Shouldn’t Oregon State’s CWS victory be considered a huge upset?

Maybe it’s a good thing that Oregon State won its second straight College World Series title. We get to say Beaver a lot more than usual today. Beaver. Hehe.

After beating North Carolina for the second-straight year in Omaha (‘Heels/Beav a new baseball rivalry?), most folks who are actually talking about this (over/under set at six people) are mentioning the whole repeat factor.

And while that’s good and cool and neat and spiffy, there’s a bigger deal to be made of this. Oregon State winning the College World Series seems, to us, a big fucking upset.

The Beavers are the first team in like the history of college and baseball to win a CWS crown after having a losing record in conference. OSU was 10-14 in the Pac-10 and tied for sixth. The Beav also lost six of eight position players and two thirds of its pitching rotation from last year’s championship squad.

That’s crazy. Oregon State coach Pat Casey would agree.

“It’s crazy. It’s just crazy,” he said.

Yeah. Crazy.

Crazier is that the Beavers won the damn thing as a No. 3 seed, which is about the equivalent of a No. 9 or 10 seed winning March Madness. Villanova, as a No. 8 in 1985, is still the lowest seed to win the Dance.

Sure, OSU’s been here before and all that shit, but c’mon, this team wasn’t expected to make it past the first round.

We tend to get a bit preachy when it comes to college baseball, but it’s a fun game, good end-of-the-year tournament and now we have a dynasty (sorta) to talk about. So hail the Oregon State Beavers, who, undoubtedly, will be pulling beaver for the next few days.

Yesterday, in the best tournament no one’s talking about

Those there are a bunch of Michigan baseball players who are getting more touch-y than normal after a thrilling extra-innings win over National No. 1 seed Vanderbilt.

The Wolverines bounced the Commodores from the NCAA Tournament (NCAA Tournament?) and advanced to the Super Regionals.

If you’re thinking something along the lines of “Who the fuck cares,” then, well, you might want to stop reading. Because this tournament is hands down the most exciting sporting event going on right now and for certain reasons (like ESPN showing the Yankees for like the 14th straight day) nobody’s talking about it.

That’s where we’ll step in. So Vandy’s the top overall seed, and while the Commodores losing in sports is about as obvious as telling people that Martin Luther King Jr. had a dream, this is a big-time upset. Probably the equivalent of a No. 8 knocking off a No. 1 in the second round of March Madness.

Not only did Vandy go down, but eight other top seeds didn’t advance to the Super Regionals, including Texas (National Seed No. 4), Florida St. (No. 6), Arkansas (No. 7) and San Diego (No. 8). In all, over half of the No. 1 seeds (16 total) went down, and five of the eight National Seeds lost. Crazier than a conversation between Paris Hilton and that Kardashian broad.

Check out the full bracket here. It’ll make the above paragraph make more sense.

Of course ESPN is burying this tournament. It’ll starting getting some media attention come the College World Series, when we’re down to eight teams. For now, there’s little-to-no mention on Sportscenter or the .com, let alone the games actually being televised.

But that’s like saying:

Producer 1: Hey, so whaddya think about not televising the first weekend of March Madness?
Producer 2: Love it.
Producer 1: Figure skating instead?
Producer 2: I was thinking trick pool.
Producer 1: Bingo.

OK, college baseball doesn’t quite have the same following as college hoops. But they’re missing some great games, big upsets, and more story lines than a season of 24.

Just think if this tournament got the same exposure as March Madness. The brackets and office pools would be brilliant. It really makes you think what the College Baseball Tourney could be with proper marketing.

Until then, all sorts of great games and upsets will fly under the radar.