A very good University of Cincinnati baseball team gathered at Marge Schott Stadium on Monday to see if the Bearcats had been selected to play in the NCAA tournament. The news wasn’t good; their season is over.
The Bearcats won 14 of their last 17 games en route to compiling a 39-20 won-lost record, their best season ever. St. John’s, the regular season champion, received a bid even though the Red Storm lost its first two games in the Big East Tournament.
A bit much for UC Coach Brian Cleary:
“I had a sick feeling in my stomach all weekend knowing that this was a possibility. The difficult thing is that normally when your season ends it’s because you didn’t play well enough down the stretch. It makes it that much more difficult to see it end, given just how well we’ve been playing.â€ÂÂÂ
The most questionable selection was Arkansas, with a 34-22 record, and was only 14-15 in the SEC. Arkansas was the ninth SEC team selected.