The Blue Workhorse

Starting at 4 o’clock today, 12 college baseball teams will attempt to stave off elimination and extend their seasons for at least one more week.

While Miami, Arizona, North Carolina State, Wichita State, North Carolina, Coastal Carolina, UC-Irvine, LSU, Rice, and Arizona State have already solidified their spot in next weekend’s Super Regionals, today there will be 12 other squads fighting to join them.

Coaches will have to make tough decisions as almost every team is running low of quality arms at this point in a regional tournament. One of the biggest decisions is whether or not to bring back the ace of the staff on only two days rest, especially if you are a team such as the San Diego Toreros or the Tulane Green Wave, who have two of the top starters in college baseball (and two first round draft picks) in Brian Matusz and Shooter Hunt.

On Monday, the NCAA announced the 64 collegiate baseball teams to earn the honor to be a part of the Division I national tournament, which will begin Friday at noon when the Missouri Tigers take on the Ole Miss Rebels. In preview of the regional tournaments that will be held this weekend, throughout the week our we will examine each individual regional:

Tempe Regional

1. Arizona State Sun Devils (45-11) vs 4. Stony Brook Seawolves (34-24)
2. Vanderbilt Commodores (40-20) vs 3. Oklahoma Sooners (34-24)

One of the three SEC teams that did not make the national tournament is a Tennessee baseball team that finished 27-29 overall (the first losing season since 2002) and failed to even make the SEC tournament after having previously making the national tournament in three of five seasons from 2001-2005, including twice making the College World Series during that span. As far as this season, many point to this being the first year of a rebuilding project under Coach Todd Raleigh, and it may very well be a couple of seasons before the program can be restored to national prominence.

The question I ask myself, however, is ‘What was wrong with the University of Tennessee baseball program before Raleigh got here? ‘

There were several great games in the first round of this year’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament, whether it has been an upset (San Diego over Connecticut, Siena over Vanderbilt), a near upset (Duke surviving Belmont), or double-digit comebacks (Villanova over Clemson, Drake against Western Kentucky only to fall in OT), and each of the great games has had key players.

But who had the best game of the first round and has earned the right to be deemed the “1st Round Workhorse” or most outstanding performance of the first round of the NCAA tournament?

Here are our candidates (in alphabetical order):