College Regional Picks - EDIT - now with Wiggins!

I haven't followed college baseball as closely this year as I have in the past. But it's still one of my favorite times of the baseball year (at any level). There's good major league baseball happening, the minors are in full swing, and college baseball is entering an extremely exciting period.

So here are my picks for the regionals and super regionals. While I'm putting up picks to whittle the field down from 64 to 8, I have just about zero confidence in what I'm picking. It sure feels like just about anything could happen.

Anyway, on to the picks... using the official grid from the NCAA web site (going from top left to bottom right):

Regional Champions
Miami
Arizona
South Carolina
Georgia Tech
Fullerton
Stanford
Oklahoma State
Florida State

North Carolina
Coastal Carolina
Cal-Irvine
LSU
Rice
Dallas Baptist
Long Beach State
Arizona State

Super Regional Champions
Miami
Georgia Tech
Stanford
Florida State

North Carolina
Cal-Irvine
Rice
Arizona State

As you can see, my homerism and personal favorites come through. Shocking. That's four ACC schools in Omaha, the college team I grew up with (Arizona State), another I've always liked (Stanford), a school that I should have thought about attending, but didn't until it was too late (Irvine), and a school that you have to respect (Rice).

I have 12 #1 seeds winning their regionals, leaving 4 #2s to pull off upsets. After that, I have two #2 seeds advancing to Omaha.

Hopefully I got a couple picks right.

WIGGINS' PICKS -

I know less... much less... than Mike on this stuff. But I'll take a stab. Then I'll make him make Euro picks next week...

Regional winners -
Miami, Arizona, UNC, East Carolina, ASU, LBSU, FSU, Wichita, Fullerton, Stanford, Rice, Texas A&M, LSU, UC Irvine, Georgia Tech, N.C. State.

Super-Regionals -

Miami, UNC, ASU, Wichita, Fullerton, Rice, UC Irvine, Georgia Tech.

That may go as a reverse jinx on my boys... but I see them slipping up. And not all three top ACC teams are gonna make it. But UM's too hot, and UNC's road is too easy...

Swear I didn't look at yours - we only got two different CWS teams...

Revisiting Picks

Okay... we are only a month and a half into the season (or so), and I feel good about maybe two of my eight picks from earlier (at least Mike's don't look too much better).

Guess it's time to look again at that, eh?

We never did come up with rules for our contest this year, so I guess it's a free-for-all. Until I hear different. Maybe we'll keep track of how many changes we have to make over the course of the year...


For now I got (changes marked with *)

AL EAST - Boston
AL CENTRAL - Cleveland*
AL WEST - Oakland (I believe)*
AL WC - Tampa Bay (why not?)*

NL EAST - Florida (If I'm gonna have faith - might as well start now)*
NL CENTRAL - Milwaukee
NL WEST - Arizona
NL WC - Atlanta (I have NO clue)*

Reality Sets In

Here's an easy way to confirm that the calendar has turned over from April to May - and you don't even need a calendar to do it. Just take a look at the baseball standings:


The Marlins are no longer in first.


The White Sox have resumed scoring solely via the solo home run and are no longer in first place.


And the surest sign of all that we're now in May is that the Devil Rays are presently closer to last place than first place.


Now it's confirmed that baseball season is really in full swing. It's still a lot of fun though. Hopefully some of my teams will start to play better and will keep things interesting through Labor Day.

Although, I suppose if the Sox don't start playing better, Ozzie and the White Sox coaching staff will make things colorful and interesting off the field.