Costly Losses for Several Teams? …
With the college baseball regular season winding down, there was a fairly light schedule on Wednesday – but several NCAA Tournament hopefuls suffered losses that could prove costly to their postseason chances:
(Note that this listing references the updated CB360 Composite National Rankings, which will be posted later tonight … four teams have rotated into the CNR top-50: #40 Southern Mississippi, #48 Washington St., #49 Elon and #50 Florida Gulf Coast (with Portland, Appalachian St., New Mexico St. and Washington dropping out of the top-50):
• Duquesne posted a narrow home win (10-9) over a Pittsburgh team that is #30 in the CNR and entered the week 36th in the official NCAA RPI … Pitt – currently 3rd in the BIG EAST Conference standings (15-5, behind UConn’s 16-4 and Louisville’s 16-5) – has league series left at 7th-place Cincinnati and at home vs. 5th-place South Florida, plus a midweek game at Ohio State.
• North Carolina (#36 CNR/#28 RPI) boosted its NCAA resume with a 10-0 win over fellow NCAA hopeful College of Charleston (#31 CNR/#34 RPI) … CofC (19-8) narrowly trails The Citadel (18-6) in the race for the Southern Conference regular-season title … the Cougars will finish SoCon play with a series at Appalachian State, followed by a challenging non-conference game at Coastal Carolina and a home-and-away vs. UNC Wilmongton.
• Most forecasters of the 2010 NCAA Tournament predict that Alabama will qualify for the 64-team field, but the Crimson Tide came up short on Wednesday at Samford (8-7) … Alabama (CNR #34) entered the week 18th in the RPI, but the loss to Samford (RPI #81) will drop that number, leading into Alabama’s home series this weekend vs. one of the SEC’s top teams (Mississippi) … ‘Bama then will finish the regular season at Tennessee (another NCAA hopeful from the SEC) …the Tide curretly rank 9th overall in the SEC (10-14) and will need to move up at least one spot to qualify for the SEC Tournament … at this point, Alabama still can be penciled into the NCAA field (just don’t use pen, as some key results still need to play out).
• Another SEC bubble team suffered a potentially costly loss on Wednesday, as Kentucky (#45 CNR/#22 RPI) lost 10-8 to visiting Lipscomb … three days earlier, the Wildcats had become the first SEC team to take a series from South Carolina this season – but UK lost a wild 10-inning game at Indiana (#108 RPI) on Monday, followed by the loss to a Lipscomb squad that barely is among the RPI top-200 (#196) … Kentucky (9-15) is 10th in the SEC overall standings, with SEC series left vs. LSU (home) and Georgia (away), plus a midweek game at Murray State.
• In addition to the UNC game vs. College of Charleston, there were two other head-to-head matchups on Wednesday between CB360 top-50 teams: at #4 Florida 7, #37 Florida Atlantic 3 … and #11 TCU 10, at #32 Texas State 5.
Wednesday’s Top-50 Results (5/12/10; upsets in italics)
(based on the CB360 Composite National Rankings)
• at #4 Florida 7, #37 Florida Atlantic 3 | Final Stats
FL Recap | FAU Recap
• #9 Florida State 6, at Stetson 2 | Final Stats
FSU Recap | STET Recap
• #11 TCU 10, at #32 Texas State 5 | Final Stats
TCU Recap | TxSt Recap
• #12 Cal State Fullerton 10, at Pepperdine 7 | Final Stats
CSF Recap | PEP Recap
• at #14 South Carolina 10, Charleston Southern 2 | Final Stats
SC Recap | CS Recap | Quotes
• #15 Mississippi 5, at Arkansas State 2 | Final Stats
OleMiss Recap | ArkSt Recap
• #28 Stanford 8, at San Jose State 3 | Final Stats
STAN Recap | SJSU Recap
• at Duquesne 10, #30 Pittsburgh 9 | Final Stats
DUQ Recap | Pitt Recap
• at #36 North Carolina 10, #31 College of Charleston 0 | Final Stats
UNC Recap | CofC Recap | Photos
• at Samford 8, #34 Alabama 7 | Final Stats
SAM Recap | ALA Recap
• at #41 Texas A&M 15, Centenary 3 | Final Stats
A&M Recap | CEN Recap
• #42 The Citadel 10, at South Carolina-Upstate 3 | Final Stats
CIT Recap | SC-U Recap
• Lipscomb 10, at #45 Kentucky 8 | Final Stats
LIP Recap | KY Recap¶