text size

Adam's Blog: Gamecocks Got Game

Updated: Saturday, June 23 2012, 05:13 PM CDT
South Carolina is two wins away from its third consecutive NCAA baseball national championship.  That's amazing.

297 schools play Division I baseball.  With a pair of wins vs. Arizona this week, South Carolina can finish first out of 297 (!!!) for the THIRD consecutive season.  That's amazing.

Only one other team in college baseball history has won at least three consecutive national championships.  The "other" USC did it.  Southern Cal won five titles in a row from 1970 to 1974.  But if the Gamecocks make history this week, in my opinion - USC's three in a row from 2010-2012 are much more impressive than SC's five in a row in the early 70's.  Here's why:

As I noted, nearly 300 schools compete in NCAA Division I baseball.  Only 64 of those squads reach the postseason.  For a team to qualify for the eight-team College World Series it has to first win its four-team regional, and then defeat another regional champion a best of three super regional series the following weekend.  Only then does a team make it to Omaha and have the opportunity to play for a national championship.

Not only has South Carolina done that each of the past three seasons, the Gamecocks have been nearly flawless in doing so.  Literally. 

The past three years, USC has a postseason record of 25-and-1.  That's a winning percentage of .962 in regionals, super regionals, and the College World Series against the best competition in America.  At one point, the Gamecocks won 22 straight postseason games.

When Southern Cal was in the midst of its five straight titles, a significantly smaller number of schools played Division I baseball.  There were no regionals or super regionals in postseason play.  Eight district tournaments decided the field for the College World Series.  From 1970 to 1974, the Trojans had to win just 10 TOTAL postseason games over the course of five seasons in order to make it to Omaha.  In just three years, South Carolina has won 15 games in regionals and super regionals.  Don't even get me started on the teams Southern Cal had to beat in the district playoffs, either.  Santa Clara, UC Santa Barbara, Loyola Maramount, and Cal St. Los Angeles aren't exactly murder's row.

Much respect to USC for dominating the college baseball landscape in the early 1970's.  However, what South Carolina has accomplished over the past three seasons is not only more impressive, but with the state of college baseball today, we'll probably never see anything like this again.

Gamecocks got game.  Adam's Blog: Gamecocks Got Game