Well, more like an all-night vigil thread. 

UPDATE: 11:25pm, Deadline is passed. List updated with bonus amounts.

To start, let's review who's been drafted and who's already gone.

LSU Players

4 Raph Rhymes 6-0 185 SO INF R/R (1202nd Overall to Pittsburgh, Did not sign)

8 Mikie Mahtook 6-1 196 JR OF R/R (31st Overall to Tampa Bay, Signed, 1.15 Million in bonus up front)

11 Tyler Hanover 5-6 158 JR INF R/R (1229th Overall to NY Yankees,Did not sign)

22 Matty Ott 6-1 184 JR P R/R (412th Overall to Boston, Signed)

30 Tyler Jones 6-4 205 JR P R/R (358th Overall to Minnesota, Signed)

36 Austin Nola 5-11 185 JR SS R/R (949th Overall to Toronto, Did not sign)

47 Ben Alsup 6-3 160 SR P R/R (558th Overall to Colorado, Signed)

LSU Commits

Arby Fields OF, Cypress JUCO (Transfer from Northwestern FB of the B1G) (833rd Overall to San Diego, Did not sign)

Andrew Ray INF, Northeast Texas CC (165th Overall to LA Angels, Signed)

Nick Goody RHP, 6'5", State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota. (690th Overall to NY Yankees, Did not sign)

Jake Cave LHP/OF, Hampton, VA. (209th Overall to NY Yankees, Signed, $825K bonus up front)

Cody Glenn LHP, Houston, TX (469th Overall to Toronto, Did not sign)

Trevor Story SS/RHP, Irving, TX (45th Overall to Colorado, Signed)

Johnny Eierman SS, Warsaw, MO (119th Overall to Tampa, Signed)

Aaron Nola RHP, Baton Rouge, LA (Catholic) (Austin Nola's Brother) (679th Overall to Toronto, Did not sign)

Carson Baranik RHP, Bossier City, LA (Parkway) (1255th Overall To Cincinnati, Did not sign) 

All are listed with "Does not intend to sign", even the Nola Brothers, because crazy, unexpected things can and do happen at the signing deadline. 11th hour, last minute, In-line-at-orientation-and-then-disappears shenanigans have become the norm over the last few years with LSU's high profile players and commits and I expect nothing less over the next few hours.

The high flight risk guys are Cave and Glenn, with Cave almost assuredly going with the Yanks. I've been able to find nothing on Glenn's intentions. Goody has said he's committed to coming to LSU, and we've got no reason to believe otherwise (other than the aforementioned insanity) As for current roster guys, Hanover, Rhymes, and the Nola Brothers are all locks to come back.

And then there's Mahtook. Just like Anthony Ranaudo last year, it's a tough situation for all involved. Mahtook is clearly deserving of a shot at The Show and a boatload of cash, and there's not a single Tiger fan that would blame him for going. Mahtook has been on the level with LSU since day 1, and is currently on campus. He's already gotten a national championship and dozens of accolades. He was drafted lower than expected, but not by much. He's gotten his curtain call, but we'd all like him back to take another next spring. Would he come back for his senior campaign, with a revamped pitching staff and a high preseason ranking? I don't think he will, but I will cheer from the rafters if this happens.

But for now, we watch and wait. Updates through the day/night in the comments below and on our twitter feed. The Deadline is midnight Monday on the East Coast.

The college baseball world has descended upon the city that holds it heart, and while the residents deal with Nature's wrath (possibly a revenge for the great injustice that has occurred) the rest of us are gearing up for the best two weekends of baseball of the year.

A refresher for those of you unfamiliar with the CWS, the 1st weekend reverts back to the Regional-style double elimination brackets which will last until at least next Friday, with the winner of each bracket moving on to a best-of-three series starting the following Monday. The entire tournament is on either ESPN or ESPN2 and also streamed on ESPN3.com

Traditionally, the CWS field is made of at least a few of the unknown-to-outsiders teams; the CS-Fullerton's, Pepperdine's, and Wichita State's of the world. But this year will see the rare sight of an all-BCS field (with a chance for a significant ratings boost from the casual viewer) with some built-in story lines of it's own. Vandy is the only team that's never made it this far before, but they certainly aren't alone in the underdog camp of the bracket. Cal, who is the last team in all of college sports who will ever wear the words "PAC-10" on their jersey, has fought through total program annihilation itself to reach the promised land. The Aggies have waited nearly 2 decades to return to Omaha, while the 'Hoos of Virgina will also returning to fight for the honor of the ACC.

