SEC stumbles lead NCAA baseball tournament winners and losers in regional round

SEC stumbles lead NCAA baseball tournament winners and losers in regional round

History was made in the NCAA baseball tournament. And not the good kind, either, if you're No. 1 Vanderbilt and No. 2 Texas. These two leading contenders for the national championship were quickly ejected from their respective regionals over the weekend, marking the second time since national seeding was introduced to the tournament in 1999 that the top two seeds failed to advance out of regionals. After losing to Louisville on Saturday and Wright State on Sundaythe Commodores became the first No. 1 overall seed to be eliminatedin the regionals altogether since UCLA in 2015 and the first No. 1 seed under the current format to fail to at least reach its regional final. TheLonghorns lost to Texas-San Antoniotwice in as many days. The Roadrunners were 0-6 in its tournament history entering the weekend while Texas, hosting a regional for the 38th time, won the SEC regular-season crown by two games under first-year coach Jim Schlossnagle. These upsets serve as a black eye for the SEC, which dominated the regular season,the USA TODAY Sports college baseball pollandthe 64-team bracket. With No. 7 Georgia and No. 10 Mississippi also sent packing, the SEC now turns to No. 3 Arkansas, No. 4 Auburn and No. 6 LSU to carry the flag for the conference. The Tigers were pushed to the brink by underdog Little Rock but managed to eke out a 10-6 on Monday night to advance. The tournament continues withsuper regionalsbeginning on Friday. Those are best-of-three series played on the home field of the higher-ranked team. From there, the eight winners advance to Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, Nebraska, for the College World Series. Led by the two massive disappointments coming out of the SEC, here are the biggest winners and losers from the opening weekend: The Razorbacks went unscathed through their regional - winning by a margin of 26-6 in three games - and are now the highest remaining seed left in the field. While this makes Arkansas the de facto favorite moving forward, the aforementioned chaos that is college baseball means a title is anything but guaranteed for a program that has never won the College World Series and has endure several heartbreaks along the way. By the conclusion of Sunday's action, three ACC squads had punched their tickets to the next round and two more added to the league's total on Monday when North Carolina and Miami were victorious. Two of the weekend victors, Duke and Louisville, advanced through regionals hosted by SEC members, a particularly satisfying outcome for certain fan bases subjected to the 'it just means more' mantra on a daily basis. It wasn't all good news for the league as national seed Clemson and regular-season conference champ Georgia Tech were knocked out, but thus far it's been a promising showing for the conference. The Roadrunners were known to be dangerous heading into the tournament, and they proved it with a pair of wins against No. 2 seed Texas. UTSA won a 9-7 slugfest Saturday to send the Longhorns into the losers' bracket, then jumped on Texas early once again Sunday and held on  7-4 to reach the super regionals for the first time in program history. The Roadrunners, who were winless in their previous three trips to the tournament, next face UCLA. The Mountaineers provided arguably the most dramatics of the weekend. After rallying Saturday to defeat host Clemson, West Virginia again found itself trailing in the late innings Sunday against Kentucky. But the Mountaineers overcame a 12-7 deficit with a six-run eighth and held on to eliminate the Wildcats 13-12 to secure a second consecutive trip to the super regionals. The former power conference will be well represented in the round of 16. The first weekend wasn't all good for former Pac-12 schools with nationally seeded Oregon making an early exit, but a trio of other former league members did advance, with Oregon State joining Arizona and UCLA after its defeat of Southern California on Monday night. The 13th-seeded Chanticleers completed a sweep of their home regional in Conway, South Carolina., finishing it off Sunday with a masterful pitching performance from Riley Eikhoff and Dominick Carbone in a 1-0 shutout againstEast Carolina. The Pirates made a surprising run to the regional final by knocked off Florida twice after qualifying for the field by winning the American Athletic tournament. The Athens regional ended painfully for Oklahoma State, which seemed poised to put the tying run on base on a wild pitch in the ninth inning of Sunday's elimination game against Duke but had the runner called out for leaving the baseline and interfering with the throw to first. But one of the last four teams in the World Series field also captured maybe the most dramatic moment of the weekend. Earlier on Sunday, the Cowboys trailed Georgia 9-7 heading into the bottom of the ninth but rallied for four runs, ending things on a two-run, walk-off blast by third baseman Brock Thompson. After making a coaching change amid a disastrous start to SEC play, Mississippi State rebounded to reach the final of the Tallahassee regional before losing to No. 9 Florida State. That marked the second year in a row the Bulldogs were bounced in the opening weekend; the program hasn't advanced to Super regionals since winning the whole thing in 2021. But the weekend ended with some very good news: Late on Sunday night, Mississippi State announced the hire of longtime Virginia coach Brian O'Connor, a five-time ACC coach of the year who led the Cavaliers to the 2015 national title. The top-ranked team in the tournament led for just one of 27 innings over the weekend: Vanderbilt needed a three-run seventh inning and another run in the bottom of the eighth to beat Wright State 4-3 in Saturday's regional opener. You can attribute this historic tournament exit to the Commodores' disappearing bats. One of the hottest teams in the country heading into tournament play, Vanderbilt scored 10 runs over these three games and hit just .132, managing just four hits in the opener, five in the 3-2 loss to eventual regional winner Louisville and then three in the 5-4 loss to the Raiders. Two-time national champions under celebrated coach Tim Corbin, the Commodores reached the finals in 2021 but haven't advanced out of the regionals since. This had been a banner year for the Longhorns, who were buoyed by the offseason addition of Jim Schlossnagle from rival Texas A&M. But things had started to unravel down the home stretch of the regular season, capped by an early exit from the SEC tournament, so there were some warning signs heading into regionals. This was still a completely unexpected whipping at the hands of Texas-San Antonio. After dropping the opener of the Eugene Regional to Utah Valley – the 6-5 loss included a controversial decision to remove an Oregon run due to "malicious contact" on a play at the plate – the No. 12 Ducks trailed Cal Poly 3-1 after three in Saturday's elimination game before rallying for seven runs across the middle innings to lead 8-5 heading into the bottom of the seventh. Then came the meltdown: Oregon reliever Ian Umlandt walked in a run, gave up a two-run single and then another run-scoring single to hand the Mustangs the 9-8 lead. They'd add another run in the bottom of the eighth for the 10-8 win. Losses from higher-ranked teams meant the Ducks were in line to host a Super Regional; that makes this collapse all the more painful. The biggest stories, every morning. Stay up-to-date on all the key sports developments bysubscribing to USA TODAY Sports' newsletter. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY:NCAA baseball tournament winners, losers: SEC stumbles in regionals

