link (in case you missed it...this was late to midseason so its clear who their pick is now) Best Coach Smoke Laval, Louisiana State Mike Bianco, Mississippi This one is too close to call now. Maybe we'll let their teams' matchup on May 21-23 decide. Laval has met the pressure of following the legendary Skip Bertman head on. Fighting tremendous expectations, he led a young LSU team to Omaha last season, overcoming the death of Wally Pontiff and the loss of injured ace Lane Mestepey. The Tigers have returned this year to form an explosive lineup that gets hits from top to bottom and might be the best since the "gorilla ball" years. Strong recruiting efforts have helped Mike Bianco lead Mississippi to a school-record 25-4 start and have tradition-rich Mississippi State looking up in the standings at their Magnolia State brethren for a change. (other ramblings of interest) "Well, Stanford doesn't rebuild, they reload. LSU was a young team a year ago. Miami has most of its roster back, and Rice has all of its pitching back. I guess it's a year you could see a lot of repeaters." At the midway point of the season, no alpha dog has emerged from this year's college baseball landscape. Unlike last year, when Rice never dropped below No. 3 in the polls en route to winning its first national title, there's no clear-cut favorite. Rather, a strong quartet of teams has created some separation from the rest of the pack: Stanford, Texas, Louisiana State and Rice. If that group and Miami and South Carolina all return to Omaha, it would leave just two vacancies at the College World Series for the rest of the field to fight over. "Every year there's a couple of teams that stand out and are a little better, but this year any of those teams in that group could win a series against the others or could win in Omaha," a National League scouting director said. Each of the teams has its own strengths. Stanford (23-4) has held the top spot in the polls for seven weeks, and defeated No. 2 Texas in a three-game series back in February. As usual, the Cardinal rank atop the Pacific-10 Conference in ERA, but this team runs on an offense that would be admirable even in the Southeastern Conference. "Stanford's real physical and has a lot of guys in that lineup one through nine who can hurt you," Horton said. The same can be said for LSU (24-6), which naturally has been playing the SEC style it helped create. LSU won two of three games at South Carolina earlier this year, with each team winning a game in which it bludgeoned the other with a double-digit run total after the Tigers won a taut opener 6-3 in 11 innings. "LSU is the best offensive team I've seen all year," said Texas State coach Ty Harrington, whose team has faced LSU, Rice and Texas. "They're big, strong, and wear you down physically. One through nine, there's no break. With 27 opportunities out-wise, they are scary because they're still a threat with two outs. They can get a five-spot on you before you can even get a guy loose (in the bullpen)."
I'm extremely pleased to see this. Thank you very much for posting this. I am very pleased to see this publication name Coach Smoke Laval as perhaps the best coach in college baseball. I hope with every fiber of my being that this is so, and this publication's opinion that Smoke is right up there is very, very comforting to me. Our baseball team deserves the best college coach in the game at the helm. This publication says that we have what we deserve. I'm happy.
