pac-12 standings behind 9-3 Arizona.

5…Losses by Stanford over the past three weeks, after losing only three times in the first six weeks of the season. The Cardinal dropped four straight Pac-12 games in one stretch, after falling to USC in their March 26 series finale and being swept at Arizona last weekend. They lost the middle game of their weekend series with Washington, but still managed to take two out of three games in Seattle.

Joe Haase has helped Purdue to a record setting start to 2012 (courtesy Purduesports.com)

8…Series/event-opening wins by Purdue this season. The Boilermakers are off to a record-setting 24-5 start this season, thanks in part to the pitching of ace Joe Haase. The Boilers are 8-0 in games their Friday starter has started this season. Haase is 5-0 with a 3.59 ERA.

11…Years since the Boilermakers had swept a Big Ten Conference road series before taking three on the road from Northwestern over the weekend.

12…Straight wins to open Big 12 play by Baylor after Saturday’s 12-7 win over Missouri. No team had started better than 7-0 to start Big 12 play prior to this season. The red hot Bears have won 14 consecutive games overall and have series sweeps over Texas Tech, Kansas, Oklahoma State, and Missouri. The slate will get tougher, with remaining series against Top-50 teams Texas A&M, Texas and Oklahoma.

8…Wins with no losses by Baylor pitcher Trent Blank. The senior had an 8-4 career record prior to this season, but with a 1.67 ERA and a .185 opponent batting average, the Bears Saturday starter’s 2012 win total currently leads the nation.

58…Tennessee batters hit by pitch through 31 games this season. The Vols, under first-year head coach Dave Serrano, already have matched their HBP total from the 2011 season (54 games).

By College Baseball 360 Editor Sean Stires

February is almost over, and that means just one thing to college baseball coaches, players and fans alike – it’s ping time! The season starts tomorrow and every team in the country, with maybe the exception of Arizona State (see below), starts with a clean slate.

Teams from Connecticut to Cal, Michigan (State if you prefer) to Miami, Oregon to Orlando (with both Stetson and UCF nearby), Tennessee to Texas, and nearly 300 points in between all have their sights set on Omaha.

South Carolina is the two-time defending champ, but a stocked Florida team is the unanimous No. 1 and wants to dethrone its SEC rival. Plenty of other non-SEC teams like Stanford, North Carolina and Texas A&M to name a few are all legitimate preseason threats to the Gamecock throne.

Before they get to the promised land though, they all have to navigate their own 56-game regular season gauntlets along the road to Omaha.

Most of them, like Arkansas-Little Rock and New Mexico last year, won’t have the regular season credentials for even the NCAA field of 64, but they’ll get their shot if they can roll the dice hard and come-up big with a postseason conference tournament title and the automatic NCAA bid that comes with it.

Who will be this season’s Jeremy Lin – the team or player to come out of nowhere -  and who will be this year’s Philadelphia Eagles – the team with all the preseason hype only to fall flat – ?

They’re all out there, we just don’t know who they are yet.

We’re thinking about all that and a lot more heading into 2012. Here’s a look at some of the other stuff on my own mind:

Let’s Start With Exposure

College baseball needs a dose of early season exposure. Pitchers and catchers are just starting to think about reporting to Spring Training, but the college game is starting en-masse this weekend – IN FEBRUARY.

College baseball reaches its crescendo in Omaha in June. That’s where guys like Trevor Bauer, Scott Wingo and Matt Curry (UCLA, South Carolina and TCU, respectively) get their shots at the national stage – when the games are on ESPN and people around the country are watching. The conundrum is, once the College World Series is over most of those college baseball heroes fade from the memory of the casual fan.

It’s hard enough to catch lightening in a bottle, let alone keep it there for eight months, but why not give it a shot?

Take those eight teams that got to Omaha at the end of the season and gather them to start the next season – and put it on TV.

Can you see it? The 2012 Road To Omaha First Pitch Challenge – with South Carolina, Virginia, Cal, and Texas A&M in one pool and Florida, Vanderbilt, North Carolina, and Texas in another pool.

You wouldn’t play out the entire double-elimination tournament like the CWS format, just a pair of four-team round robins. Each team gets three teams in three days.

Big names, which all got maximum exposure at the end of the last season, big early interest.

Play the games at Dodgers Stadium and/or Anaheim and it’s easy programming for MLB Network. As much as I like MLB Network, it would be much better than watching Prime 9 on a loop all weekend!

It is college, so some of the names and faces will be a little different, but as Tommy Lasorda would tell you, the name on the fronts of the jerseys will be the same.

It’s not so crazy. Now, can we just make it happen?!

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SEC Dominance

As college baseball fans know, it’s not just a football conference. The left coast doesn’t want to hear it, but the claims of the SEC’s dominance of college baseball are not greatly exaggerated. It is somewhat staggering to look at just how good the conference is when it comes to success at the College World Series. Start with the fact that all 11 players named to last year’s CWS All-Tournament Team were from the SEC, and throw-in the fact that with South Carolina’s back-to-back titles the last two years the conference has now won three straight national titles (LSU – 2009).

A total of 46 SEC teams have advanced to Omaha since 1990, with LSU at the head of the pack at 12 trips. Florida (6), South Carolina (5), Georgia (5), Mississippi State (4), Alabama (3), Tennessee (3), Auburn (2) and Arkansas (2) have each gone multiple times in the last two decades as well. The Bayou Bengals have won six of the conference’s nine national championships in that time, with Georgia (1990) and South Carolina (2010 & 2011) claiming the other three. South Carolina, Florida and Vanderbilt were the conference’s three CWS representatives in 2011, and all three were among the last four teams remaining at the event.

While last year was the SEC’s high water mark in that regard, the conference has failed to have at least one team among the last four alive in Omaha just five times since 1990.

The SEC just keeps getting tougher as well, with Dave Serrano leaving Cal State Fullerton to claim Tennessee as his new address. Serrano is one of 11 coaches to ever lead two programs to the College World Series (current Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn and LSU’s Paul Mainieri are part of the club as well). Serrano took UC Irvine to the 2007 CWS and then led Fullerton to Omaha two years later.

CLICK HERE to listen to a preseason podcast with LSU head coach Paul Mainieri.

CLICK HERE to listen to a preseason podcast with Florida OF Preston Tucker.

Speaking Of New Addresses

Vanderhook

Rick Vanderhook begins his first season as head coach at Cal State Fullerton in 2012, but he is anything but unfamiliar with the land of the Titans. Vanderhook, who spent the last three seasons as an assistant at UCLA, is just the fifth head coach in program history.

Vanderhook was an assistant coach for a total of 21 seasons in Fullerton under the previous four head coaches: Augie Garrido, Larry Cochell, George Horton, and Serrano, so don’t look for the Titans’ offensive philosophy to change. Vanderhook inherits a lot of returning experience offensively, but he’ll need to replace a ton of pitching, including Noe Ramirez and Tyler Pill are gone from the weekend rotation, and two-way player (and closer) Nick Ramirez.

Arizona State Is Out

After sending six teams to the NCAA Tournament last year, one thing is certain in 2012 – if the Pac-12 gets six bids this year Arizona State will not be among them. After 12 straight NCAA appearances, the Sun Devils are banned from the 2012 NCAA postseason for infractions that were committed under former head coach Pat Murphy’s watch. ASU advanced to the College World Series in current head coach Tim Esmay’s first season in 2010 and fell to Texas in Super Regional play in Austin last year.

