The Ann Arbor Regional begins this afternoon. Eastern Michigan, the fourth seed, and Arizona, the top dog, are the playing in the opener. Kentucky, the three seed, is the opposition for host Michigan, the second seed, in the nightcap.
I don't plan to post anything during play, so I'll leave this thread open so you can discuss not only what's happening in Ann Arbor, but at all the regionals.
I've also found another regional preview, this one courtesy of our old friend Doug Kroll. Doug is on the Road to Omaha with the NCAA. Good to see Doug still covering the game. (My thanks to Doug for linking back here.)
Enjoy day one of the regionals.
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Arizona beat EMU 13-7 in game 1 today. EMU will play the loser of tonights game. UM or Kentucky Sat. at 2pm. The Wildcats scored 8 runs in the last 3 innings today.
All right, I can't resist. Full disclosure, I am a Michigan fan and realize that this would be a "big break" if the shoe were on the other foot.
But why, oh why, in this day and age of advanced technology was someone - the NCAA, the University of Michigan - able to look at a simple weather forecast and come up with the idea of a couple of possibilities related to the games yesterday. Things such as:
1) Starting Michigan-Kentucky as quickly as possible after the end of Arizona/EMU.
2) Starting UA/EMU at Noon and starting the other game at 4:30 or 5:00pm
I realize that having a "Northern Regional" is a point of pride in 2008, but it wasn't that big a deal to have anyone (cough-ESPN-cough) show up to televise it (The BTN was allowed to televise UM games out of the Softball regional, but not the baseball?) - so it is not as if Television was the driving concern that said things could not start until a specific time.
I also appreciate the idea that a "host school" should do a good job of driving attendance and that revenues etc, are part of the whole process.....
But the competition issues should trump all of those. (OK, maybe not TV). It totally blows to have a pitcher doing very well essentially forced out of a game (I am assuming Putnam is done on the mound), because of a weather delay that was a known probability for the last 72 hours. The decision to bump starting times could have been made Thursday afternoon and there could have been a good job done of making people aware of the change.
If this strict adherence to starting times was the responsibility of the NCAA, I can understand that and just add it to a long laundry list of things that organization does that defines stupidity and mismanagement. If this was UM making this determination, it is yet another piece of evidence to those that charge Bill Martin with being very good at making a buck and pretty much clueless when it comes to anything dealing with athletic competition.
I am 90% certain that the NCAA has to approve times. I am also 90% certain that the BTN declined to televise the games. I was praying hard for the storms to hold off until 11 p.m., but perhaps that was too petty and too specific of a prayer. Back to world peace, I guess.
I am 100% certain that it really sucked to have to postpone that game. The Fish was rocking and neither team is going to enjoy whatever bullpen scheduling issues this caused.
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