NCAA Tournament Takeaways: Big Comebacks, Offenses Highlight The Action

The pressure ratchets up on day 2 of regionals. Half the teams in the field are facing elimination and the other half know that with a win they move to the doorstep of super regionals.

Accordingly, Saturday delivered plenty of drama and quality action. Here are seven thoughts about day 2 of regionals.

1. Offense continues to dominate this weekend. There were some big numbers Friday, like Maryland scoring 23 runs against Long Island and Stanford and Binghamton combining for 27 runs, but the bats only got louder Saturday.

Five teams scored at least 20 runs Saturday, the most of any single day in NCAA Tournament history. Georgia beat Hofstra, 24-1, in Chapel Hill. Arkansas beat host Oklahoma State, 20-12, in Stillwater. Vanderbilt beat New Mexico State, 21-1, in Corvallis. Virginia Tech beat Columbia, 24-3, in Blacksburg. Auburn beat Florida State, 21-7, in Auburn. That list doesn’t even include two other teams who scored more than 15 runs Saturday (Oregon and UCLA).

There’s no one, good explanation for why this is happening. Some of it is down to weather. Most of the regional sites are happening where it’s hot and humid, conditions that lead to a lot of offense. Some of it can be explained by mismatches, some of it by randomness. Some of it comes down to the plethora of pitching injuries around college baseball this year.

It also can’t be ignored that both scoring and home runs are up year over year (again). Whether those multi-year trends are down to the bats, the balls or strategic approaches of both batters and pitchers is debatable (though it’s probably a combination of everything).

No matter the reasons, offense has been the carrying unit for many teams this weekend. Will that hold throughout the tournament or will the better pitching staffs rise to the top as the road to Omaha continues? The guess here is that teams with better (or at least deeper) pitching staffs will eventually separate themselves, but we’ll just have to wait and find out.

2. Louisiana State again mounted a spectacular comeback Saturday. One day after erasing an 11-4 deficit with a 10-run eighth inning against Kennesaw State, LSU scored four runs in the ninth inning (three coming with two outs) to force extra innings against Southern Mississippi and then walked off with a 7-6 win in 10 innings in Hattiesburg.

Down 6-2 going into the bottom of the ninth, LSU got a run back when Dylan Crews hit a one-out home run. After Southern Miss got Jacob Berry to fly out, the Tigers were down three runs with no runners on and two outs in the ninth.

Out of nothing, LSU conjured a comeback. Jacob Pearson singled and Cade Doughty—down to his last strike—hit a two-run home run. Tre’ Morgan—down to his last strike—was hit by a pitch. Ben Bianco pinch ran, stole second base and then scored on a single by Jordan Thompson to tie the game.

LSU wasted little time in the 10th inning making sure the comeback wouldn’t be in vain. It loaded the bases with no outs and Pearson drove home the winning run with a ground ball.

The Tigers have certainly left it late the last two days but are still 2-0 and in the driver’s seat in Hattiesburg. The biggest lesson here seems to be that getting 27 outs against this LSU lineup is a massive challenge.

3. LSU’s comeback may not have even been the wildest by an SEC West team on Saturday.

Arkansas trailed Oklahoma State, 10-5, after six innings in O’Brate Stadium in the Stillwater Regional. The Razorbacks scored three in the seventh and then eight in the eighth to take the lead and went on to win, 20-12.

The punctuation on the comeback was a massive grand slam from Jalen Battles, who absolutely unloaded on a baseball. But the big inning was made possible by three walks and three hit batters.

Arkansas finished the game with 16 hits, seven home runs, five walks and seven hit batters. The Razorbacks’ offense has had potential all season long but hasn’t had many days like Saturday. If they can build on that performance, they might be breaking through at the perfect time.

4. Virginia Commonwealth beat host North Carolina, 4-3, in the Chapel Hill Regional. Having beaten Georgia and UNC on back-to-back days, the Rams are now one win away from their second super regional appearance in seven years.