The argument can be made that most, if not all, of the players on this year’s roster were not even around when the actual infractions (lack of institutional control by the school) took place. That’s fair, but don’t forget that ASU was allowed to participate in last year’s NCAA Tournament while the appeals process took place. A higher percentage of those player, who played for Murphy, were there when the infractions took place.

Bottom line, it’s not a good situation for anyone and this year’s probation is step one in the moving on process.

Going Golden Bear Hunting

Cal's tumultuous 2011 season ended in Omaha

At this time last year Cal and head coach David Esqeur were just trying to keep the program alive. What a difference a year makes. After not only managing to Save Cal Baseball, Esquer managed to take his Golden Bears all the way to Omaha for the first time in nearly 20 years. Cal was the feel good story of 2011, but that CWS trip puts a bigger target on their backs this year.

“I hope we have that bull’s eye on our back,” Cal pitcher Justin Jones recently told College Baseball 360. “We’ll have to see how that plays out and see what happens I guess. We now know what it takes to get there to Omaha, and it’s really helped with the practice, the preparation and the hard work we all put in. Now we know that what was once kind of out of the reach is now in our reach. It’s in our eyesight. We feel like we can reach it every year now.”

Cal’s run to the CWS gives the Pac-12 six teams that have played in the CWS since 2004, along with Oregon State, Arizona State, UCLA, Stanford, and Arizona. The Cinderella run is the stuff of movies and, more importantly, what college athletics is all about. By the way, Jones says he would want Johnny Depp to play him if they were to make a movie.

CLICK HERE to listen to a preseason podcast with Cal’s Justin Jones.

Conference Confusion

While baseball is an afterthought when it comes to all the shuffling in college conferences, the landscape of the sport will be affected greatly by all of the movement. Nowhere have things been more volatile than the Big 12 Conference, where who is staying and who is leaving have been the biggest questions over the last couple years.

First, Nebraska bolted for the Big Ten and Colorado moved out west for Pac-10/12 expansion. The latter didn’t affect baseball, but the loss of the Cornhuskers means a three time College World Series team is gone to even farther northern climes.

While Utah does not immediately make the conference tougher on the diamond, Bill Kinneberg does bring a solid program with him to an already tough conference. The addition of Utah also means all 11 current Pac-12 baseball teams have made the NCAA Tournament field at least once since 2004. Kinneberg led the 2010 USA Collegiate National Team to a silver medal performance at the 2010 World University Championships. His Utes also finished their last season in the Mountain West Conference with 29 wins. Kinneberg’s roots in the Pac-10 run deep. He was a member of Arizona’s 1980 national championship team and was also an assistant coach on Arizona State’s 1993 and ’94 CWS squads.

Texas, Oklahoma and Oklahoma State flirted with the Pac-12, but ultimately stayed put. Meanwhile, Texas A&M and then Missouri decided it was time to jump for the SEC. Those two teams will play one last season in the Big 12 in 2012, but don’t expect any touchy-feely send-offs for them in their swan song season. Things could be as bitter as ever when the two rivals square-off for possibly the last time Apr. 27-29.

TCU and West Virginia will take their place. The Horned Frogs are a year removed from an Omaha trip, while the Mountaineers – a team that has traditionally been long on offense but pitching thin – have not been to the NCAA Tournament since 1996.  What it all means the immediate future is nine baseball teams competing in the Big 12 in 2012.

Other conferences will see more shuffling as well. Hawaii will come aboard as a Big West member for the 2013 season, while San Diego State joins-up in 2014(though SDSU football is Big East bound) . Cal State Bakersfield and Texas State will join the WAC, Memphis, Houston and Central Florida are leaving Conference USA for the Big East, Fresno State is leaving the WAC for the Mountain West, and of course the Mountain West and Conference USA just announced plans to merge. Former DI Independent Dallas Baptist, which advanced to the program’s first Super Regional last year, is playing in the Missouri Valley Conference this year, but will head to the WAC next year.

It’s not confusing at all…

Is Virginia here to stay?

Brian O'Connor doing an interview at the 2011 CWS

Brian O’Connor has led his Cavaliers to the College World Series in two of the last three years, but the challenge to get there again will be even greater in the near future. O’Connor’s recruiting has been nothing short of phenomenal since taking over the program in 2004, but arguably his biggest recruit – Danny Hultzen – is now gone. Hultzen was a freshman on UVA’a 2009 CWS squad and ended his career with a school record 32 wins before being the second overall pick (Seattle Mariners) in the 2011 MLB Draft. While he is the biggest man to replace, there are other holes to fill as well.”

“From a pitching standpoint off last year’s team, we lost 70 percent of our innings,” O’Connor told CB360 of his turnover. “We lost three guys that threw over 100 innings and another pitcher that threw over 75 innings.”

Branden Kline is the biggest name back from the ’11 CWS squad. He shined last year with 18 saves, while moving from midweek starter to closer. O’Connor told College Baseball 360 that Kline will start the new season in the weekend rotation, but could return to the closer role if other starters emerge.

Pitching isn’t the only pressing need O’Connor has entering 2012. His top four statistical hitters from last year are departed as well, but he said he is ready for the new challenge.

“As a coach, you can look at it in one of two ways. You can be concerned about that or you can look forward to it.”

O’Connor added that he had fun this past fall seeing a lot of new faces in new places.

“I love that challenge as a coach of trying to get those young people to the next level of being able to perform every day and be somebody that can really be counted on at a high level of college baseball”

Consistency in the coaching staff has been a key to Virginia’s success as well. Associate head coach, Kevin McMullen, and pitching coach, Karl Kuhn, are entering their ninth year with O’Connor on the Cavalier staff.

CLICK HERE to listen to a preseason podcast with Brian O’Connor.

O’Brien Stepping-up To The Big Stage

Peter O'Brien

After three great seasons at Bethune-Cookman, Peter O’Brien should provide instant impact after transferring to Miami for his final year of eligibility. The NCAA ruled recently that O’Brien will be allowed to play immediately. The  catcher batted .304 with 14 home runs and 69 RBIs in 2011.

The 6’5, 225 lb. senior was the MEAC Player of the Year in 2010 and went on to play for the USA Collegiate National Team that summer. O’Brien was selected in the third round of the 2011 MLB Draft, but turned down the chance to turn pro for a year in Coral Gables and the ACC.

Florida's Kevin O'Sullivan with ESPN's Kyle Peterson at the CWS

With the start of the season rapidly approaching, here’s a look at some of the top teams in the country heading into the 2012 college baseball season.

Our rankings are based on a “composite formula” that combines not only the existing weekly preseason national polls, but also other factors like strength of schedule and preseason conference polls. Other criteria will continually be added throughout the season to our composite rankings.

Here is a look at the top 10 teams heading into the season.

( ) Stats in parenthesis are from the 2011 season.

* After a statistic denotes team leader in that statistical category.

Top 10 By Conference: SEC: 4, ACC: 2, Big 12: 2, Pac-12: 1, Conference USA: 1

CLICK HERE to see the entire CB360 2012 Preseason Composite National Rankings

CLICK HERE to see capsules for teams 11-20

CLICK HERE to see capsules for teams 21-30

1. Florida

2011 Record: 53-19

In 2010, Kevin O’Sullivan led Florida to its first College World Series since 2005’s national runner-up appearance, but the Gators were two and ‘que in Rosenblatt Stadium’s swan song. Last year, virtually the same team stormed all the way to the CWS Championship Series, only to fall to SEC Eastern Division rival South Carolina.

