Cinderella Bulldogs survived stacked West

After entering the Long Beach (Calif.) Regional as a No. 4 seed and emerging as champion over three squads ranked in final regular-season polls, Fresno State is being hailed as the NCAA tournament’s Cinderella story.

More important, however, the Bulldogs’ success has also made them a poster child for the depth of teams from the West Coast, who have performed well in the postseason despite complaints from coaches that the bracket is stacked against them.

“I don’t know if there was another regional that had the quality of teams that ours did,” said Fresno State coach Mike Batesole, whose team outlasted Long Beach State, San Diego and California to advance to a best-of-three Tempe Super Regional against Arizona State.

“You could say that one or two of the teams could have been somewhere else. Then, you take into account the record that West Coast teams have against other regions in the tournament, and those are two strong statements backing up what the coaches are saying.”

In the regional round, West Coast schools went 14-0 against schools from other regions, and UC Irvine and Arizona went to regionals in Lincoln, Neb., and Ann Arbor, Mich., respectively, and swept their way to titles.

“It has been very consistent with recent years,” said ASU coach Pat Murphy, a member of the Division I baseball committee. “When you send a West Coast team to play away from the West Coast, more often than not, it wins.”

Against other regions, West Coast teams are (prior to Friday’s games) 117-57 all time, have won 11 of 12 super-regional matchups and are 36-25 at the College World Series (with three championships) since the NCAA field expanded to 64 teams in 1999, according to research by the Long Beach (Calif.) Press-Telegram.

That is a source of pride for ASU third baseman Brett Wallace, who is from Sonoma, Calif., grew up watching the western teams and has played against them with the Sun Devils. It is also a source of frustration, given how this year’s tournament bracket was constructed.

“All the teams out here can play, and we need to spread the awareness of that,” said Wallace, a two-time Pac-10 player of the year who was taken 13th overall in the major league draft on Thursday. “These teams are powerhouses, which shows that the SEC isn’t the only big conference. …

“I want to step forward and tell people, ‘Hey you need to look at the bracket. All the West Coast teams are on one side, and that means not as many can get to the finals.’ Hopefully, people are starting to see that.”

Twelve teams from the Pac-10 (five), Big West (four), West Coast (two) or Western Athletic (one, Fresno State) conferences qualified for the NCAAs. Nine of them were crowded into three regionals.

By contrast, 15 teams from the Atlantic Coast (six) and Southeastern (nine) are scattered around 11 regionals. Very little math needs to be done to surmise which area of the country has a better chance of getting more schools into the super-regional round.

In fact, Long Beach State coach Mike Weathers said that he no longer wants the school to bid to host regionals that will likely be stacked with West Coast teams. He feels that it is easier to get to a super regional by going east, as Irvine and Oregon State did last year, Stanford in 2005 and Arizona in ’04.

“Every team in California is within 400 miles of one another, and the NCAA thinks it’s OK for them to play each other,” Weathers told the Press-Telegram. “How can you send three teams (Long Beach State, San Diego and California) with RPIs in the 20s to the same regional?”

It has been suggested that the bunching of clubs is a conspiracy by the NCAA to limit the West Coast’s presence at the College World Series. Murphy, in his second year of a committee term that runs through September 2010, said that the intent is not evil.

“It’s a money issue,” Murphy said. “You keep some of the teams together, and they don’t have to pay for long flights, and the attendance is better.

“But the geographic tag has to be let go if you want to get a true champion. They’ve done away with that in basketball and softball. It is way past time for it to be done in baseball.”

Murphy is hopeful that future tournament brackets will feature an equitable distribution of West Coast schools. He also did not rule out the possibility of all neutral-site regionals, as has been done in women’s basketball.

“The fact that your regional could be inundated with western teams is the world we play in today,” Murphy said. “I know the committee will do the best it can to make it more even. But you can’t complain about it right now, because we are in the middle of it.”

Fresno State at Arizona State
What: NCAA tournament, Tempe Super Regional
When: 6 p.m. today, 7 p.m. Sunday, 4 p.m. Monday (if necessary)
Where: Packard Stadium
TV: ESPNU (Saturday); ESPN2 (Sunday and Monday)
Radio: KDUS (1060 AM)
Records: Fresno State 40-28, ASU 48-11
Starting pitchers: Today — Fresno State’s Justin Wilson (7-4, 4.17 ERA) vs. ASU’s Mike Leake (10-2, 3.12 ERA); Sunday — ASU’s Josh Satow (9-3, 4.58 ERA) vs. Fresno State’s Clayton Allison (3-5, 3.74 ERA); Monday — Both teams TBD