Last year, the story of the NCAA Baseball Tournament was eventual champion Fresno State, a regional fourth seed who tore through everyone in their path on the way to Omaha and a title.
This year, the story appears to be the renaissance of the high seeds.
In 16 regionals this past weekend, only three top seeds (UC-Irvine, Oklahoma, and Georgia Tech) failed to advance to Super Regional play. Two of the three were national seeds, but Irvine was playing in an insanely tough regional (Virginia, San Diego State, and Fresno State), while Oklahoma probably shouldn't have been a national seed to begin with.
That leaves us with the eight Super Regionals, and a lot of well-established programs. The Cinderella this year is unquestionably Southern Mississippi. They are the third entry out of Conference USA in the Super Regionals (first time that league has placed three in the final 16). The Atlanta Regional's third seed beat Georgia Tech twice to win the championship, and they draw No. 8 national seed Florida in the Super Regionals.
The Big Ten didn't get anyone into this round, but after a terrible start (Indiana, Ohio State, and Minnesota were all blown out Friday), did rebound to gain some respect. Ohio State was edged 37-6 by Florida State in the Tallahassee Regional final, but did blow out Georgia to eliminate the Bulldogs and advance. Minnesota got revenge on Baylor by knocking out the Bears before losing the regional final to host LSU.
Indiana did what their football team normally does, which is "Nothing". They were gone in 60 seconds, it seemed.
The Super Regionals start Friday.
Friday-Saturday-Sunday (if necessary)
Arkansas at Florida State
Virginia at Mississippi
Rice at LSU
Louisville at Cal State-Fullerton
Saturday-Sunday-Monday (if necessary)
TCU at Texas
Southern Mississippi at Florida
East Carolina at North Carolina
Clemson at Arizona State
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