The question O’Sullivan has this year is – Can that same core of players take things one step farther?

While the two-time defending champion Gamecocks have considerable losses to deal with (see below), the Gators return almost everyone from last year’s 53 win team.

Starting pitchers Hudson Randall (11-3*, 2.17 ERA, 124 1/3 IP*, 2 CG*), Karsten Whitson (8-1, 2.40 ERA, 97 1/3 IP, 92 K*) and two-way player Brian Johnson (8-1, 2.40 ERA/.307 BA, 5 HR, 29 RBIs) combined to pitch nearly half of the team’s 644 innings last year. A slew of heavy duty arms will back them up in the bullpen.

The line-up is led by catcher Mike Zunino (.371*, 19 HR*, 23 Doubles*, 67 RBIs, 75 Runs*, 1.116 OPS*) and senior Preston Tucker (.308, 15 HR, 74 RBIs*, 23 Doubles*). Daniel Pigott (.331, 5 HR, 40 RBIs, 15 SB*), Nolan Fontana (.289, 5 HR, 49 RBIs), Austin Maddox (.280, 6 HR, 35 RBIs/0.67 ERA, 21 App., 5 SV*), Tyler Thompson (.264, 27 Starts), and Vickash Ramjit (.382, 19 Starts) all fortify the best top to bottom everyday lineup in the country heading into the season. Tucker told us anything short of a national championship this year would be a disappointment and it’s hard to disagree.

The Gators challenge themselves right away when they host a three-game series vs. Cal State Fullerton to open the season.

CLICK HERE to listen to a podcast interview with Gator Preston Tucker.

2. South Carolina

2011 Record:  55-14

Ray Tanner’s Gamecocks won a second straight national title last year after returning a slew of talent from the 2010 championship squad. This year will be different though. South Carolina loses several key players from the back-to-back championship teams – including position players Jackie Bradley, Jr. (.247, 6 HR, 27 RBIs), Scott Wingo (.338, 4 HR, 31 RBIs), Brady Thomas (.316, 4 HR, 43 RBIs), Robert Beary (.289, 3 HR, 35 RBIs), Adrian Morales (.281, 3 HR, 40 RBIs), and relievers John Taylor (8-1, 1.14 ERA, 50 App., *) and Jose Mata (3-0, 1.76 ERA). The two pitchers combined to make 73 appearances (50 by Taylor) en-route to the team’s second crown last year.

While the losses are formidable, South Carolina does return arguably the most important pitcher in the country, Michael Roth (14-3*, 1.06 ERA, CG*, 145 IP*, 112 K*), over the last two seasons. Sophomore closer Matt Price (7-3, 1.83 ERA, 20 SV*, 59 IP, 70 K*), Forrest Koumas (6-1, 2.96 ERA) and Colby Holmes (7-3, 3.69 ERA) fortify a solid pitching staff.

Infield cornerstone Christian Walker (.358*, 10 HR*, 62 RBIs*, 21 Doubles*, 64 Runs*, .992 OPS*) and  Evan Marzilli (.291, 3 HR, 31 RBIs) are also back for a shot at another run at Omaha.

South Carolina is the only SEC team to reach the NCAA Tournament and also record 40 or more wins in each of the last 12 seasons. The Gamecocks have 577 overall wins, including 222 in SEC play (the most of any team in the conference) during that stretch.

3. Stanford

2011 Record: 35-22

You would be hard pressed to find a team that played a tougher schedule than Stanford last year. You would be even harder pressed to find a pitcher who had tougher head-to-head match-ups in 2011 than Cardinal ace Mark Appel (6-7, 3.02 ERA, 2 CG*, 110 1/3 IP*). Stanford opened its season with series at Rice, at Vanderbilt and at Texas, making the likes of Sonny Gray and Taylor Jungmann Appel’s counterparts on those nights. That’s not to mention match-ups with Sam Gaviglio, Gerrit Cole, Brady Rodgers, Kurt Heyer, and Erik Johnson in Pac-10 play.

The long and short of it is, while Appel won just six times for a 35 win Stanford team, both were battle tested when the NCAA Tournament rolled around as the Cardinal won the Fullerton Regional before falling to North Carolina in Super Regional play.

Appel leads a pitching staff that includes Dean McArdle (7-4*, 4.21 ERA), A.J. Vanegas (1-0, 3.35 ERA, 23 App.) and Brett Mooneyham, who missed all of last season due to injury. The lefty made 28 starts in his first two seasons in 2009 & ’10.

The everyday lineup is stocked with the likes of Stephen Piscotty (.364*, 3 HR, 40 RBIs, 13 Doubles), Brian Ragira (.329, 4 HR, 46 RBIs*, 5 Triples*), Tyler Gaffney (.327, 3 HR, 35 RBIs, 5 Triples*, 10 Doubles, 42 Runs*), Austin Wilson (.311, 5 HR*, 30 RBIs), Lonnie Kauppila (.298, 10 Doubles, 25 RBIs), Kenny Diekroeger (.293, 2 HR, 31 RBIs, 31 Runs), and Jake Stewart (.287, 19 RBIs, 15 Doubles*, 8 SB*, 32 Runs).

By the way, Texas, Rice and Vandy all visit Sunken Diamond this year.

4. North Carolina

2011 Record: 51-16

The good news for Mike Fox and his Tar Heels last year was, after being eliminated in the Regional round in 2010 (on the heels of four straight CWS appearances from 2006-2009), they got back to Omaha in 2011. The bad news was, it was one of their shortest CWS trips. North Carolina was just 1-2 at TD Ameritrade Park last year, with a win over Texas sandwiched between losses to Vanderbilt.

The good news for Fox this year is he returns the bulk of last year’s team. Colin Moran (.335*, 9*, 71 RBIs*, 20 Doubles*, .982 OPS*), Tommy Coyle (.311, 2 HR, 36 RBIs, 57 Runs*, 16 Doubles, 18 SB*), Jacob Stallings (.292, 4 HR, 43 RBIs), Chaz Frank (.278, 35 RBIs, 10 SB). Coyle and Stallings were two of just three Tar Heels to start all 67 games last year. The biggest blow to the lineup and infield is the loss of shortstop Levi Michael (.289, 5 HR, 48 RBIs).

The pitching staff loses ace Patrick Johnson (13-2*, 2.47 ERA, 113 IP*, 125 K*), but there are more than enough returning arms to pick-up the slack. Among them Kent Emanuel (9-1, 2.33 ERA*, 104 1/3 IP), Chris Munnelly (6-5, 4.09 ERA, 10 Starts, 1 SV), Tate Parrish (2.20 ERA, 32 App., 16 1/3 IP, 15 K), Andrew Smith (3-1, 2.77 ERA, 24 App., 26 IP, 27 K), Shane Taylor (2-3, 3.00 ERA, 36 IP, 38 K), R.C. Orlan (2-0, 3.79 ERA, 32 App., 19 IP, 24 K), and Michael Morlin (4-2, 4.64 ERA, 32 App., 6 Starts, 10 SV*, 64 IP, 66 K).

