Greetings, everyone. After two thrilling games Friday, with Oral Roberts rallying to beat TCU and Florida rallying to beat Virginia, the other half of the College World Series bracket swings into action Saturday. Wake Forest and Stanford meet at 1 p.m., followed by the game Tiger fans have been waiting for: the final game of the opening round, LSU versus Tennessee, at 6 p.m. on ESPN. LSU is back home in Omaha for the first time in six years. Even longer is the wait for the Tigers' first CWS title since their sixth in 2009. Can this finally be the long-awaited seventh title? A big key will be how well the Tigers can play the long ball game. That hasn't always been easy since the CWS moved to its current ballpark in 2011, but the pendulum has definitely swung back to the offensive side in baseball. Baseball is life to LSU coach Jay Johnson. Life is baseball. The fact that he has the Tigers back in the CWS is a great accomplishment, but be sure Johnson is already thinking about next season. Learn a little more about Johnson in my column here. For all the many facts and figures on the game, we've got our daily primer here and our traditional On Deck feature here. We've also got a Q and A with LSU pitching great Ben McDonald, who's calling the CWS on ESPN while the Tigers' latest pitching great, Paul Skenes, continues his assault on Big Ben's SEC single-season strikeout record. It's another national player of the year award for Crews. Read here to see which one he captured Friday. Finally, LSU gymnast Aleah Finnegan has qualified for this year's world championships while representing the Philippines (the connection is on her mother's side). That's all for now, folks. Please continue to read all of our copy from Omaha on the Tigers, and enjoy the game. Scott Rabalais |