In-state teams forced to eliminate one another
It appears that the selection committee that determines the bracket for the NCAA Division I baseball tournament is determined never to let that happen again.
This year, the state of South Carolina put four teams in the NCAA tournament, one of only six states in the country to have at least four teams in the bracket. However, the path to Omaha for Palmetto State schools this year was a bit more complicated.
Last season, the Gamecocks and Tigers were placed in opposing regionals, insuring that the two schools would have to meet in the Super Regional if they both advanced. This year, along with pitting South Carolina and Clemson against one another in the Columbia Regional, the committee also threw in the Coastal Carolina Chanticleers. South Carolina, Clemson and Coastal Carolina, all in the same regional.
But the committee isn't purposely trying to eliminate teams from South Carolina. They sent College of Charleston to another regional.
Like lambs to the slaughter, the Cougars were sent to the Gainesville Regional, home of the No. 1 seed in the entire tournament, the Florida Gators. The regional was so stacked that Florida didn't even get a chance to take a bite out of the Cougars. The ACC tournament champion Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets did the honors, beating College of Charleston twice. Then the Jackets turned around and were dismantled by Florida 15-3. Sending College of Charleston to Gainesville set the Cougars up to lose.
Well what about schools from Texas? They have a right to be upset too, since the committee placed three of them, Baylor, Dallas Baptist and UT-Arlington, in the Waco Regional.
But the differences between Texas and South Carolina are overwhelming. In sports, Texas doesn't get overlooked. Seven schools from Texas made the tournament and the Longhorns weren't one of them.
South Carolina vs. Clemson is the premier rivalry in college baseball and Coastal Carolina is a program that has been built from the ground up into a national power. Wouldn't college baseball, a sport that during the regular season gets about as much national coverage as synchronized knitting, want teams like that to meet on the sport's biggest stage, instead of in a regional broadcast by a network that most people don't even have?
Seeing the Gamecocks and Tigers both advance to the College World Series in 2002 and 2010 was absolutely magical.
But all this hocus pocus from the selection committee makes it hard to believe that both of them will ever get back to Omaha.