FSU Baseball: The 2016 NCAA Tournament Leaves Plenty To Be Desired

We take a look at the problems FSU baseball will have to deal with in what may be one of the worst put together NCAA Tournaments in history.

For the first time since the 2004 season, FSU baseball will enter regional play of the NCAA tournament with 20 losses. Despite their late season slump and loss in the ACC Tournament championship game, the 37-20 Seminoles are still hosting a regional and will be going up against Alabama State, South Alabama and Southern Miss for the right to move on.

If FSU does make it back to the Super Regional round, they would likely meet up with…the rival Florida Gators for the second straight season. That’s right, because three times during the regular season wasn’t enough to see those reptiles, the Seminoles would have to hold their noses and head back to Gainesville if they wanted to get back to Omaha.

The potential of FSU baseball playing the Gators again this season is just another example of why the NCAA Baseball Tournament selection committee seemed to have just phoned it in with this year’s bracket. All across the 64 team field, there is nothing but rematches of 2015’s postseason and the 2016 regular season that leave college baseball fans yawning.

It’s understandable that in the regional round, you want to keep teams close to home for travel purposes (with both USA and ASU being around a three hour drive). The Super Regional round, however is where you could try to switch things up and open the door for some new blood in Omaha.

Instead, if everything goes chalk in the regional round, you will have three Super Regional repeats from last year (FSU-Florida, TCU-Texas A&M and Vandy-Louisville) to go along with an in-state matchup (Clemson-South Carolina). If that round goes chalk, you would have two series where the teams would have met four times (Clemson-Louisville) and five times (LSU-Florida).

Is this what is supposed to make college baseball more exciting? It’s not news that the best teams tend to be in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic areas (with no disrespect to Texas and the West Coast powers), but why is the sports fan going to sit and watch the same games that have already been played over…and over…and over again so far in 2016.

I will admit, some of the frustration comes from seeing the Seminoles face their rivals who swept them earlier this season (and as much as it makes me want to vomit writing it, are the best team right now in college baseball). But the potential FSU-Florida Part IV, V and VI is just further proof of the bigger problem.

More from Chop Chat

This season, there is not one regional west of the state of Texas. It’s the first time in 20 years that a Pac-12 school hasn’t hosted a regional. If a school like Arizona State or Cal-State Fullerton, for example, was in the regional business this year instead of schools like Clemson or Vanderbilt, then maybe FSU is playing LSU or Texas A&M in a Super Regional.

I’m not saying that would send the Seminoles back to Omaha, but at least it would give college baseball some fresh blood and get the sport where it wants to be: in the national conversation t a time where it is forgotten by the NBA Finals and even the Stanley Cup Final.

Instead, the selection committee went with the easy path and threw college baseball under the bus with a bracket that, quite frankly, may be one of the worst in recent memory. Fans can just save themselves a lot of time and look at highlights of matchups already played too many times during the 2016 season.

Home/FSU Baseball