June 3, 2011

Regional Scores & Schedules

Regional Capsules

NCAA Interactive Bracket

Tournament Notes

All in the Family: The Regionals feature several siblings playing across the country. Among them, Maine features twin brothers Justin and Ian Leisenheimer (ironically, coach Steve Trimper is the proud father of twin girls). Georgia Tech also has twins, Kyle and Colby Wren. They are the sons of Atlanta Braves GM Frank Wren. Arizona State features the Lambsons, Mitchell and Mark. Illinois features Josh and Justin Parr (Justin has a twin brother named Jordan). Reed and Ryne Harper play for Austin Peay. Mike and Stephen McGee suit up for Florida State. And the Kubitza brothers are also enjoying the postseason, but they'll be separated: Austin will be playing for Rice in Houston, and Kyle will be playing for Texas State in Austin.

Major League Experience: Princeton coach Scott Bradley played in the big leagues for several teams after being drafted by the Yankees with their second pick in 1981 (New York selected a prospect named John Elway in the first round). During his solid major league career, Bradley caught a Randy Johnson no-hitter in 1990.

Football Fanatics: Several coaches in the tourney have made a mark on the football field, led by Sacred Heart's Nick Giaquinto and Clemson's Jack Leggett, who battle each other Friday. CBI profiled Giaquinto here in 2008. Giaquinto wears No. 30, the same number he wore when he was a running back for the Washington Redskins in a 27-17 win over Miami in Super Bowl XVII. He made the transition to college baseball when George Mason's Billy Brown hired him to join his staff more than 20 years ago. Leggett played on the gridiron for three years for the Maine Black Bears. UALR skipper Scott Norwood was featured here this past February for sharing his name with the former Buffalo Bills kicker.

Bear of a Match-up: There will be a battle of the Bears in the first game of the Houston Regional as the Baylor Bears wrestle with the Cal Golden Bears.

Name Game: In addition to the pair of Bears in Houston, the tournament features the Black Bears of Maine, a pair of Bruins (UCLA and Belmont), a pair of Pirates (Seton Hall and East Carolina), a pair of Golden Eagles (Oral Roberts and Southern Miss) - and while we're at it Golden Flashes (Kent State) and Eagles (Georgia Southern) - a pair of Trojans (Troy and Arkansas Little Rock), a trio of Wildcats (Kansas State, Arizona and Bethune-Cookman) and a trio of Bulldogs (Fresno State, Mississippi State and Georgia). And the tourney features the unique: Jaspers (Manhattan), Anteaters (UC Irvine), Hatters (Stetson) and Governors (Austin Peay).

Regional Strength: The Austin, Chapel Hill and Clemson Regionals are the only ones that feature three 40-win teams.

Power Outage: Of the 14 teams with the fewest homers in the tourney, seven are No. 1 seeds. UC Irvine has hit 11 homers, followed by: Texas (1) 13; Sacred Heart 14; UCLA (1) 16; Cal State Fullerton (1) 17; Princeton 17; Charlotte 18; New Mexico 18; Virginia (1) 20; Alabama 20; Rice (1) 22; Stanford 23; Texas A&M (1) 24; Oregon State (1) 25.
 

Frequent Flyer Miles: The team putting in the most miles for its regional trip is Georgia, needing more than 2,200 miles to reach Corvallis. Charlotte needed to go nearly 1,800 miles to get to Tempe, as did UALR to get to Corvallis. Illinois went nearly 1,700 miles to land in Fullerton. The shortest trek? Belmont only has to go one mile to get to Vanderbilt for the Nashville Regional.

Car Pool: The two tourney teams from the state of Connecticut both were sent to the same regional. Sacred Heart and Connecticut both will play in the Clemson Regional.

Conference Call: There are seven teams from both the ACC and SEC in this year’s field. There are six from the Big 12 and Pac-10, four from Conference USA, three from the Atlantic Sun, Big East and Sun Belt, and two from the Big West and Mountain West.

State of the Union: There are 24 states represented in this year’s Field of 64. There are eight teams from Florida, seven from California and Texas, four from North Carolina, three from Georgia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Tennessee, two from Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Virginia, and one team from Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Nebraska, New Mexico and Oregon.