byAlex Perish

in

June 02, 2025

SEC stumbles lead NCAA baseball tournament winners and losers in regional round

SEC stumbles lead NCAA baseball tournament winners and losers in regional round History was made in the NCAA baseball tournament. And not th...

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Buxton drives in 5 as Twins win 10-4 to hand Athletics 7th straight loss and 18th in 19 games

Buxton drives in 5 as Twins win 10-4 to hand Athletics 7th straight loss and 18th in 19 games

WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Byron Buxton matched his career high with five RBIs and the Minnesota Twins extended the Athletics' losing streak to seven games with a 10-4 victory Monday night. Buxton had a two-run double with two outs in a six-run second inning. He drove in two more with a bases-loaded single in the sixth and added a sacrifice fly in the ninth. Lawrence Butler hit a three-run homer for the Athletics (23-38), who have lost 18 of 19 overall. They fell to 9-20 at Sutter Health Park, their temporary home for at least the next three seasons. In the opener of a four-game series, the Twins went down in order in the first against Luis Severino before batting around in the second. Ty France singled in the first two runs and Buxton made it 4-0. Trevor Larnach had an RBI single before Brooks Lee doubled in the final run of the inning. Lee added an RBI single in the eighth. Butler walked, went to third on Jacob Wilson's double and scored on Brent Rooker's hard comebacker to Twins starter Joe Ryan in the third for the Athletics' first run. Butler hit his ninth homer — a two-out shot to center field in the fourth — to get the A's within 6-4. Ryan (6-2) loaded the bases with no outs in the fifth but escaped unscathed. He gave up four runs and six hits in five innings. Buxton's two-run single chased Severino (1-5), who allowed eight runs and nine hits in 5 2/3 innings. The Twins (32-27) have gone 6-7 since winning 13 straight. Key moment Ryan had the bases loaded and a 3-0 count on CJ Alexander in the fifth before retiring Alexander and Luis Urías on popups. Drew Avans grounded out to end the inning. Key stat The Twins are 7-0 against California teams after earlier sweeps over the Angels and Giants. Up next RHP Pablo López (4-3 2.75 ERA) starts Tuesday for the Twins. The Athletics hadn't announced a scheduled starter. ___ AP MLB:https://apnews.com/hub/mlb

byAlex Perish

in

June 02, 2025

Buxton drives in 5 as Twins win 10-4 to hand Athletics 7th straight loss and 18th in 19 games

