June 4, 2008

Coaches like North Carolina to reach Omaha

Before the NCAA Regionals got underway, we asked a panel of college baseball head coaches to name their picks to reach Omaha.

North Carolina was the only unanimous selection of the 18 coaches who took part in the survey. Interestingly, however, the Tar Heels were predicted as the champ by only one of the 15 coaches who offered a champion. The favorite? Miami, which garnered eight of 15 votes to win the title. The Hurricanes were second to UNC with 16 votes to reach Omaha.

Rounding out the eight teams coaches picked to reach Omaha were Arizona State (14), Cal State Fullerton (14), Florida State (13), LSU (12), Rice (10) and Georgia (6). Just missing the cut were: Wichita State (6), Texas A&M (6), UC Irvine (4) and San Diego (4).

San Diego received two votes to win it all, with ASU, Fullerton, FSU and Nebraska each getting one vote.

At the beginning of the season, 60 college baseball head coaches predicted the following field for Omaha: Vanderbilt. Texas, North Carolina, Arizona State, Rice, Arizona, Miami and UCLA. The Sun Devils were the pick of 20 percent of the coaches to win the national title back in February.