For those of you not following the College World Series but want to pretend to be informed when the subject comes up, here’s what’s happened so far in Omaha.

Already Eliminated: Cal State Fullerton was the first team to be eliminated.  It’s a double elimination tournament and they were they were swept, losing Saturday to Arkansas 10-6 and last night to Viriginia 7-5.

Already Advancing: LSU looked dominant in the weaker of the two brackets, beating up on Viriginia and Arkansas.

Win or Go Home Game: North Carolina vs. Southern Miss.  Both of these teams lost on Sunday night and need to regain their composure to advance.  I’d say that North Carolina is the favorite because they took the best team in the World Series, Arizona State, to extra innings on Sunday before ultimately succumbing to the far superior team 5-2.  Sothern Miss only had to play Texas and they nearly won.

Game of the Night: Arizona State vs. Texas.  The winner of the UNC/Southern Miss game gets to face the loser of this game which means it’ll be UNC vs Texas on Thursday night.  This game is on ESPNHD at 7pm tonight and you know I’ll be tuning in as Hef’s boys take on Clown’s girls.

Looking Ahead: Tomorrow night, it’s do or die for Virginia and Arkansas as they both stand at 1-1.  This game seems like a formality as we all know the Devils are gonna sweep their way to the title.

The College World Series starts tomorrow and a couple of us around these parts have a vested interest in the outcome.  And because he won’t shut up about it longtime commenter and sometime friend, arkbadger, gave us a preview of each of the 8 teams remaining.

Oh, and for what it’s worth, this site predicts the smart money’s on the Sun Devils.  I think that site is smart.

Arizona State Sun Devils

Arizona State is 49-12 on the season and breezed through their regional and super regional, and were never really tested in either, which is impressive considering they had Clemson in the super regional. The longest losing streak they had all season was 2 games, and that only happened twice (at Arkansas and at Oregon St.). Arizona State’s pitching staff has the lowest era in the nation at 2.78, they are 9th in strikeouts/9 I.P with 9.3, and 3rd in hits/9 I.P. with 7.82. Mike Leake is the ace of the staff, and by ace I mean he is bad mo-fo. 16-1 with a 1.36 era, with 150 strikeouts and opponents bat .175 against him. He was the 8th overall pick in the first round by the Reds. Yeah, he’s pretty good. The SunDevils are no slouch at the plate either batting .305 as a team, average 8.0 runs a game, and have a .496 slugging average. What impresses me most about the Sun Devils at the plate is their patience with 358 walks on the year. Jason Kipnis is the top hitter for Arizona State with a .385 average, 16 homers and 71 RBI’s. He was taken by the Indians with the 63rd overall pick in the draft. Looking at those numbers it’s tough to pick against Arizona State, except that they have to play North Carolina in their first game, and if they survive that game, most likely Texas in the second game. Still, with the depth of pitching that they have, it would not surprise me in the least to see the Sun Devils in the championship round in Omaha. Read the rest of this entry »