Buxton drives in 5 as Twins win 10-4 to hand Athletics 7th straight loss and 18th in 19 games WEST SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Byron Buxton ma...

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Lakers, Mavericks to play an exhibition game in Las Vegas that they decided to schedule: Will Luka Dončić, Cooper Flagg play?

Lakers, Mavericks to play an exhibition game in Las Vegas that they decided to schedule: Will Luka Dončić, Cooper Flagg play?

The Los Angeles Lakers and Dallas Mavericks will play a preseason exhibition game in Las Vegas. This is a decision made not by the NBA, but by the two teams that completed one of the most controversial trades in sports history just months ago when the Mavericks dealt Luka Dončić to the Lakers. Since that trade, the Lakers flamed out of the first round of the playoffs, and the Mavericks won the NBA Draft lottery. Dallas will presumably select Duke phenom Cooper Flagg, who will be immediately handed the torch that Dončić carried as the team's franchise player and long-term hope for championship success. Will Flagg, Dončić or both see the court in the game scheduled for Oct. 15 at T-Mobile Arena? Who knows? But the Lakers and Mavericks seem content to cash in on the hype in a matchup that should garner considerably more attention than your average NBA preseason contest. TheLakers confirmed the existence of the gameMonday. And to be clear, this is a game that both teams chose to schedule, as is custom with the NBA preseason. AsThe Athletic explainedin a feature on the NBA preseason last fall: "Teams arrange their own schedules, pick their own opponents and have their own reasons for doing so. ... There are few rules for the preseason. They don't even play games if they don't want to. The NBA doesn't mandate a minimum number of games, just that teams can't play more than six each year. The rest is up to the teams themselves." When will the Lakers and Mavericks play in a game that actually counts? That's yet to be determined. The NBA schedule generally isn't set until August. Until then, both teams will maintain their collective buzz amid the bright lights of the Las Vegas Strip.

byAlex Perish

in

June 02, 2025

Lakers, Mavericks to play an exhibition game in Las Vegas that they decided to schedule: Will Luka Dončić, Cooper Flagg play?

Lakers, Mavericks to play an exhibition game in Las Vegas that they decided to schedule: Will Luka Dončić, Cooper Flagg play? The Los Angele...

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OAN's Pentagon reporter learns the limits of expressing her own opinion

