Westwood Regional Preview

[CaseyGarrisonforPrez]

Overall: Boyd Nation gives UCLA a 88.8% chance of surviving this week, USD a 9.9% chance, New Mexico a 1.3% chance, and Creighton a 0% chance. With numbers like that I think that all of the teams should just stay home and focus on their studies. Not. Games aren't played on paper. This will be an interesting regional though because should anyone knock off the Bruins then it will get big attention.

#1 UCLA--42-14: For my money this is the best team in the nation. They are #1 nationally in RPI. Well coached, good pitching, and really sweet uniforms. What more do you need? In all seriousness it would be surprising if this bunch did not make the Supers.

#2 San Diego--40-15: Did not know until this point that this team had 40 wins and an RPI of #32. Maybe they will be able to push UCLA after all? They come from a good league that has competent competition most years with perennial power Pepperdine as well as Gonzaga and BYU. It seems like they were really good 3-4 years ago but my memory is fuzzy. Brian Matusz (sp?) was pretty good if i remember things correctly. They beat Texas and if you go to youtube and enter Augie Garrido you will find an awesome rant filled video. The first rant is after they lost to USD in like 2006 or something. Just throwing that in there as reference. My lunch is ending here soon at work so I am hurrying to get this all done since I procrastinated this preview away. I apologize if this one seems mailed in. It is for the most part.

#3 New Mexico--36-22: Got in because they won the MWC. I doubt an RPI of 59 would have put them in otherwise and their RPI would not have been that high if they did not go 3-0 in Vegas this past week so it is a moot point. I know basically nothing about this team and I don't have enough time to do a solid look at this club statistically. All that I remember is that in 2003 or so Boyd Nation did a measure of the Ballpark Factor and Alburquerque was at the top. Ball really carries there and inflates their stats apparently but I don't have the time to verify at the moment. Maybe later.

#4 Creighton--26-28: Our Tournament champions. We are all proud of them. Let's hope they can stay hot another week. Regardless of what happens from now on they have done CU proud by winning last weekend. I am sure the competitive spirit of Servais and friends want to win but they should enjoy their time in this thing and think of it as a reward for a long season that was unremarkable until last weekend. Good luck Jays.