College World Series Bracket

It's almost time for Omaha!!! You just knew we had to fill out this bracket when it was released. You can probably guess who we picked to win it all, but here it is for you to see. If you have not seen the blank bracket, here it is.

The actual bracket itself is hard to argue against. You have 8 incredible teams that took the top 8 seeds. The top 4 were an absolute lock with Florida, Stanford, and Oregon State outpacing the field all year long and Ole Miss winning the SEC Tournament. I thought FSU should get the 5 seed after winning the ACC Tournament, but they come in at #7. North Carolina, fresh off the ACC regular season title comes in at number 6. Stetson got a very good draw at #11 despite not being in line for a home super regional. If you take that factor out, I like their draw best outside of the top 4. I would much rather face North Carolina in Rd.2 then Clemson on the road. Getting Clemson at home is good news for the Seminoles though.

For the #7 national seed, that Tallahassee Regional is a bloodbath. Like I said I prefer Stetson's opening regional better. Mississippi State has given FSU fits in the past in regional play and it is not a team that I wanted to see in regional play. Hopefully we use Parrish in game 2 to send the Bulldogs to the losers bracket.

There are 10 SEC teams in this tournament from that very good conference. Most of the SEC teams are on the left side of the bracket including all of their top seeds. The strongest of the teams on the left side are LSU and the aforementioned Mississippi State squad. There are six ACC squads including four top seeds. Once again, those conferences prove to be the top competition with the Pac 12. While there are less teams than that from the Pac 12, that conference has the #2 and #3 teams overall in Stanford and Oregon State.

Let's do ladies first this time, and start with Jenna's bracket.

Baseball is Jenna's favorite sport, but she does not watch a tremendous amount of it. She does really enjoy FSU athletics though. We went to many a baseball game in our time as students at Florida State. Her favorites were Sherman Johnson and Devon Travis. Now, her favorite player is Drew Mendoza. As a big homer, she had to pick the Seminoles to take the beans. This was an easy prediction to make. Heck, all of our national champions were easy predictions to make.

Jenna has a really solid bracket with a lot of chalk. She has national powerhouse Oregon State to the finals against FSU. She also only has one 2 seed in Omaha. Other than that, she picked all 1 seeds. She has East Carolina and Texas doing quite a bit of damage. You will also notice that she does not have a single SEC team in the College World Series. Her anti-SEC bias is even stronger than mine and I absolutely love it!!!

Now, it's Eli's turn!

As always, Eli picks based on mascots and what sounds best. There is not always sound rationale, but he still isn't three. It is impressive he can even say these team names, let alone know anything about them. He enjoys saying the team names. You will notice a surprising amount of chalk and you will notice that he picked the family squad. He knows what is best after all.

Other than myself and Jenna, Eli actually had the most chalk on his bracket. He had all national seeds advancing, but two. Louisville and Baylor were the two seeds that he had advancing to Omaha. This kid certainly loves to pick Baylor when given the choice. Eli was very excited by East Carolina and their purple pirate mascot. That won him over until the finals against FSU. Some really solid picks from our soon to be 3 year old.

Let's check out Noland Jr.'s bracket.

Other than me, Noland Jr. watches the most baseball in the family. He watches more college baseball then a lot of baseball fans. The kid is a die-hard Seminole and will always pick them in any tournament they are in. Those other picks he made though there is some reason for. He knows his baseball pretty dang well. While this bracket is clearly not chalk, there is some sound reasoning behind a lot of it. Sometimes the mascots prevailed though because he is 5 (hello Wright St Wolfpack). I personally love the selections though and will be rooting for them to come true.

Tigers always win with Noland unless they are playing the Seminoles, so it's no surprise that LSU is advancing to the finals on his bracket. Auburn also makes a deep run until they play LSU. Also look at all those upsets. Crazy!!!!! I promise he loves and pays attention to the game. Being 5 and thinking anything can happen is super awesome.

Finally, I will show you mine....

I went with my head and not just my heart. My head and my heart both say that Florida State will win the day. The team is more than capable and 11 deserves a title. At the end of the day, you have to believe that good triumphs over evil. There is nothing more true in this game than 11 being a complete blessing for the sport. That being the case, it is long past time for this man to get his title. The Seminoles simply have to deliver for him. There are no other options. Florida State must win, they can win, and they will win. Do this Seminoles!!!!

More chalk than I typically go with in a bracket, I picked mostly national seeds to join FSU in Omaha. NC State has a real legitimate shot to upset Florida so I had them in the final field. Louisville has been incredibly hot and I had the Cardinals pulling some upsets to get to Omaha. South Carolina was the other 2 seed I had making it. They have done very well in the tournament historically, so I feel they are poised for another run. Texas I have as the other team on that side. Oregon State and North Carolina advance as top seeds. Stanford also advances. The final breakdown for my predicted Final Four is 4 ACC, 1 Big 12, 2 Pac 12, 1 SEC. I am most confident in the 2 Pac 12 teams being there as they have seemingly easy roads to get there. 4 ACC teams might be a little tougher to come by. This breakdown will leave Oregon State, FSU, Texas, and South Carolina on one side and Stanford, UNC, North Carolina State, and Louisville on the other side. I could be wrong about Louisville and South Carolina though as they could be swapped.

The main thing is though that I am looking forward to this year's tournament and I think FSU has a great shot. I am more concerned about this regional than the super regional. Miss State is no joke and we must get by that team first. Louisville is so incredibly hot right now and they peaked at the right time. Louisville is a team that looks to make a deep run in Omaha and give the Noles all they can handle. Those teams from the Pac 12 are mighty tough and I didn't forget those defending champs down south (well north of here, but south of my school). Anything can happen in this crazy tournament and here's hoping it happens for the Noles!