OAN's Pentagon reporter learns the limits of expressing her own opinion

Assigned to cover the Pentagon for the conservative outlet One America News Network, Gabrielle Cuccia didn't pretend to be an unbiased reporter. She describes herself as "a MAGA girl" who is unapologetically defiant in her support ofPresident Donald Trump. Yet days after publicly criticizing a Trump appointee,Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Cuccia found herself out of a job. In taking to Substack last week to express a personal opinion about a figure she covers, Cuccia did something that would be frowned upon in many legacy newsrooms. The message that she was sent, however, is most likely to resound in places where opinion is fine — but only a certain variety. Cuccia'slengthy Substack post, "The Secretary of Defense-ive," was posted three days after Hegsethissued new rulesthat banned reporters from accessing large areas of the Pentagon without being watched by his minders. She criticized him for limiting freedom of movement in the name of national security. Cuccia praises responsible Pentagon reporters "The Pentagon wants to paint a picture that journalists are freely roaming classified spaces, sneaking into (secure areas), and leaking top-secret information," she wrote. "And that is simply not true. There are security cameras everywhere, protocols in place and quite frankly, it would be painfully obvious if a reporter was in a space they didn't belong." Cuccia said the real leaks from the Pentagon have come from Hegseth's own team and other senior officials. Hegseth, a former Fox News personality,was embarrassedin March when The Atlantic magazine's editor-in-chief was mistakenly included in a Signal chat in which the defense secretary discussed upcoming military strikes. She criticized Hegseth for not yet holding a media briefing at the Pentagon. "The Commander-in-Chief welcomes the hard questions ... and yes, even the dumb ones," she wrote. "Why won't the Secretary of Defense do the same?" Three days after her Memorial Day Substack post, Cuccia said her Pentagon access badge was revoked. "By Friday," she said, "I was out of a job." The Defense Department did not pull Cuccia's credentials, according to a Defense official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss personnel issues. Cuccia said OAN told her the Substack piece had been "put on their radar," but she wouldn't say by who. She wouldn't speak further about what her employer told her, and OAN president Charles Herring told The Associated Press that it does not discuss personnel issues. "When a reporter asks inconvenient questions about government overreach, the response should be accountability — not silence, and certainly not separation," Cuccia said. Traditionally, the legacy media does not want its journalists expressing opinions about people they cover, since it calls into doubt their ability to report without bias. But exceptions are often made in cases where media access is at issue, said Tom Rosenstiel, a journalism professor at the University of Maryland. The New York Times, for example, institutionally called upon Joe Biden to meet more often with journalists when he was president. The Pentagon Press Association said Hegseth's restrictions were a direct assault on the freedom of the press. Making no secret of allegiance to Trump One America News Network makes no secret of its allegiance to Trump. When Matt Gaetz's nomination as Trump's attorney general fell apart following the election, OAN quickly signed him up as a contributor. OAN faced lawsuits — and negotiated settlements — for its promotion of Trump's false theories that he did not lose the 2020 election. When Hegseth earlier this yearevicted several news organizationsfrom their Pentagon workspaces and gave more room to friendly outlets, Cuccia was assigned space formerly held by NBC News. Before Hegseth aide Sean Parnell's only media briefing, Cuccia said Hegseth's team reached out to her in advance to find out what questions she wanted to ask, something that would never be done for most media outlets. If OAN is responsible for removing Cuccia, it's a "take no quarter position," Rosenstiel said. "There is no room, if you're on the team, to say anything that is negative." He said he'd be interested to see if any representatives from pro-Trump media outlets defend her. "Are they silent, or do they rally to her in any way?" he asked. Trump, in the past, hasfrequently criticizedFox News Channel for saying anything on the air that he deemed negative. Part of Cuccia's Substack post sounded almost prescient about what might happen to her, when she reminisced about the energy of the early Make America Great Again movement. Questioning government then, she noted, was a point of pride. "Somewhere along the way, we as a collective decided — if anyone ever questioned a policy or person within the MAGA movement — that they weren't MAGA enough," she wrote. "That they were deep state, that they couldn't be trusted, that they didn't love America as much as we do and that ... to put it bluntly, they sucked." ___ AP correspondent Lolita C. Baldor in Washington contributed to this report. David Bauder writes about the intersection of media and entertainment for the AP. Follow him athttp://x.com/dbauderandhttps://bsky.app/profile/dbauder.bsky.social

byAlex Perish

in

June 02, 2025

OAN's Pentagon reporter learns the limits of expressing her own opinion

OAN's Pentagon reporter learns the limits of expressing her own opinion Assigned to cover the Pentagon for the conservative outlet One A...

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Mexico's ruling party headed toward control of newly elected Supreme Court, vote tallies show

Mexico's ruling party headed toward control of newly elected Supreme Court, vote tallies show