And then there are the lumbering behemoths of the sport. Augie Garrido and the Longhorns are trying to tie LSU at 2nd place all time if they get their 6th title. North Carolina is trying to prove that it can finally make it to the 2nd weekend despite being a CWS team for much of the last decade. Defending champs South Carolina and a dominating Florida squad will both try to make it 3 straight for the SEC.

As they are all BCS squads, we've got the great luck that they all have representation in the SBNation network. For each team i've listed links to the relevant coverage from their home blogs which should make for a great preview. I'll also be adding links as more stories and previews come out. Be sure to also check out SBNation's coverage on the national site. I'll also continue my wildly inaccurate prognostication (5-3 last weekend!) and give my heart and head picks for each bracket.

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Various media outlets are reporting on today's release by the Wichita St. Athletics Dept. (who keeps track of this for some reason) of the final attendance figures for D-1 baseball in 2011. While the numbers again prove the outstanding popularity of the sport at both LSU and the SEC at-large, a closer inspection reveals that there has been a bit of a dip at LSU.

Before we get to the bad news, lets celebrate the powerhouse this conference has become. All 12 members of the SEC rank in the Top 40 in national attendance, combining for just over 2,000,000 in paid attendance league wide (or not, more on that in a minute.) The SEC West alone had 4 of the top 10 teams. The highest attended single game in the conference was an UGA vs GT matchup at Turner Field in Atlanta that drew just over 18,000.

LSU's reported paid attendance in both the national chart and the SEC article linked above is 400,295 over 38 home games for an average home crowd of 10,534. Both figures are head and shoulders above 2nd place Ole Miss, who came in at 261,006 over 32 home games for an average of 8,156. This marks the 3rd straight year LSU surpassed the 400K mark, the only program in D-1 baseball to ever get any where close to that number.

Or at least it would have. Any season ticket holder will tell you that LSU only played 37 home games this year. A closer look at the numbers reveals that the reported paid attendance is incorrect due to a small counting mistake that has a small, but very important symbolic effect on both LSU and the SEC's numbers. 

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So I'm not the best prognosticator in the world, going 8-8 in my regional picks last week. Still, plenty of time for me to regain respect as the baseball savant I am. 

Thanks to the growing popularity and the great ESPN contract, every single super regional game is on one of the ESPNs and on ESPN3.com. It'll be a great weekend to catch some of the best college baseball has to offer.

Santa Clara Super Regional
Dallas Baptist vs Cal (Hosted by Santa Clara University)

GM1: Sat. 7pm ESPNU

GM2: Sun. 9pm ESPNU

GM3(if ness.): Mon. TBD

We start with the only regional where I won't pick a rooting favorite. On the one hand is plucky little independent Dallas Baptist, the team who's specialty was stealing mid weeks from the big names in Texas and the Big XII, managed to squeak by the weekend arms of TCU and Oklahoma and used 2 games to put away Oral Roberts.

Cal was the preseason rooting favorite of every college baseball fan not on the west coast due to the narrowly avoided cancellation of their program. To go from no longer existing to a Super Regional means the baseball gods are looking out for you. And Cal would need the help in their regional, fighting all the way back from the loser's bracket. Facing down a 3rd loss to Baylor, Cal found the magic at the very last moment for a win that produced the best call I've heard by someone not named Gus Johnson this year.

Neither team is hosting (DBU's stadium is minuscule and Cal doesn't have lights) so it was moved to Santa Clara, one of the better funded West Coast Conference programs, and will most certainly be a Cal favoring crowd. Either of these teams will be one I root for in Omaha, and both could become the local favorite in the land of the whiskey steaks. 

Rooting Favorite: Disqualify whoever wins the Austin Regional and send both of these teams to the CWS

PodKATT's Pick: Cal's got better pitching overall and that plus the home away from home crowd should give them the edge. Bears in 3 games.