5. Texas A&M

2011 Record: 47-22

Like its arch rival, Texas, Texas A&M is coming-off a trip to the College World Series. It was the program’s first appearance under head coach Rob Childress and its first since 1999. Unlike Texas, this will be A&M’s last season in the Big 12, as the Aggies move to the SEC (along with Missouri) next season.

Kind of makes the April 27-29 series (first game in College Station with the second two in Austin) must see college baseball.

Regardless of next year’s conference address, Childress has the cupboard stocked with returning talent this year. Most notably, reigning Big 12 Player of the Year Tyler Naquin (.381*, 68 Runs*, 44 RBIs, 7 triples*, 23 doubles*, .987 OPS*). The Aggie leadoff man is joined by Jacob House (.301, 3 HR, 52 RBIs*), Matt Juengel (.308, 7 HR*, 50 RBIs), and 2011 Freshman All-American Krey Bratsen (.332, 36 RBIs, 19 sac bunts*, 31 SB*).

Childress has plenty of pitching back too, with Michael Wacha (9-4, 2.29 ERA, 2 CG, 129 2/3 IP*, 123 K*) and versatile Ross Stripling (14-2*, 2.29 ERA, 4 CG*, 4 SV, 125 2/3 IP) at the front of the weekend rotation. Those two combine to give the Aggies one of the top Friday-Saturday duos in the country.

6. Rice

2011 Record: 42-21

Time marches on as Ray Graham prepares for his 21^st season at the helm at Rice. The veteran has averaged an amazing 45 wins in his two decades at the helm. If he hits that number this year and next, he will move past 1,000 career victories.

Graham enters 2011 looking to replace, arguably, the best player in Rice history – Anthony Rendon (.327*, 6 HR, 20 Doubles*, 1.043 OPS*). The third baseman’s home runs dropped last year thanks to BBCOR, but he still hit 52 HR in his three seasons in an Owl uniform. He was the sixth overall pick and the first college position player selected in last year’s MLB Draft (Washington Nationals).

As good as Rendon is, the one thing Rice did not do while he was there is go to the College World Series. The Owls were the No. 8 national seed and hosted an NCAA Regional last year, but they went just 1-2 and saw Cinderella Cal advance all the way to the CWS out of their Regional.

Rice has both plenty of offense and pitching returning this year. Michael Ratterree (.327*, 6 HR*, 53 RBIs*, 20 Doubles*), Craig Manuel (.309, 35 RBIs, 26 Runs) and Shane  Hoelscher (.281, 3 HR, 37 RBIs, 13 Doubles, 30 Runs) are among the top position players back.

Austin Kubitza (6-5, 2.34 ERA*, 100 IP*, 102 K*) heads the weekend rotation, while Matthew Reckling (4-1, 3.10 ERA, 78 1/3 IP, 96 K), Tyler Duffey (8-2*, 2.52 ERA, 30 App., 60 2/3 IP, 76 K), and John Simms (3-2, 3.32 ERA, 62 1/3 IP, 63 K, 23 App.) all return as well. Reckling is the grandson of Rice alum T.R. Reckling, for whom Rice’s home stadium, Reckling Park, is named.

7. Texas

2011 Record: 49-19

After failing to advance to the College World Series from 2006-2008, Augie Garrido’s Longhorns have righted the ship with trips to Omaha two of the last three seasons. Last year’s Omaha appearance was historically short though. Texas was two-and-out for just the second time in its 25 CWS appearances since 1966 last year with losses to Florida and North Carolina.

Gone from last year’s team is first round draftee Taylor Jungmann (13-3, 1.60 ERA, 5 CG, 141 IP*, 126 K*), whose only three losses of the season came in consecutive weeks in NCAA play. Cole Green (8-4, 3.14 ERA, 106 IP, 104 K) is gone as well, leaving Garrido with nearly 250 innings pitched to replace. It’s Texas though, so arms won’t be a problem.  National Freshman of the Year Corey Knebel (3-2, 1.13 ERA, 19 SV*, 55 2/3 IP, 61 K), Sam Stafford (6-2, 1.77 ERA) and Hoby Milner (7-4, 2.45 ERA) are back along with a host of other options.

Erich Weiss (.348*, 4 HR, 7 triples*, 12 doubles, 45 RBIs*, 1.003 OPS*) was the Longhorns’ top bat as a freshman last year, but he’ll need others to step-up around him with the losses of veterans Brandon Loy (.342, 30 RBIs) and Tant Shepherd (.303, 5 HR*, 41 RBIs).

8. Arkansas

2011 Record:

If Arkansas head coach Dave Van Horn knows nothing else about the 2012 season, he knows this – his Razorbacks will not have to go through Arizona State in Tempe in the NCAA Tournament. After both teams went to the 2009 College World Series, they squared-off in a 2010 Super Regional, with ASU again advancing to Omaha. Arkansas then bowed-out to the Sun Devils in Tempe in the Regional final last year. However, there is no way the two will meet in the postseason this year, because Arizona State is ineligible due to NCAA probation.

Freshman All-American Dominic Ficociello (.335*, 4 HR, 50 RBIs*, 15 Doubles) is back to lead a lineup that returns five position players from a team that won a tight race in the SEC Western Division. Only two games in the loss column separated first place from last place in the division. Bo Bigham (.291, 2 HR, 20 RBIs, 17 SB), Matt Reynolds (.243, 3 HR, 22 RBIs, 16 SB) and Tim Carver (.232, HR, 13 RBIs, 30 Runs, 24 SB*) are among those who will need to step-up to replace the power and production of James McCann (.306, 6 HR, 38 RBIs, 14 Doubles) and Kyle Robinson (.291, 10 HR*, 49 RBIs).

The Razorbacks will rely on a pitching staff whose 3.20 ERA in 2011 was the program’s best since 1982. All-SEC pitcher D.J. Baxendale (10-2*, 1.58 ERA*, CG, 3 SV, 81/3 IP*, 77 K*) is at the front of the weekend rotation and is among 10 returning Hog pitchers. Freshman All-Americans Barrett Astin (5-2, 2.72 ERA, 3 SV, 27 App.*) and Nolan Sanburn (2-4, 3.62 ERA, 8 SV) combined for 92 IP and 92 Ks last year.

9. Georgia Tech

2011 Record:

The Yellow Jackets hosted an NCAA Regional for the ninth time in 12 years in 2011, but failed to advance after being upset in the first round by Austin Peay and ultimately seeing Mississippi State advance to Super Regional play.

Danny Hall enters his 19^th season at Georgia Tech just 13 wins away from 1,000 in his career. He is also looking to take his team back to the College World Series for the first time since 2006.

Hall loses his top overall bat in Matt Skole (.348*, 10 HR, 58 RBIs*, .990 OPS*), but he has more than enough returning offense back in 2011 with Jake Davies (.347, 5 HR, 35 RBIs, 13 Doubles), Freshman All-American Kyle Wren (.340, 32 RBIs, 11 Doubles, 7 Triples*, 57 Runs*, 16 SB), Sam Dove (.310, 18 RBIs, 30 Runs), Brandon Thomas (.307, 3 HR, 29 RBIs, 29 Runs, 12 Doubles, 19 SB*), Daniel Palka (.297, 12 HR*, 52 RBIs, 18 Doubles, 41 Runs), Mott Hyde (.275, 4 HR, 47 RBIs, 39 Runs, 13 Doubles), and Zane Evans (.270, 5 HR, 46 RBIs, 34 Runs, 14 Doubles) all returning.

