re: The 8 teams that were in Omaha for CWS last year

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So, please explain your point. My understanding is EVERY team has the same “window” for transfers, so is the issue talent evaluation, or is it player evaluation?

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See below. Not every team is afforded the same time to recruit the portal.

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The portal opened on June 2.

LSU was playing games until June 23, with 13 of those days (June 10-June 23) being in Omaha.

The Draft Combine is June 13-17.

Then the draft is July 13-15.

It's not like football where you can host guys for weeks and weeks while still playing in the post season. Guys you want are likely playing the first weekend. That leaves you with about 5 days to really talk to guys between game/travel schedule prior to Omaha.

Then imagine if you're looking at a guy playing on the second weekend (16 teams). You get what, a day with them before Omaha? If everything lines up perfectly?

Teams that sit at home should not get a 10 day head start to recruit players because they faltered.

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All of those teams also know more about who's leaving their program, who's leaning which way in the draft, etc.

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The 8 teams that were in Omaha for CWS last year

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I posted something similar about end of SEC season. 5 of bottom 8 were CWS winners in last 10 yrs…

I am leaning heavily toward we would've been better off had we not had a single portal import after '25.

This will start to become the norm with new teams in Omaha every year. This will be 3rd CWS in a row with no return teams.

2024
Tennessee
Florida State
North Carolina
Virginia
Kentucky
NC State
Florida
Texas A&M

2025
Coastal Carolina
Arizona
Murray State
LSU
Oregon State
Louisville
Arkansas
UCLA

2026
8 new teams

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This will be 3rd CWS in a row with no return teams.

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2nd

2024 had 3 returning teams: Tennessee, Virginia, and Florida were all in the CWS in 2023.

I did some quick digging and found.

This is the first NCAA tournament in the superregional era that every team in the previous CWS was eliminated before a Super.

In the superregional era, there have been 6 years with a single returner from the previous season: 2005, 2006, 2010, 2013, 2014, & 2023.

In the 27 seasons (not counting COVID, since no postseason), there have been 8 seasons with 0 or 1 returning CWS participant. The most returning teams were 5 in 2004.

As usual, my numbers are always suspect.

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2nd 2024 had 3 returning teams: Tennessee, Virginia, and Florida were all in the CWS in 2023.

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My phrasing was wrong.

I should have said 3 CWS in a row with 8 different teams.

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eat a di**

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Totally uncalled for!

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NCAA knows what they are doing.....

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I wouldn't go that far

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They open up the portal while they good teams are in Omaha on purpose.

This draws more money from newer markets to try and make the sport grow

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First step to grow the market, stop hiding post season games on the alternative channels and actually put some games on the main channels.

Exactly. Jay can call players from Omaha between games but other schools are hosting players on campus.

And by the way, all 8 Omaha teams are now out before the Supers. First time it’s happened in the super regional era.

I think people are making too much of a big deal out of this.

If you look at our prior winners, those teams usually had a lot of prior experience and emerged after being here a year or so. Skenes is really the only transfer to make a huge difference, as I recall... and he's a damn unicorn. He came to us in 23, was MLB ROY in 24, Cy Young in 25.
You can't go into the portal looking for next year's Cy Young winner.

This year, we ran into a couple problems that could have been different...

Pitching. We had Evans, Rizi, Schmidt, Guidry, Cowan, and a few more guys coming back. We expected a couple weekend starters and strong relievers from that group. Never materialized.
Too many wild pitches, but some of that also goes on the catcher. Ok, we had Arrambide back, and added Serna; those are 2 highly rated catchers. You'd like to think they could handle pitches in the dirt some, but both were pretty bad (good batters, though).

Which leads to ...

Fielding. We commited a lot of errors. So, we had Curiel, Milam, Stanfield back, with a number of other guys also returning. Brown, etc. You'd like to think we don't need to hit the fricking portal just to get a guy who can play 3rd base defensively. We should have a few, they may just not be able to bat well yet.
For reference, Braswell was solid at the bag, even if he was down most of the time at the plate.