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's ruling Morena party appeared to be heading toward control over the Supreme Court, preliminary vote tallies ofthe country's first judicial electionindicated. While votes were still being counted for the majority of the 2,600 federal, state and local judge positions up for grabs in Sunday's judicial elections, results rolled in for the nine Supreme Court positions. The majority of the newly elected justices share strong ties and ideological alignments with the ruling party, shifting a once fairly balanced high court into the hands of the very party that overhauled the judicial system to elect judges for the first time. Experts warned the shift would undercut checks and balances in the Latin American nation: The governing party would now be close to controlling all three branches of government, and President Claudia Sheinbaum and her party also would have a easier path to push through their agenda. "We're watching as power is falling almost entirely into the hands of one party," said Georgina De la Fuente, election specialist with the Mexican consulting firm Strategia Electoral. "There isn't any balance of power." A Morena-leaning court and an Indigenous justice Some of those headed toward election were members or former members of the party. A number of them, who were Supreme Court justices prior to the election, were appointed by former President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Sheinbaum's mentor who pushed through the judicial overhaul last year. Others were advisers to the president or the party or campaigned with politically aligned visions for the judiciary. Not all of the prospective winners were explicitly aligned with Morena. One standout was Hugo Aguilar Ortiz, an Indigenous lawyer from the southern state of Oaxaca. He has no clear party affiliation, though Sheinbaum said repeatedly she hoped to have an Indigenous judge on the court. A political controversy That Morena would emerge from the election with control of the judiciary waswhat critics had feared. The vote came after months of fierce debate, prompted when López Obrador and the partyjammed through the reformsfor judges to be elected instead of being appointed based on merits. The overhaul will notably limitthe Supreme Courtas a counterweight to the president. Critics say the judicial reform was an attempt to take advantage of high popularity levels to stack courts in favor of the party. Sheinbaum and her mentor have insisted that electing judges will root out corruption in a system most Mexicans agree is broken. "Whoever says that there is authoritarianism in Mexico is lying," Sheinbaum said during the vote. "Mexico is a country that is only becoming more free, just and democratic because that is the will of the people." The elections were marred bylow participation — about 13% — and confusionby voters who struggled to understand the new voting system, something opponents quickly latched onto as a failure. De la Fuente said Morena is likely to use its new lack of counterweight in the high court to push through rounds of reforms, including electoral changes. Late Monday, more than 85% of the ballots had been tallied and counting was to continue overnight. The leading Supreme Court candidates — Hugo Aguilar Ortiz was the big surprise from the election. The Indigenous lawyer led all vote-getters, including several sitting Supreme Court justices. He's known as a legal activist fighting for the rights of Indigenous Mexicans and has criticized corruption in the judiciary. — Lenia Batres was already a Supreme Court justice and was appointed by López Obrador. Previously a congresswoman, she's a member of Morena and clearly an ally of Mexico's president. — Yasmín Esquivel is a Supreme Court justice who was appointed by López Obrador. She focused her campaign on modernizing the justice system and has pushed for gender equality. She was at the center of a 2022 controversy when she was accused of plagiarizing her thesis. She is considered an ally of the Morena party. — Loretta Ortiz is a justice on the Supreme Court who was appointed by López Obrador. She also served in Congress and resigned from Morena in 2018 in a show of independence as a judge. Despite that, she's considered an ally of the party. — María Estela Ríos González is a lawyer who acted as legal adviser to López Obrador, first when he was mayor of Mexico City and later when he became president. She has a long history as a public servant and work in labor law and on a number of Indigenous issues. — Giovanni Figueroa Mejía is a lawyer from the Pacific coast state of Nayarit with a doctorate in constitutional law. He currently works as an academic at the Iberoamericana University in Mexico City. He's worked in human rights. While he holds no clear party affiliation, he supported the judicial overhaul pushed forward by Morena, saying in an interview with his university that the overhaul "was urgent and necessary in order to rebuild" the judiciary. He said some of his work in constitutional law was cited in justifying the reform. — Irving Espinosa Betanzo is a magistrate on Mexico City's Supreme Court and has previously worked as a congressional adviser to Morena. He campaigned for the country's highest court on a platform of eliminating nepotism and corruption and pushing for human rights. —Arístides Rodrigo Guerrero Garcíais a law professor pushing for social welfare with no experience as a judge, but who has worked as a public servant and has experience in both constitutional and parliamentary law. He gained traction in campaigns for a social media video of him claiming he's "more prepared than a pork rind." — Sara Irene Herrerías Guerra is a prosecutor specializing in human rights for Mexico's Attorney General's Office. She's worked on issues like gender equality, sexually transmitted infections and human trafficking. In 2023, she worked onthe investigation of a fire in an immigration facilityin the border city of Ciudad Juárez that killed 40 migrants.

byAlex Perish

in

June 02, 2025

Mexico's ruling party headed toward control of newly elected Supreme Court, vote tallies show

Mexico's ruling party headed toward control of newly elected Supreme Court, vote tallies show MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexico's ruling Mor...

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