Mark Pope (11-4*, 1.74 ERA, 5 CG*, 113 2/3 IP*) is the biggest pitching loss, but the ’11 staff is still deep with Buck Farmer (11-3*, 2.91 ERA, 2 CG, 108 1/3 IP, 106 K*), Matthew Grimes (7-4, 4.15 ERA, 73 2/3 IP, 77 K), DeAndre Smelter (2-1, 0.52 ERA), Luke Bard (2-2, 2.72 ERA, 8 SV*, 25 App.*, 49 2/3 IP, 46 K), Dusty Isaacs (1-1, 2.72 ERA, 36 1/3 IP, 40 K, 25 App.*), and Devin Stanton (1-0, 3.38 ERA, 18 App.) all back looking for a deep NCAA run.

10. LSU

2011 Record: 36-20

Since winning the 2009 national championship, LSU was eliminated in NCAA Regional play in 2010 and just missed the NCAA field in 2011. Paul Mainieri’s young squad struggled to find consistency last year, but last year’s youngsters are all SEC-seasoned veterans now for a team that many considered a 2012 CWS favorite as soon as the 2011 season ended.

The biggest place where inexperience showed last year was in the weekend pitching rotation, where freshmen Kevin Gausman (5-6, 3.51 ERA, 89 2/3 IP*, 86 K*) and Kurt McCune (7-3*, 89 2/3 IP*, 3.31 ERA*) ate the bulk of the innings. Fellow Freshman Ryan Eades (4-1, 4.81 ERA, 6 starts, 18 App.) emerged and joined his classmates in the weekend rotation by season’s end, going 3-0 in his last three starts of the season. That included a win over eventual Super Regional team Mississippi State. Eades also went on to earn Cape Cod Pitcher of the Year honors last summer. Those three give Mainieri what he thinks is the best weekend rotation in the nation entering the season.

The Tigers must fill the void left by closer Matty Ott (1-3, 2.60 ERA, 6 SV*). Sophomore Nick Rumbelow (2-0, 4.85 ERA, 10 App.), All-American juco transfer Nick Goody and freshman Aaron Nola (the younger brother of Austin Nola) have been competing for that spot. The two who fall short in that battle will start the season as set-up men.

Mikie Mahtook (.383*, 61 Runs*, 12 doubles, 5 triples*, 14 HR*, 56 RBIs*), who hit 14 of the team’s 34 home runs last year, is gone. JaCoby Jones (.338, 4 HR, 32 RBIs, 11 Doubles, 12 SB) will take over for him in centerfield, while Raph Rhymes (.360, 3 HR, 42 RBIs, 43 Runs, 18 Doubles)), Mason Katz (.337, 4 HR, 53 RBIs, 40 Runs, 21 Doubles*), and Austin Nola (.296, 2 HR, 42 RBIs, 13 Doubles, 40 Runs) are all back in the everyday lineup.

CLICK HERE to listen to a podcast interview with LSU head coach Paul Mainieri.

We’ve all seen projections over the past few weeks as to how the 2011 NCAA Baseball Tournament LIKELY will shake out … but what about a projection showing how the tournament SHOULD be formatted? – in an ideal situation in which all 64 teams were seeded and placed into appropriate Regionals.

College Baseball 360 undertook this task (full draw below), using these guidelines:

(note that some slight adjustments have been made to this projection – with update coming prior to the NCAA selections on May 30)

• The May 27 update of the CB360 Composite National Rankings (CNR) was used to seed teams 1-58 (with the remaining six teams seeded based on the May 24 official NCAA RPI).

• Some slight modifications then were made to avoid teams from the same conference being placed in the same Regional and also to avoid Regional #1 seeds being paired against a conference rival in probable Super-Regional meetings.

• The CNR formula currently features 16 different elements, 15 of them weighed equally along with a bonus/penalty for record over past-10 games. The 15 core criteria are averaged and converted to a 100-point scale, with the max bonus/penalty being 0.5 pts. The 15 core criteria currently used in the CNR include six polls/rankings, five RPI-type calculations, and four NCAA Tournament projections (see the Composite National Rankings link on right sidebar and then scroll down for more info. on the CNR formula).

For example, Vanderbilt is the new #1 team in the Composite National rankings and would be paired up in its home Regional with Alcorn State (#64 “seed”), plus Creighton and Coastal Carolina (the #32 and #33 teams in the current CB360 top-50/CNR). Essentially, the combined seeds in all of the day-1 matchups listed below add up to 65 (prior to modifications to keep conference rivals apart in the earlygoing).

The resulting 16 Regionals are listed below, paired up for Super-Regional matchups (i.e. winners of the Vanderbilt and Rice regionals would meet in the Super Regionals). Teams are listed in descending order of seed within each regional (1-2-3-4).

Note that Auburn (CNR #44) and Georgia (CNR #45) are not included in this projection, due to not having a winning record. The numbers 1-43 listed below refer to actual CNR standings; those listed as 44-49 indicate two spots higher than actual CNR (due to omission of Auburn and Georgia). Those listed as #50-#64 are projected automatic qualifiers not included in the top-49.

It’s an interesting read to see how the tournament might play out, minus the current geographical and travel-cost restrictions. CB360 hopes to have another update or two of this projection, as some of the data sources update their numbers.

2011 NCAA BASEBALL TOURNAMENT FULLY-SEEDED PROJECTION
(based primarily on the CB360 Composite National Rankings; slight corrections made to avoid certain conference matchups)

(1) Vanderbilt
Creighton (32)
Coastal Carolina (33)
Alcorn State (64)

Rice (15)
Oklahoma (17)
Mississippi (47)
Gonzaga (50)

_______________________________

(2) South Carolina
Arizona (31)
Kent State (34)
Navy (63)

Clemson (14)
Southern Mississippi (18)
Florida Atlantic (46)
James Madison (51)

_______________________________

(3) Florida
Central Florida (30)
Oklahoma State (35)
Maine (62)

Oregon State (13)
Miami (19)
Kansas State (48)
Michigan State (52)

_______________________________

(4) Virginia
East Carolina (29)
LSU (36)
Princeton (61)

Arkansas (16)
Connecticut (20)
Jacksonville (45)
Texas Tech (49)

_______________________________

(5) North Carolina
California (28)
Baylor (37)
Wright State (60)

Texas A&M (11)
Fresno State (21)
East Tennessee State (44)
Charlotte (53)

_______________________________

(6) Texas
Troy (27)
North Carolina State (38)
Austin Peay (59)

(12) TCU
UC Irvine (22)
Texas State (43)
Bethune-Cookman (54)

_______________________________

(7) Florida State
Stetson (26)
Elon (39)
Oral Roberts (58)

Cal State Fullerton (10)
UCLA (23)
Alabama (42)
Sacred Heart (55)

_______________________________

(8) Arizona State
Florida International (24)
Mississippi State (40)
Samford (57)

Georgia Tech (9)
Stanford (25)
Dallas Baptist (41)
Manhattan (56)

Next Five: Southeastern Louisiana, Mercer, St. John’s, Cal State Bakersfield and College of Charleston

By Collegebaseball360.com Editor Sean Stires

• The big news of the week (and probably the year) is that Cal will eliminate baseball after the 2011 season. Title IX has taken a beating since the news was announced last Tuesday, but this is not a Title IX issue, especially
  

  Cal head coach Dave Esquer

  considering women’s gymnastics and women’s lacrosse are among the other sports that Golden Bears Athletic Director Sandy Barbour and Chancellor Robert J. Birgeneau will give the ax. The move is a sign of a time when pure economics drives decisions in college athletics. A reported $321 million football stadium renovation doesn’t help things. That said, it’s one thing to hear of schools like Vermont and Duquesne dropping baseball. Those schools don’t have football revenue to prop them up. But this is a BCS conference school, and a “baseball” conference to boot. If a place like Cal, which has won two national championships and has been to the College World Series a total of five times, can cut baseball it doesn’t bode well for other programs across the land.

