Tuesday, May 26, 2009
By MARK ZNIDAR
While his players celebrated making the NCAA tournament, Ohio State coach Bob Todd was off by himself doing a slow burn.
Todd, who was a member of the tournament selection committee for seven years, thought the Buckeyes deserved to be a No. 1 or No. 2 seed and to play host to a regional tournament.
Instead, Ohio State (40-17) was seeded third and will play second-seeded Georgia (37-22) in a first-round game at noon on Friday in Tallahassee, Fla. Host and top-seeded Florida State (42-16) will play Marist (31-26) in the other game.
The Buckeyes have a 7-7 record against teams that are in the NCAA tournament, including victories over Miami (Fla.), Xavier, George Mason, Army and Minnesota.
“It’s a little bit of a slap at the Big Ten when your regular season champion gets a third seed,” Todd said. “We had a good RPI — 32. For a team that plays well all year like we did, we should have received strong consideration to get a No. 1 or a No. 2 seed.”
Ohio State athletic director Gene Smith bid for a regional tournament. No school from the East or Midwest will play host to one.
The Buckeyes are in the NCAA tournament for the 13th time since 1991. They played host to first-round tournaments and super regional tournaments in 1999 and 2001 and a super regional in 2003.
“There’s such an outcry from people to get regional tournaments in the East, North and Midwest, and they turned their back on it,” Todd said. “I know we were not the lowest bid, so money was not a factor. Columbus is a convenient place to get in and out of. It’s a logical place to hold a regional. We got great marks for hosting in the past.”
The selection committee picked three teams from the Big Ten. Regular season runner-up Minnesota is second-seeded in the Baton Rouge regional, and conference tournament champion Indiana is seeded fourth at Louisville.
Ohio State players weren’t disappointed about having to travel or which teams they will play.
“You eventually have to play the best, so that doesn’t make any difference to us,” pitcher Alex Wimmers said.
Two other Ohio schools made the field. Kent State was sent to the Arizona State regional, and Horizon League tournament champion Wright State was dispatched to TCU regional.
Texas (41-13-1), which won the Big 12 tournament for the fourth time, is the overall No. 1 seed and will host one of 16 four-team, double-elimination regionals.
The other national seeds, in order, are: Cal State Fullerton (42-14), LSU (46-16), North Carolina (42-16), Arizona State (44-12), UC Irvine (43-13), Oklahoma (41-18) and Florida (39-20).
The 16 regional winners move on to the best-of-three super regionals, beginning June 5. The eight super regional winners advance to the College World Series, which begins June 13 in Omaha, Neb.
XIncludes information from The Associated Press and staff reports.
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