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Video, as always, courtesy of rnolan53's YouTube channel

Today, the Wayback Machine takes us further back in time than the end of the Dinardo Era, and to a different location: Omaha 1991. 

In 1991, I was a high school kid in Maryland.  I hadn't yet applied, much less been accepted, to LSU.  However, I was the son of two Tiger alums, so I had already begun being brainwashed in all things Tigers.  But rooting for LSU two decades ago was a lot different than now. 

First, the football team was terrible.  Not in the Humanoid "8 wins is an apocalyptic disaster" sort of way, but truly and completely terrible.  Mike Archer had just been canned, and Curley Hallman was about to embark on his reign of terror.  Basketball hadn't yet begun its descent, as we still had another year of Shaq, but the horrible end of the Dale Brown Era was right around the corner. 

And following a school out of market was radically different two decades ago.  LSU football might have two or three games on national TV a season.  Basketball?  About the same.  There was no such thing as the internet as we know it, and certainly no SEC Digital Network.  Let's not kid ourselves about the good old days, they weren't that good and honestly, it wasn't that old. 

Enter LSU baseball.  The College World Series wasn't much of an event in 1991.  Maybe a few games would be on ESPN, and then the title game was on CBS Sports, announced by two guys who obviously had not seen a college game all year.  Hell, even the graphics sucked twenty years ago. 

For an LSU fan living in the suburbs of Baltimore, this game was like manna from heaven.  LSU, the school who seemed to lose at everything if they ever managed to make it to TV, were favored to win the national title in something... anything.  I remember watching the game in our living room, surely the only TV on our block tuned into the CWS.

GAME NOTES!

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Today we probably say goodbye to Mikie Mahtook, a likely 1st rounder in tonight's MLB Draft, but there are even more flight risks over the next few days of the sprawling 50-round, week-long draft.

Along with LSU's draft eligible players (All Juniors and above, along with a few draft eligible sophmores), you'll also want to keep an eye out for LSU 2012 recruits (list shamelessly cribbed from the immortal DandyDon.com)

Of course, the real day to pay attention is Baseballmageddon in mid-August when the players have to sign or stay, but for now we at least we find out where everyone stands.

The draft is live on MLBTV, which is on a lot of cable systems if you can find it.

3 Trey Watkins 5-8 185 JR OF R/R
4 Raph Rhymes 6-0 185 SO INF R/R (1202nd Overall to Pittsburgh)
6 Jordy Snikeris 6-0 210 JR C R/R
7 Grant Dozar 5-10 178 JR UTIL L/R
8 Mikie Mahtook 6-1 196 JR OF R/R (31st Overall to Tampa Bay)
11 Tyler Hanover 5-6 158 JR INF R/R (1229th Overall to NY Yankees)
14 Mike Lowery 6-3 182 JR INF L/R
16 Matt Fury 5-9 180 SO INF/C R/R
22 Matty Ott 6-1 184 JR P R/R (412th Overall to Boston)
24 Daniel Bradshaw 6-1 220 SR P R/R
25 Joey Bourgeois 6-2 224 JR P R/R
27 Beau Didier 6-2 208 SO INF L/R
30 Tyler Jones 6-4 205 JR P R/R (358th Overall to Minnesota)
36 Austin Nola 5-11 185 JR SS R/R (949th Overall to Toronto)
40 Mitchell Hopkins 6-3 184 JR P L/L
41 Kirk Cunningham 6-0 210 JR P/INF R/R
46 Jamie Bruno 6-2 220 JR INF/OF L/L
47 Ben Alsup 6-3 160 SR P R/R (558th Overall to Colorado)