That should be one of the biggest stories of the weekend and in this chalky tournament a true Cinderella storyline. However, a controversial ejection and subsequent two-game suspension of North Carolina coach Scott Forbes overshadowed the whole day in Chapel Hill.

Forbes was ejected in the third inning after arguing about two plays that went against UNC. The first was an interference call that took a run off the board in the second inning for the Tar Heels. The second, and more contentious of the two, came an inning later when the infield fly rule was not invoked on a pop up behind the mound with one out and Tar Heels on first and second. When the ball fell in, VCU was able to turn an inning-ending double play—the very thing the infield fly rule is supposed to protect against.  

Following the game, it was revealed that in addition to the ejection, Forbes would be suspended for two games. The NCAA did not immediately explain the decision, but a two-game suspension is not automatic for a coach who is ejected and is usually applied if a coach makes contact with an umpire or does not leave the field fast enough.

Forbes is the second high-profile coach to be hit with a controversial two-game suspension in the last week. Texas Christian’s Kirk Saarloos was similarly disciplined last week at the Big 12 Tournament after he was ejected when the home plate umpire mistakenly interpreted his signal to intentionally walk Texas slugger Ivan Melendez. The argument that followed led to the suspension.

5. Texas State delivered the biggest upset of the tournament so far late Saturday night, when it defeated No. 2 overall seed Stanford, 5-2, in the Stanford Regional. The Bobcats, the No. 2 seed in the regional and the regular-season Sun Belt champions, snapped the Cardinal’s 17-game winning streak and moved one win away from advancing to super regionals for the first time in program history.

Lefthander Levi Wells was outstanding for the Bobcats, limiting the powerful Stanford offense to just two runs in seven innings. He worked around eight hits and a walk and struck out six batters. Closer Tristan Stivors struck out five in two scoreless innings to earn his 18th save of the season, the most in the nation.

Texas State also got to righthander Alex Williams, the Pac-12 pitcher of the year, in a way few teams have this season. The Bobcats knocked him out in the fifth inning after scoring five runs on five hits and two walks. Jose Gonzalez homered off Williams twice and Wesley Faison added another homer for the Bobcats.

Texas State had been to the NCAA Tournament five times before this season. It was 2-10 in those five appearances. Now, the Bobcats are in the driver’s seat and truly can dream big. The Stanford Regional is matched up with the College Park Regional, where No. 3 seed Connecticut on Saturday upset host Maryland. If Texas State and UConn both took advantage of their edge in their respective regionals going into Sunday, the Bobcats would likely be rewarded with a home super regional.

6. At times this year, it was hard to get a read on just how good the SEC was. Tennessee was clearly great, but was its dominance of the league indicative of a dip in the conference’s overall level? Abnormally low RPIs for teams like Arkansas and LSU and powerhouses like Florida and Vanderbilt going about .500 in the league made it all the more confusing.

Through two days of the NCAA Tournament, at least, all the hand wringing seems to be much overblown. The SEC is dominating this tournament so far. Its nine teams are a combined 14-3 (Ole Miss has played just once due to rain delaying the Coral Gables Regional by a day). Five have already advanced to a regional final and none have been eliminated.

By winning percentage, the SEC’s mark of .824 is not just the best of any conference that received multiple bids, it’s better than that of the 16 hosts. It’s comparable to the mark of the top-eight overall seeds, which are 13-2 (.867).

In other words, it just means more.

7. Here’s how every multi-bid conference stacks up after two days.

SEC: 14-3 (.824)
Big Ten: 3-1 (.750)
Big 12: 7-3 (.700)
ACC: 11-6 (.647)
Sun Belt: 5-3 (.625)
Pac-12: 5-4 (.556)
Conference USA: 2-2 (.500)
West Coast: 2-2 (.500)
ASUN: 1-3 (.250)
Missouri Valley: 1-3 (.250)
WAC: 0-4 (.000)