• I took a small step in my own show of support for the Golden Bears this week when I ordered my Cal baseball cap from Dugouthats.com. I’ll be wearing it as much as possible through the end of the Cal baseball era.

• Have you seen the Sporting News Magazine Sports’ Smartest Athletes list?  Former Yale and current Oakland A’s pitcher Craig Breslow has the distinction of the smartest athlete in the land. Breslow was a molecular
  

  Craig Breslow

  biophysics and biochemistry major at Yale and was once accepted to NYU’s medical school after scoring a 34 on his MCAT…the average med school applicant scores a 28. Breslow isn’t the only former college baseball player on the list. In fact, six former college baseball stars reside among the top 13 on the 20-man list. They are: #3 Ross Ohlendorf – Princeton/Pittsburgh Pirates. #8) Chris Young - Princeton/San Diego Padres…he’s the first athlete to be named All-Ivy League in both baseball and basketball. #9) Brad Ausmus – Dartmouth/Houston Astros. #12) Jody Gerut – Stanford/San Diego Padres. #13) Craig Counsell – Notre Dame/Milwaukee Brewers. Kansas City Royals pitcher Brian Bannister, who played at USC, is also listed as an honorable mention pick.

• Somewhere in the neighborhood of 30 2011 college baseball schedules were released last week, including the first ACC slate released to date – Virginia Tech. The Hokies biggest early test will be their opening weekend at the Coastal Carolina Tournament.

• The field is set for the 2011 Houston College Classic at Minute Maid Park. Houston, Rice, Texas A&M, Baylor, Kentucky, and Utah will all participate in the March 4-6 event in the big league ballpark. Utah released its schedule last week, and the Utes will open their season with three games at Cal, three games at Arkansas, and then open in Houston against Texas A&M. That gives Bill Kinneberg’s squad seven straight games to open the 2011 campaign against 2010 NCAA Tournament teams.
  

  Chad Jones (Travis Spradling photo)

• Former LSU two-sport star Chad Jones was back in Baton Rouge over the weekend. At halftime of Saturday’s LSU-Tennessee football game LSU showed a video recapping his career as a football and baseball player for the Tigers. He and former LSU teammate Jared Mitchell are the only two players to ever win both a BCS football national title and the College World Series. Jones gave-up baseball for a pro football career when he was drafted by the New York Giants last spring, but his athletic career is on hold right now. He nearly lost his leg in June when he crashed his SUV into a pole in New Orleans. Jones is currently going through extensive rehab and could still require more surgery on the leg in the future.

• The Big 12 Tournament will go back to a double elimination format beginning in 2011. Big 12 athletic directors approved the proposal from the league’s baseball coaches. The Big 12 has used a pool play format since 2006, but the change will be made after four games on the second to last day of this year’s tournament were meaningless. Eight teams will qualify for the 2001 tournament. They will be split into two pools and use double elimination to determine the winner of each pool. The winners will then play for the championship.

South Carolina four-year standout Blake Cooper will be making his third start at the 2010 CWS, in Monday's series opener vs. UCLA.

South Carolina has amassed a 178-82 record (.685) record over the past four seasons and is is tied with fellow SEC team Vanderbilt (also 178-82) for the 10th-most wins in all of Division I baseball, from 2007-10 (other SEC teams on the list below include: LSU, 12th with 175 wins from ’07-’10 … Mississippi, 20th with 162 Ws … and Arkansas, 21st with 161). (front-page photo of Blake Cooper courtesy of South Carolina)

Following games played over the past few days at the CWS, Florida State departed Omaha with a record of 196-65 (.751) spanning the 2007-10 seasons. FSU finished with the 4th-best record from ’07-’10, one behind ACC rival North Carolina. Coastal Carolina sits atop the list at 202-53, followed by 2010 CWS entrant Arizona State‘s 201-52 (ASU narrowly finished with a better 4-year win pct. than Coastal, .795 to .792).

TCU – by virtue of its recent wins over FSU (the Frogs’ second CWS win over the Seminoles) and UCLA –moved into a tie with Rice for the 5th-most wins over any D-I program during the 2007 (186-65; .741).

The CB360 Senior Class Salute is modeled after a similar feature on sister site CollegeSoccer360.com. One difference between a sport such as women’s soccer and baseball is that senior classes for many baseball programs can be affected by: players leaving early for pro ball; players coming and going via transfer; and some utilizing a redshirt/extra season. Nonetheless, the 28 baseball programs listed below have experienced sustained winning over the past four years (with each averaging 39 or more wins per season) … and many of the players who are seniors/5th-year-seniors/redshirt juniors have played key roles in each program’s success during this four-year stretch.

(Note: the Senior-Class Salute will be a regular CB360 feature throughout the 2010 NCAAs and in future seasons … CB360 also will be developing lists for top junior classes based on career wins and top combined records over the past two seasons).

In addition to SC, ASU, FSU and TCU, two other teams at the 2010 CWS –  Oklahoma (19th; 163-88-1/.649) and Clemson (22nd; 161-97-1/.624) – are among the 28 winningest 4-year programs listed below. Oklahoma is 19th on this 4-year wins lists, while Clemson (161-97-1; .624) is tied with Arkansas for 21st on this list.

Florida ended its season with a combined record of 152-93 (.620) from 2007-10, while the remaining 2010 CWS team, UCLA, has gone 144-99 (.593) over the past four seasons.

South Carolina turned in a 46-20 record in 2007, followed by 40-23 marks in both 2008 and ’09, before fashioning the 52-16 record this season.

Kyle Enders

Two players – righthanded ace pitcher Blake Cooper (Neeses, S.C.) and catcher Kyle Enders (Greer, S.C.)  – have been contributing members of the South Carolina program during the past four seasons, helping the Gamecock compile a yearly average of nearly 45 wins during that 2007-10 span.

South Carolina’s senior class also includes six players who attended other colleges/junior colleges earlier in their careers (or joined the program as a walk-on midway through their college career): RHP Jay Brown (Brunswick, Ga.), C/DH Brady Thomas (Anderson, S.C.), infielders Bobby Haney (Smithtown, N.Y.) and Jeffrey Jones (Ft. Worth, Texas), 1B Nick Ebert (Ocala, Fla.) and RHP Jordan Propst (Gaffney, S.C.).

South Carolina ace Blake Cooper will be looking for his 34th career win in the CWS Championship Series opener vs. UCLA (photo courtesy of SC).

