We're all familiar with the top college teams by watching the CWS, but what college programs are rising and improving, and why?

in the dallas area i would have to say that dallas baptist university would fall into that catagory. coach heefner is willing to recruit second tier players and coach them to their full potential. they made the regionals in '08 as an independant and followed that up with 38 wins in '09. beautiful campus and very nice facilities.

Dallas Baptist is a very good baseball school.

Army (West Point) is currently ranked #44 in the CBN polls. They have been on the rise this decade because of recruiting. Their current soph/about to be junior class is loaded with talent that just took nationally seeded #1 Texas to the wire in the Austin Regional.

George Mason is a team that seems to have put quite a team together recently.

Coastal Carolina was considered a good program for some years but seems to have climbed into the echelon of elite programs recently.

do you have the usual military commitment after graduation at army and how does that affect the recruiting cplz?

Upon graduation, you owe 8 years of military service, 5 on Active Duty and 3 in the reserves. As an athlete, you can apply for discharge after 2 years of active duty, at which time, you will be responsible for paying back some of your education (which the team customarily pays).

It makes recruiting a challenge, not only with the military commitment, but also the regimented lifestyle of the cadet. Thy payoff is the West Point sheepskin and extensive Grad Network.

My honest to god real personal opinion on this subject.
Is that there's a ton of very solid programs out there, Just not all of them get a chance to perform on a bigger stage.
I would love to see them expand the field in the post season tournament's.

EH

it would be nice to see some of the fringe teams have a shot at going to omaha but there are 16 teams that play into june and 8 more into late june. i think if it were to be expanded the regional and super regionals would have to be one and done matchups.

They could have a Sub-Regional with 8 teams in each sub.
Top 4 in each sub. get re-seeded. into the regional tournament of 64.
Get rid of the conferance tournament's and spread the conf. teams around to differant subs.
If your a top team, you should be able to make it in to the top 4 in your Sub-Regional.
JMO

EH

quote:

Originally posted by theEH:
My honest to god real personal opinion on this subject.
Is that there's a ton of very solid programs out there, Just not all of them get a chance to perform on a bigger stage.
I would love to see them expand the field in the post season tournament's.

EH

Really CPLZ, wouldn't be better to have earned your spot into the tournament rather then have some committee decide that this Conf. deserves 8seeds this conf. gets 1seed.
I would like to see it settled on the field at the end of the year.
And it makes for more excitement when a mid major comes on at the end of the year, and challenges the Big Boys.

EH

Somehow, now that my son has completed his college career, I have lost my interest in the sport

Seriously, unless you are a division 1 independent (which there are only a handful of), the playoffs start with the conference tournament which provides a great majority of teams with at least a "chance."

The Army team qualified this year by winning the Patriot League tournament for example and could have won the Texas Regional imho. I guess the opportunity that someone could argue then is should conferences like the Patriot League get more than one team in the field of 64?

I don't have a good answer for that. The same arguments come up in basketball as well and especially with the so-called bubble teams. The best answer for any specific team not in a power conference is to win their conference tournament. Another way is to play a rough out-of-conference schedule and try and climb the rpi rankings. I realize for northern schools that is almost impossible to do for several reasons. I also think there are politics involved and that will never go away imho. Until then, for non-power conference teams, the only method is to win the conference title. It seems to me that those playoffs are just as significant as the ones in the field of 64.