The Scarlet Knights lost a ton of talent after a strong 2007 season which saw them win the Big East Regular Season and Conference Tournament championship to receive the automatic bid in the NCAA Tournament before bowing out in the Charlottesville Regional. Dane Truxell of The Daily Targum (RU Student paper) provides an excellent article discussing how the team is trying to repeat the successes from 2007 and how they are going to replace All-American Todd Frazier. The full article is available here.

CSTV editor Doug Kroll checks in with an article previewing the top freshmen in the country. He ranks Matt Harvey of North Carolina as the best freshmen entering the season. Harvey was rated as a first round pick before the 2007 MLB Draft but his stock slipped when his ties with Scott Boras came up. He ended up getting drafted in the third round by the Angels but decided to head to Chapel Hill to play with Mike Fox. Read the rest of this entry »

The Hyannis Mets will be running a fundraiser on March 9th where the proceeds will go to the renovations at McKeon Park. The event will take place at The Roadhouse Cafe in Hyannis from 4pm-6pm. They will have hors d’oeuvre and a cash bar while presenting the 2008 roster and other news around the Mets program. The flyer for the event is available in PDF format and for more information contact Kim Wolfe by email.

The Charleston Post and Courier writer Ken Burger wrote an excellent article about John Pawlowski facing some a major challenge off the field. His 13-year old daughter Mary-Louise has been diagnosed with PNET (primitive neuroectodermal tumors) which is a rare form of cancer which only affects two percent of children with cancer. The coach talks about how difficult it was to tell his daughter she has cancer and other issues arising from the situation. The full article is available here.

There was not much news around the College Baseball World on Wednesday. I thought I would ask for some suggestions on the future of the site. We are currently thinking about doing a season preview podcast sometime in February where we will give a Top 25 and our thoughts on the best teams around the country. We would also discuss some other issues around college baseball including the uniform start date and other issues. Would you guys listen to it? If you have anything to add about the site negative or positive feel free to leave a comment.

Gotham Baseball Magazine writer Chip Armonaitis checks in with an article about where New York area schools will open the season. He talks about players to watch during the opening weekend and where they will start the season. The full article is available here.

The Virginia Tech Hokies picked up two transfers for the 2008 season in Danny Farris and Michael Seaborn. Farris spent his freshmen season at Pepperdine where he accumulated a 2-1 record with a 4.38 ERA. Seaborn comes over from Kentucky where he redshirted last season. Seaborn had a strong summer campaign in the NYCBL where he led his team in batting average (.350), home runs (six), doubles (11), total bases (78), and slugging percentage (.557). The full release from Va Tech is available here.

FROM PRESS RELEASE
Receiving 77 points and five first-place votes, Long Beach State has been selected to win its first Big West title since 2003, according to the 2008 Big West Conference preseason poll conducted by the league’s nine head coaches. Cal State Fullerton placed second, while Cal Poly followed in third place. Read the rest of this entry »

Baseball America has released their preseason top 25 list.  The full ranking is available here.

Leading the way are the UCLA Bruins in the top spot.  Arizona, Vanderbilt, Ole Miss and North Carolina landed in spots 2 through 5, while Missouri, Oregon State, Michigan, ASU and Miami rounded out the top 10.

FROM PRESS RELEASE
DALLAS - The National Collegiate Baseball Writers Association continues its tradition of NCAA polls with the inaugural NCBWA-D3baseball.com Preseason Division III Poll. Weekly polls will start on February 25 and continue through June 2, following the NCAA Division III Championship in Grand Chute, Wisconsin. Read the rest of this entry »

Patrick Ebert of Perfect Game has written a great article previewing 13 players who he thinks will have breakout seasons in 2008. He breaks every player in depth with a small writeup. The list is loaded with Big Ten players as I believe Patrick is from Big Ten country as he also works for Brewerfan.net. We have included his team below Read the rest of this entry »

We are starting with of a three post series previewing the Texas Longhorns written by Djbfootball. The second article in the series is available here and the third is available here.

The 2007 Horns baseball season started with a lot of hope and promise. However, by the time Augie and staff arrived at the Round Rock Regional injuries began to take their toll on the team and even Home Run champion Kyle Russell could not carry this team to the College World Series. The last time Texas was in Omaha was in 2005 and that for a Horn Fan is an eternity. Texas has made it a habit of spending their summers in Omaha making that journey 32 times and winning it all six times. The last time was back in 2005. Read the rest of this entry »

We continue with the second post out of a three post series previewing the Texas Longhorns written by Djbfootball. The first article in the series is available here and the third is available here.

The Players;
Lets start at the Catcher position; Returning for his 4th year and starting for his third straight year at the catching position will be Preston Clark. Preston a red shirt junior brings a lot to the table that goes unnoticed. He will be able to keep these young pitchers on track and help them stay focus. When Preston went down to a sprain knee right before the Round Rock Regional those things that go unnoticed became very visible. His offense - .278 batting average 8 home runs and 46 runs batted – just his mere presence in the line up gives this team confidence. His defense – six errors in 56 games- makes the opposing team conscience of him behind the plate. Backing Preston up will be heir apparent Freshman Cameron Rupp. Cameron is a big young man that reminds me more of a Taylor Teagarden and Rupp will be able to continue this long line of outstanding catchers that eventually go on to the MLB.
Read the rest of this entry »

Kendall Rogers has continue his Top 25 countdown and checking at #12 is the Missouri Tigers of the Big 12. Missouri finish 2nd to Texas in the BIG 12 last year and they return a very talented pitching staff led by Aaron Crow. The weekend series with Texas traveling to Columbia will help determined the BIG 12 conference and national seedings. When they tangle April 11-13 the CBB will right here reporting on the first pitch until the final out on Sunday. Mizzou article available here.

Top 25 Countdown: No. 13 Michigan

Top 25 Countdown: No. 14 Virginia

Top 25 Countdown: No. 15 Mississippi

Top 25 Countdown: No. 16 Cal State Fullerton

Top 25 Countdown: No. 17 Long Beach State

Top 25 Countdown: No. 18 Wichita State

Top 25 Countdown: No. 19 Mississippi St.

Cal-State Fullerton Media Relations department has put out a press release previewing the Titans 2008 season. This will be the first season under new head coach Dave Serrano who takes over for George Horton who left for Oregon during the offseason. Serrano was named the 2007 Baseball America National Coach of the year after bringing UC-Irvine to the CWS. The full preview is available here.