COOPER – who is slated to make his third start of the 2010 CWS in Monday’s series opener vs. UCLA – has closed his college career with a stellar senior season that includes a 2.86 ERA and 12-2 record, a 3-to-1 strikeout-to-walk ratio (116/38) and 21 more innings pitched (129) than hits allowed (108; .230 opp. batting avg.). The 5-foot-10, 180-pound RHP has led the way for a group of SC pitchers that has combined for a 3.53 staff ERA and .228 opponent batting avg.

A standout pitcher throughout his four seasons (33 career wins), Cooper made two starts versus Oklahoma during CWS bracket – with his combined stats including a 3.38 ERA, 0-1 record, 10 hits allowed, 3 walks and 11 strikeouts in 10.2 innings. Both of those games were tense 1-run decisions, with SC losing the first game vs. OU 4-3 (Cooper had 5IP-3R-6H-BB-5K) on June 20. Cooper then returned to the mound on June 24 and had no-decision in a solid outing (5.2IP-R-4H-2BB-HB-6K), as the Gamecocks stayed alive with a 4-3 win.

Cooper (a Edisto High School product) has compiled a 3.78 ERA and 33-13 record in 68 career appearances (61 starts) for South Carolina, with a 2.5 career K-to-walk ratio (283/113) and an average of roughly one hit allowed per inning (374 H; 369.0 IP).

South Carolina senior catcher Kyle Enders has played solidly behind the plate during the 2010 CWS and launched his third home run of the season in the 3-1 win over Clemson (photo courtesy of SC).

ENDERS picked a perfect time to hit his third home run of the season, doing so in the recent 5-1 win over Clemson to help SC fight off elimination. The 5-foot-11, 180-pound righthanded-hitting catcher has made 49 starts this season (59 games played) while batting .282 with 32 RBI and 13 extra-base hits (9 2B, 3B). His total”free passes” (32 walks + 7 hit-by-pitch) are more than twice his strikeouts (19), helping yield an on-base pct. of .369.

Over the course of his four-year career, Enders (a Riverside HS product) has hit .276 in 224 games played, with 99 RBI, 90 runs scored, 48 extra-base hits (13 HR, 2 3B, 33 2B) and 51 walks.

The 28 teams on the list (see below) of winningest programs from 2007-10 include six from the ACC, five SEC, plus three Big 12 programs and three from Conference USA, along with two each from the BIG EAST and Big West, and one each from the Atlantic-10, Big South, Missouri Valley, Mountain West, Pacific-10, Southern Conf. and the Summit League.

Three teams on this list – Wichita State (#15), Charlote (#18) and East Carolina (#20) – failed to reach the 2010 NCAAs.

There have been 76 different teams over the past four years (2007-10) that have posted at least one season with 40-plus wins.

Winningest Senior Classes in 2010 College Baseball Season (2007-10)
(prior to CWS Championship Series)
(research courtesy of CollegeBaseball360.com; please credit accordingly)
* – 2010 College World Series teams

The Coastal Carolina Chanticleers have compiled the most wins (198-50-0) in Division I college baseball spanning the past four seasons (2007-10) and sit atop the first edition of CB360′s exclusive Senior Class Salute. This offering is modeled after a similar feature on sister site CollegeSoccer360.com (see links below):

(front page photo of senior catcher Jose Iglesias – who has logged 115 games played over the past two seasons – courtesy of Coastal Carolina; Iglesias played his first season at St. John’s)

One difference between a sport such as women’s soccer and baseball is that senior classes for many baseball programs can be affected by: players leaving early for pro ball; players coming and going via transfer; and some utilizing a redshirt/extra season. Nonetheless, the 25 baseball programs listed below have experienced sustained winning over the past four seasons (with each averaging 39 or more wins per season) … and many of the players who are seniors/5th-year-seniors/redshirt juniors have played key roles in the program’s success during this four-year stretch.

(Note: the Senior-Class Salute will be a regular CB360 feature throughout the 2010 NCAAs and in future seasons … CB360 also will be developing lists for top junior classes based on career wins and top combined records over the past two seasons).

Senior shortstop Ryan Graepel (pictured) and North Carolina's other veteran players have been part of a program that has compiled three College World Series trips and 195 wins spanning the past four seasons (photo courtesy of UNC).

Coastal Carolina’s four-year run has included three rare 50-win seasons (50-13 in 2007 … 50-4 in ’08 … and 51-17 in the current 2010 season)  plus 47-16 in ’09. Two programs – Arizona State (195-50-0) and North Carolina (195-68-0) – currently are tied for second on this four-year list, followed by Florida State (190-62-0), Rice (184-68-0), Louisville (181-66-1), Texas (181-66-1) and Virginia (180-65-1) in spots #4-#8. TCU (178-62-0) and LSU (174-82-2) round out the top-10.

The 25 teams on this list include five each from the ACC and SEC, plus three Big 12 programs and three from Conference USA, along with two Big West squads and one each from the Atlantic-10, BIG EAST, Big South, Missouri Valley, Mountain West,  Pacific-10, and the Summit League.

Six of the top-8 national seeds for the 2010 NCAAs – Coastal, ASU, Louisville, Texas, UVa and Georgia Tech (#25) – are included on this top-25 list (Florida is 147-91-0 over the past four seasons and UCLA 136-97-0).

Three teams on this top-25 list – Wichita State (#15), Charlote (#18) and East Carolina (#20) – failed to reach the 2010 NCAAs.

There have been 73 different teams over the past four years (2007-10) that have posted at least one season with 40-plus wins.

Winningest Senior Classes in 2010 College Baseball Season (2007-10)
(prior to 2010 NCAAs … research courtesy of CollegeBaseball360.com; please credit accordingly)
* – not in 2010 NCAAs

Place	Team	Won	Loss	Tie	Pct.	'10 W	'10 L	'10 T	'09 W	'09 L	'09 T	'08 W	'08 L	'08 T	'07 W	'07 L	'07 T
(1)	Coastal Carolina	198	50	0	.798	51	7	0	47	16	0	50	14	0	50	3	0
(2)	Arizona State	195	50	0	.760	46	8	0	51	14	0	49	13	0	49	15	0
(3)	North Carolina	195	68	0	.742	36	20	0	48	18	0	54	14	0	57	16	0
(4)	Florida State	190	62	0	.754	42	17	0	45	18	0	54	14	0	49	13	0
(5)	Rice	184	68	0	.730	38	21	0	43	18	0	47	15	0	56	14	0
(6)	Louisville	183	75	0	.709	48	12	0	47	18	0	41	21	0	47	24	0
(7)	Texas	181	66	1	.732	46	11	0	50	16	1	39	22	0	46	17	0
(8)	Virginia	180	65	1	.734	45	16	0	39	23	0	49	15	1	47	11	0
(9)	TCU	178	62	0	.742	46	11	0	40	18	0	44	19	0	48	14	0
(11)	LSU	174	82	2	.678	40	20	0	56	17	0	49	19	1	29	26	1
(10)	Vanderbilt	173	79	0	.687	41	17	0	37	27	0	41	22	0	54	13	0
(13)	UC Irvine	171	69	1	.711	37	19	0	45	15	0	42	18	0	47	17	1
(12)	Texas A&M	171	81	1	.678	40	19	1	37	24	0	46	19	0	48	19	0
(14)	South Carolina	169	81	0	.676	43	15	0	40	23	0	46	20	0	46	20	0
(14)	Wichita State*	169	85	0	.665	38	19	0	30	27	0	48	17	0	53	22	0
(16)	Cal State Fulleton	167	78	0	.681	41	15	0	47	16	0	41	22	0	38	25	0
(17)	Miami	165	74	0	.690	37	17	0	38	22	0	53	11	0	37	24	0
(18)	Charlotte*	164	67	0	.710	39	17	0	33	22	0	43	16	0	49	12	0
(19)	Mississippi	161	93	0	.634	38	22	0	44	20	0	39	26	0	40	25	0
(21)	East Carolina*	160	91	0	.638	32	27	0	46	20	0	42	21	0	40	23	0
(20)	Arkansas	158	87	0	.645	40	18	0	41	24	0	34	24	0	43	21	0
(21)	Oklahoma	157	85	1	.648	44	15	0	43	20	0	36	26	1	34	24	0
(24)	Oral Roberts	156	71	0	.687	35	25	0	33	15	0	48	14	0	40	17	0
(23)	Georgia Tech	156	78	1	.666	45	13	0	38	19	1	41	21	0	32	25	0
(24)	Southern Miss.	156	93	0	.627	35	22	0	40	26	0	42	22	0	39	23	0