Would you look at that?
We all picked the Florida State Seminoles!!!! This family really wants Mike Martin to finally get his title. Let's win this one for 11.

What did you think of our bracket?
Who do you think makes it to Omaha?
Are you rooting for Mike Martin to finally get a title?
Got anything else you want us to do brackets of?
Feel free to leave us any feedback in the comments...

Next up for you is the best superhero movie bracket following us seeing Infinity War!!!!

- Noland

Women's College World Series Bracket

So this was supposed to be where we showed you our superhero bracket, but....
The NCAA released their Women's College World Series brackets and I wanted to show you ours before the games started later today!!!!
That way you could see our picks before and not think we changed them. Not that you would, but for confirmation purposes here you go...

First, the blank bracket

As you will see below, we filled out a less descriptive bracket straight from the NCAA, but this is how the tournament will actually play out. On our brackets , it basically stops at 8 and then has you write the finish, but the space to write out 1-8 (when the tournament is re-seeded) is so small that it is difficult to see. Eli didn't want me to write in that space either. He just wanted to pick a winner. Noland Jr. thought wanted everything filled out like always. This bracket gives you a good idea of how the tournament works if you haven't seen the College World Series on either the men's or women's side.

Here are some early notes about the actual bracket. 13/14 SEC teams (Vanderbilt, the one that didn't, isnt a softball participating member) made the NCAA tournament in a field of 64. The Pac 12 had 7 teams invited. 14 of the 16 regionals are hosted by either an SEC or a Pac 12 school. Those that weren't a member of the Pac 12 or SEC hosting a regional are ACC Champion Florida State (6 seed) and Big 12 champion Oklahoma (4 seed). The deck clearly seems to be stacked against these conferences. The ACC especially only got 2 teams in the tournament.
Are you telling me the SEC is that much better in softball that they got 13 teams in to the ACC's 2?
The SEC has teams barely over .500 making the tournament. It just seems suspect to me. For example Pittsburgh is 33-18 and played against several tournament teams, beating several, winning the ACC Coastal, while last place Missouri at 28-27 makes the field. Having the entire conference over .500 is impressive, but just hard to believe that they are all deserving of a bid. 13/64 is 20% of the field. Just seems like stacking the deck against the other conferences to try to lock up a championship. I don't approve of this decision by the NCAA, but still wanted to fill out the bracket....

Then my picks first this time

Possibly because I was so upset with committee letting all 13 SEC teams in, I only have one SEC team advancing to the 8 team College World Series. That SEC team, the Florida Gators, are the team I like the least. However, it is difficult for me to see them losing until Oklahoma City. That being said, I do believe that they will finish last in Oklahoma City once they get there regardless of the other teams.

If I am correct the Final 8 will include #1, #2, #3, #4, #6, #8 and two teams not nationally ranked advancing. I have all the top 8 teams advancing to the Final 8 with the exception of #5 Washington and #7 Georgia. It would have been easy to select both though and most would.

That would make 1, 4, 6 w/ one unranked team on on side with 2, 3, 8 and the other unranked team on the other side. Knowing that format I had the 6th seed Florida state beating the 3rd seeded UCLA in the College World Series final. If it broke down this way, the 3 strongest teams in my opinion would be on the same side of the bracket with FSU, Oklahoma, and the powerhouse that is Oregon. UCLA and Florida are quite good though and could have a showdown on the other side. Watch out for Arizona State though, they are sneaky good. I actually have them as the 3rd place finisher in this tournament. Would not be surprised to see them win it all.

Jenna did not want to do this bracket as she was busy with a project for her shop. She said she would pick the Seminoles though. So let's move right along to Eli's bracket...

Eli Thomas had some chalk and some not so much chalk. He selected 3 SEC teams to make the College World Series. Those three were Alabama, Arkansas and Tennessee. They were three different teams then the ones I had. I think he could be right with those picks though as all got good draws. I had Middle Tennessee winning where he has Bama. Eli was rather confident that Alabama would win a lot and said they would finish in 2nd. He stuck with the Seminoles as the champs though because this is a Seminoles household and the Seminoles have an incredibly strong team!!!!

Eli said yay Seminoles!!!

And the champ is last with Noland Jr.'s picks.

Noland Jr. obviously picked upset after upset in this tournament. He only has one nationally ranked seed making it to Oklahoma City. That team he picked was the mighty Seminoles who Noland thinks will win the whole tournament. How amazing would this final 8 be with no SEC teams? How awesome would it be if this chaos picked by a 5 year old actually cam true?

While I don't think this chaos will hold true, it would be truly epic. Can you imagine an Oklahoma City field of Middle Tennessee, Wichita State, Baylor, Northwestern, FSU, Texas State, New Mexico State, and Drake. The people wouldn't know which underdog to root for. It would be truly WONDERFUL! Man, I really hope this happens. This would be my favorite bracket of all-time if it actually came true.

Only one thing really matters about this bracket though above all else. We all picked the Seminoles. We all want the Seminoles to win. We all love the Seminoles!
Let's go Noles!!!!

Who are you picking in Oklahoma City (where the Women's College World Series is held?
What do you think of the bracket?
What do you think of our picks?
Will you watch on ESPN?
Leave us a comment and let us know!
Now join us in 5 days for our Coolest Superhero Bracket

- Noland