2012 Signees (***=Draft Risk)

Jake Barrios, SS, Seward County CC
Austin Ray INF, Northeast Texas CC (165th Overall to LA Angels)
Nick Goody RHP, 6'5", State College of Florida, Manatee-Sarasota. (690th Overall to NY Yankees)
Brent Bonvillain LHP, Delgado CC
Jake Cave LHP/OF, Hampton, VA. (209th Overall to NY Yankees)
Cody Glenn LHP, Houston, TX (469th Overall to Toronto)
Braden Strickland OF/RHP, Gun Barrel City, TX
Trevor Story SS/RHP, Irving, TX (45th Overall to Colorado)
Johnny Eierman SS, Warsaw, MO (119th Overall to Tampa)
Aaron Nola RHP, Baton Rouge, LA (Catholic) (Austin Nola's Brother) (679th Overall to Toronto)
Chris Sciambra OF, Baton Rouge, LA (Catholic)
Aaron Johnson LHP, Baton Rouge, LA (Dunham)
Tyler Moore C/INF Baton Rouge, LA (Dunham)
Chase Rivet OF, RHP Gonzales, LA (East Ascension)
Carson Baranik RHP, Bossier City, LA (Parkway)
Terrence Magee OF, Franklinton, LA (Franklinton)
Evan Powell C, Lake Charles, LA (Sam Houston)

Even though LSU didn't make it, some of you will still be watching the NCAA tournament. With more than 300 D-1 teams, and no one from Louisiana in the field, it can be hard to drum up interest in the Jacksonville's and San Francisco's of the world. ATVS is here to help, giving you reasons (not all of them rational) to root for and against most of the 64 team field. Games on TV are marked where they are known. Other sites are usually available to view for free through the NCAA's Uberbracket which you can see here. 

Atlanta Regional hosted by Georgia Tech (CSS)
No. 1 Georgia Tech (40-19) vs. No. 4 Austin Peay (33-22)
No. 2 Southern Miss. (39-17) vs. No. 3 Mississippi State (34-23)

Root For: My SEC heart says the Cowbells, but I've always liked the Golden Eagles in general (their ties to His Favreness notwithstanding.) 

Root Against: As a nod to the other Dawgs we know, the Wreck from Tech deserves to take a fall.

PodKATT's Pick: Rooting ain't the same as picking. USM and State are both inconsistent enough to surprise in this regional, but I think the Bees take it easily at home.

Austin Regional hosted by Texas
No. 1 Texas (43-15) vs. No. 4 Princeton (23-22)
No. 2 Texas State (40-21) vs. No. 3 Kent State (43-15)

Root For: Princeton, for being the 1st (of many) teams to beat us this season. The Ivy champs have had almost a month off since winning their league crown.

Root Against: Because a Top 8 National Seed with only 13 HRs as a team is an affront to all we hold dear in the sport, and because of Augie F'ing Garrido, Texas deserves the hate of a thousand suns.

PodKATT's Pick: At home? With that cakewalk of a draw? Horns by a mile. They won't even break a sweat.

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I hate this photo and I hate using it.

LSU did not make the NCAA tournament, the first miss for LSU in 4 years. It's the 2nd miss under Mainieri (though no one blames him for the 1st one) and only the 5th June without LSU baseball since the beginning of the Bertman era in 1984. The last time a head coach at LSU missed the NCAAs in his 5th year, he got canned. Certainly recent successes and a ring will prevent anything that drastic from happening this year. But being an NCAA bubble team and falling behind an always improving SEC is not what fans expect. Neither is having a team that makes you second guess if they should have even been in the bubble conversation to begin with.

Sure, there are plenty of questionable teams that got in ahead of us (St John's immediately jumps out at you.) but getting into this position in the first place is the real problem. Every negative about LSU's resume rings true. 7-11 road record, which drops to 4-11 if you take out non-tourney teams. Our conference record against post-season SEC teams is a grotesque 4-14. Only 1 road series victory. With the exception of the Pontiff game against USM, the only non-conf road games were in-state cupcakes. 9th in the SEC without a trip to Hoover. That kind of resume isn't going to get you into the postseason anymore.

The way to fix this is to schedule some road games. Waiting until March to have the 1st weekend away from home may help us keep the attendance title, but it obviously hurts in the eyes of the committee. The cocky excuse of "Alex Box is so awesome, why would we ever leave?" rings hollow when you're sitting at home on the 1st of June. Just being on the road is good enough, as UGA found out by getting swept at a surprisingly good Stetson to open the year. Certainly Southern coach Rodger Cador will be getting a call about restarting the home and home, and it's not too far out to think about seeing LSU head to a far-flung early season tourney at a pro park on the west coast.

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