CLICK HERE to see similar Senior Class Salute on sister site CollegeSoccer360.com
(… here’s another sample of a Senior-Class Salute from CS360 … and here’s another)

Stanford sophomore righthander Jordan Pries, who has been magnificent his past three outings, outdueled Beavers pitcher Tanner Robles as each threw 7.1 innings, but Pries got more support from his teammates as the Cardinal (#45 in the CB360 Composite National Rankings) won Saturday at Oregon State (CNR #14) for the second day in a row, 5-3.

Longtime Stanford head coach Mark Marquess appears to have the Cardinal youth heading in the right direction.

One day after the Cardinal blasted OSU at home 14-6 in a 19-hit attack, Pries – the reining PAC-10 “Pitcher of the Week” and a recent CB360 national Primetime Pitcher of the Week honoree – gave up three runs off the bat of Oregon State third baseman Stefan Romero, who hit a towering 3-run blast off the glove of centerfielder Jake Stewart (who leaped in front of a TV camera crew in left-center, but came up empty).

Pries gave up six hits with seven Ks and only ran into trouble in the 5th, when he loaded the bases on walks – only to get out of the jam as the Beavers came up short offensively, which has really been a microcosm of the Oregon State season.

As head coach Mark Marquess (in his 34th year) will allude to in an interview after the game (see link below), Oregon State has one of the deepest pitching staffs, not only in the PAC-10 but throughout the nation.

Mark Marquess Interview

Despite the success of the pitching staff, the Beavers often struggle to score runs  as the offense often lacks some quality punch throughout the lineup. To compound the problem, PAC-10 opponents haven’t provided any extra outs via poor defensive play over the past two weekends, nor have the Beavers taken advantage of some baserunning situations when the opportunity presents itself.

Danny Hayes & Stefan Romero have been the only consistent “big bats” in the Beaver lineup.

In the showdown the previous week with UCLA, Oregon State second baseman Keith Jennette failed to score from third base with less than two outs when leadoff hitter Adalberto Santos hit a hard grounder at second baseman Tyler Rahmatulla (who had to range to his left) in a 1-0 game in the bottom of the 8th.

The run would have tied the game, with the Beavers later potentially winning the game 2-1 as they eventually came back to tie the game in the bottom of the 9th.

Throughout the 16-inning affair, Oregon State twice ran themselves out of winning opportunities when baserunners at second base challenged Bruin shortstop Niko Gallego, who made several diving attempts in the hole and threw out runners at third base (those runner typically should have been “freezing” to read the ball through into the outfield, before advancing).

As fate would have it, those runs would have scored later in the inning.

Those little things were the type of factors that helped Oregon State’s 2006 and 07′ teams to win back-to-back national titles … but they are elements missing this year in Corvallis. With some better baserunning execution, the Beavers would have won the series with Bruins last week and could have won today to even the series versus Stanford.

As an example, with Oregon State in a tight ballgame once again today versus the Cardinal, the Beavers failed to advance on the basepaths with heads-up baserunning, leaving another solid effort wasted by a stellar OSU pitching staff.

In the second inning, Pries wheeled for a pickoff try at second base and the ball tipped off the glove of Jake Schlander (hitting hero from game-1) – but Romero failed to advance, as he apparently didn’t realize the ball was rolling into the outfield. Centerfielder Jake Stewart was playing deep (with cleanup hitter Danny Hayes at bat), and Romero could have waltzed into third and possibly scored if the ball had been bobbled, which it wasn’t.

Not to be outdone, Hays later hit a double into left-center in the bottom of the 8th, but he also failed to advance to third when the throw from cutoff man Jake Schlander sailed over the head of trailing first baseman Jon Kaskow. The ball rolled all the way beyond the first-base foul line and was fielded by catcher Zach Jones before Hays even appeared to realize that the throw was errant. Hays seemed content with himself after hitting the double, his eyes drifting down to the dirt near second base (similar to Romero) while failing to stay with the ball (a “cardinal sin” of baserunning).

With an offense that struggles to score runs consistently, Oregon Stage must scrap for each extra base an opponent will provide, but so far the past two weekends have witnessed the Beavers asleep at the wheel on the bases.

Tanner Robles improved his season K-to-BB ratio to 55K/14 BB.

Lefthander Tanner Robles, who was masterful a week ago versus the Bruins, picked up where he left off and was in control of today’s game when the Beavers raced to a 3-0 lead in the 3rd. But that was the only punch Oregon State landed and the Cardinal slowly jabbed their way back into the game.

Robles went 7.1 innings, giving up three runs on eight hits with four K’s and one base on ball. He pitched well enough to win for the second week in a row, as he has much of the season, although his 4-3 record is nowhere near reflective of his quality performance in 2010.

With the score tied in the bottom of the 10th (3-3), and the bunt in order, Stanford second baseman Colin Walsh drilled a 2-1 fastball from closer Tyler Waldron over the grandstand in right field for the game-winning RBIs. Walsh drove in Adam Gaylord, who reached on a drag bunt when Waldron and catcher Parker Berberet collided after failing to communicate bunt coverage.

The Cardinal did the little things that the Beavers simply didn’t do to win, and – when Oregon State went quietly 1-2-3 in the 10th – the Cardinal celebrated the series, now aiming higher for a much-prized weekend sweep on Benchmark Sunday.

The little things are coming back to haunt an Oregon State program that may be at a major crossroads, with the entire season possibly hanging in the balance of a punch-less offense – amid an ocean of quality arms and a pitching staff as good as any in the nation.

Head Coach Pat Casey and associate head coach Marty Lees, possibly distraught over the team’s’performance the past three weekends, did not attend the post-game press conference. The Beavers may be in trouble, as they have lost four of their past five on a current seven-game homestand and still must face league-leading Arizona State, along with California, Arizona and the Washington schools in the closing months.

The Oregon State coaches could have their work cut out for them the rest of the way.

Although Rivals.com has the Beavers listed as hosting an NCAA regional in Corvallis, this may not be a team worthy of such high standard. They simply do not push across enough runs to support such a talented pitching staff, and if things do not turn around offensively in a hurry with the bulkhead of the PAC-10 season hanging in the balance, Oregon State could end up on the outside looking in come “Selection Sunday” in June.