The CAA has picked the VCU Rams to win the conference this season. They received 4 first place votes with UNC Wilmington and Delaware getting 3 and Old Dominion get a lone vote. The rest of the pre-season poll is available here. The College Baseball Blog staff might be seeing some CAA action at Northeastern this season so keep your eyes open.
Julio Borbon will be out 8-10 weeks with an ankle injury which hampers the beginning of the season for the Tennessee Vols. They are expected to compete for teh SEC championship this year and Julio was expected to be the catalyst for the program. He led the team in hitting in 2006 with a .366 batting average. The full article written by Kendall Rogers is available here.
Sean Clark of Clemson will not be playing the 2007 season even though he still has another year of eligibility left. He became an emergency starter at the end of last season and provided the victory in the ACC championship game, a regional, and the first game of the CWS in Omaha. He was expected to be an integral part of the Clemson staff but will not be able to play because of commitments with his current employer. Sad to see a kid's life get decided by some bosses at his job. Full article available here.
The ACC has released their preseason coaches poll. The UNC Tar Heels and the Clemson Tigers are both picked to win their respective division. The Tigers are expected to win the whole conference according to the coaches. The full release from the ACC is available here.
The Tallahassee Democrat has an article in Jan. 18th edition about the expected new center fielder for the Seminoles. His name is Ruairi O'Connor who is entering his redshirt sophomore season. He missed the 2006 season with a wrist injury but in 2005 he contributed with in 40 games including 14 starts. He has a tough shoe to fill because Shane Robinson (former CF) was a two-time All-American and also the national player of the year in 2005. The full article is available here.
The Kansas baseball program had some recent articles published in The University Daily Kansan about the preparations for the season. The first article deals with the new indoor batting cages which were added before the 2006 season and how they have helped the program out. The other one talks about the large gift that was given to the program for a new home clubhouse.
New Clubhouse
Indoor Facility
The Mountain West Conference has released their pre-season coaches poll and TCU is expected to win the conference garnering 9 out of the 10 first place votes. The full release is available here.
The Southern Miss Baseball team start practice on Monday for the 2007 season. They return 18 letter winners including five position players to a team that went 39-23 last season. The team will try to win a regional this season as they are looking on qualifying for their fifth straight regional. The full article is available here.
Conference USA has released the results from the Pre-Season Coaches Poll. The Rice Owls are the unanimous choice to win the conference receiving all nine first place votes. They are followed by Tulane and Houston to fill out the Top 3. Rice had both Joe Savery and Cole St. Clair named Pre-Season player and pitcher of the year. The full release with the rest of the Top 5 in the conference and the rest of the Conference team is available here.
Harvard Captain Brendan Byrne had a nice article written about him which discusses the amount of commitment it takes today to compete at the D-1 level in two sports. Byrne besides playing second base also plays Forward on the hockey team. This is an interesting combination since there is some overflow from the Hockey season to the beginning of the baseball team. Byrne is a local guy growing up in Dorechester and Milton. The full article is available here.
The Navy athletic department is doing a series of previews on the upcoming season. The first part is about the Starting Pitchers which is led by All-American Mitch Harris. He went 10-3 with a microscopic 1.74 ERA in 2006. He is expected to put up similar numbers again. The full preview is available here and the season prospectus is also posted here.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham has released a new style for their hats for the coming season. The hats resemble Alabama Crimson Tide but are Green and Gold instead. The full article is available here.
The BYU Baseball team has started preparing for the season by taking their workouts indoors at a local boxing gym. The full team has started the cross training this season after pitching coach Bobby Applegate implemented the regimen last year with his pitchers. The whole team wanted in on the project thus the odd workout regimen. The full article is available here.
SeBaseball has posted a preview of Conference USA this season. They expect Rice and Tulane to battle with Houston to finish in the top 3 of the conference. They expect Rice to edge out Tulane. The rest of the conference is improving but still not at the same level of the perennial powers of Rice and Tulane. The full article is available here.
Jeff Dietz was honored by the Collegiate Baseball as their pick for the Ivy League pitcher of the year. Jeff went 3-1 with a 2.73 ERA last season in the Ivy League and is expected to contribute more this season. The full release is available here.
I came across an article in the Worcester Telegram and Gazette on Jack Barry, who was recently inducted to the College Baseball Hall of Fame. It gives you some more perspective on how good of a coach this guy was and how important his accomplishments were at Holy Cross. The full article is available here.
The San Diego State Aztecs announced plans to host a doubleheader at Petco Park which is the home of the San Diego Padres. They will face the Michigan Wolverines in the nightcap while the San Diego Toreros will face Oklahoma in the early game. This will take place on Saturday, March 10th which is the middle day of the Round-Robin format tournament. The full article about the event is available here.
Mark Etheridge of SEBaseball has an article posted by CSTV on the struggles of the mid-majors in college baseball. Most of the bids have gone to teams in the Big 5 conferences which are the SEC, ACC, Big 12, Pac 10, and C-USA. Since the year 2000, the amount of teams coming from outside of these conferences has dwindled from 42 to 34 last season. Considering that 25 of those bids are automatic bids, you can see how difficult it is to make the tournament for the mid-major schools like College of Charleston who ended up winning a regional last season. The full article is available here and can be discussed in my comment section.
The Tallahassee Democrat checks in with an article about newcomer Brandon Reichert. He is entering the season as a senior and this will be the first season he suits up for the hometown team. He signed with Mercer University but was not given his release by Head Coach Craig Gibson. The full article about Mr. Reichert is available here.
GoJackets.com checks in with a preview on the Virginia Cavaliers. They are led by 4th year Head Coach Brian O'Connor and All-American two-way player Sean Doolittle. They need to replace starting pitcher Mike Ballard, closer Shooter Hunt, and DH/first baseman Tom Hagan but should be able to continue to compete for the ACC championship this year with the quality of recruits coming to Charlottesville. The full article is available here.
Scout.com checks in with an article about the new draft rules which go into effect this season. The rules now state that all players beside college seniors must be signed before August 15th. The article has some quotes from some people who write for the Scout.com network and the comments can be read here.
A very nice article came across my desk today on one of my favorite College Baseball players in Kellen Kulbacki who plays for James Madison University and played for Cotuit this summer. He led the nation in homeruns, slugging percentage, and OPS in 2006. He will try to stay at the top in the nation without the protection of his former teammates Nate Schill and Micheal Cowgill. The full article about the All-American is available here.
Perfect Game CrossChecker are posting a series of previews about the top 100 teams in the nation. The top team has been released with University of South Carolina ranked Number 1 but from 2-49 have not been released but will be on Tuesday and Wednesday. The listing of teams from 51-100 are available here.
Cstv.com has started posting a series of articles previewing the 2007 NCAA Baseball season. The first article posted was a vote taken by CSTV on the Pre-season player of the year. The projected player of the year is Wes Roemer of Cal-State Fullerton. The full list is available here.
The second article is about players who are solid in the pitching and hitting departments like Virginia's Sean Doolittle and GT's Matt Wieters. The article is written by CSTV writer Glenn Tanner and can be read here.
Mike Anderson of Nebraska is preparing for the upcoming season with his Husker baseball program. The Lincoln Journal Star checked in on them and talk about how the reduction in scholarships in the college baseball world has led to student-athletes who get partial scholarships. The Husker program spread the scholarship money between about 30 players which comes out to each scholarship athlete having .40 of a scholarship. The full article is available here.
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