2015 NCAA Division I baseball season explained

The 2015 NCAA Division I baseball season, play of college baseball in the United States organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) at the Division I level, began in February 2015. The season progressed through the regular season, many conference tournaments and championship series, and concluded with the 2015 NCAA Division I baseball tournament and 2015 College World Series. The College World Series, consisting of the eight remaining teams in the NCAA tournament and held annually in Omaha, Nebraska, at TD Ameritrade Park Omaha, ended on June 24, 2015, with the final game of the best-of-three championship series between Vanderbilt and Virginia, won by Virginia.

Realignment

There were many significant conference changes that took effect prior to the season.

• Maryland left the ACC for the Big Ten.
• Louisville and Rutgers left The American, joining the ACC and Big Ten respectively.
• A third team from The American, Temple, dropped baseball.
• East Carolina and Tulane left Conference USA for The American.
• Western Kentucky left the Sun Belt for Conference USA.
• Appalachian State, Davidson, Georgia Southern, and Elon all left the Southern Conference (SoCon). Appalachian State and Georgia Southern joined the Sun Belt, Davidson the Atlantic 10, and Elon the CAA.
• East Tennessee State and Mercer left the Atlantic Sun for the SoCon. ETSU returned to the SoCon after a nine-year absence.
• VMI left the Big South and returned to the SoCon after an 11-year absence.
• Oral Roberts returned to The Summit League after two seasons in the Southland.

In addition, the 2015 season was the last for Northern Kentucky in the Atlantic Sun and for NJIT as an independent. In July 2015, Northern Kentucky joined the Horizon League, and the Atlantic Sun replaced the Norse with NJIT. It was also the last for Texas–Pan American (UTPA) as an institution. UTPA merged with the University of Texas at Brownsville in July 2015 to form the new University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV). The UTPA athletic program was inherited by UTRGV, with the nickname of Vaqueros, and UTRGV maintains UTPA's membership in the Western Athletic Conference.

Format changes

• The Big South Conference dropped its divisional format.

New stadiums

• West Virginia opened the new Monongalia County Ballpark, with a fixed capacity of 2,500 plus extra hillside seating. The venue replaced Hawley Field, which closed for conference games after the 2012 season because it did not meet standards of the Big 12 Conference, which WVU joined in 2012. The Mountaineers played their 2013 and 2014 home conference games at several venues around the state, while Hawley Field remained in use for non-conference games. Once the college baseball season is over, the ballpark will be used by the West Virginia Black Bears, a Class A Short Season affiliate of the Pittsburgh Pirates.

Season outlook

For the full rankings, see 2015 NCAA Division I baseball rankings

Collegiate Baseball News [1] Ranking Team 1 Vanderbilt 2 TCU 3 Virginia 4 LSU 5 Oklahoma State 6 Florida 7 Texas 8 Houston 9 Texas Tech 10 UCLA 11 Florida State 12 Louisville 13 14 Miami (FL) 15 16 17 Cal State Fullerton 18 19 20 Mississippi State 21 South Carolina 22 23 24 25

Perfect Game USA[2] Ranking Team 1 Vanderbilt 2 Virginia 3 TCU 4 Florida 5 UCLA 6 Texas 7 LSU 8 Houston 9 Louisville 10 Miami (FL) 11 Florida State 12 Texas Tech 13 Oklahoma State 14 South Carolina 15 16 Arkansas 17 18 19 Cal State Fullerton 20 21 22 23 Mississippi State 24 25

Baseball America[3] Ranking Team 1 Vanderbilt 2 LSU 3 Houston 4 Virginia 5 Texas Tech 6 Florida 7 TCU 8 Oklahoma State 9 Miami (FL) 10 Texas 11 UCLA 12 Louisville 13 South Carolina 14 Mississippi State 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Florida State 22 UCF 23 Cal State Fullerton 24 Clemson 25

Coaches[4] Ranking Team 1 Vanderbilt 2 Virginia 3 TCU 4 LSU 5 Florida 6 Texas 7 Louisville 8 Oklahoma State 9 UCLA 10 South Carolina 11 Houston 12 Florida State 13 Texas Tech 14 Miami (FL) 15 16 17 18 19 Cal State Fullerton 20 21 22 23 24 25 Mississippi State

NCBWA[5] Ranking Team 1 Vanderbilt 2 Virginia 3 TCU 4 LSU 5 Florida 6 Texas 7 Houston 8 Oklahoma State 9 UCLA 10 Louisville 11 South Carolina 12 Texas Tech 13 Miami (FL) 14 15 16 Florida State 17 18 Cal State Fullerton 19 20 21 22 Mississippi State 23 24 25

Conference standings

Conference winners and tournaments

Twenty-nine athletic conferences each end their regular seasons with a single-elimination tournament or a double-elimination tournament. The teams in each conference that win their regular season title are given the number one seed in each tournament. The winners of these tournaments receive automatic invitations to the 2015 NCAA Division I baseball tournament.

Conference	Regular season winner	Conference player of the year	Conference coach of the year	Conference tournament	Tournament venue (city)	Tournament winner
						Stony Brook
			Cliff Godwin, East Carolina			East Carolina
						VCU
						Florida State
						Texas
						St. John's
						Radford
		David Kerian, Illinois	Dan Hartleb, Illinois
				No tournament, regular season champion earns auto bid
	Gehrig - / Rolfe -				Campus sites
	East - West -
						Florida A&M
						Missouri State
		Scott Kingery, Arizona	John Savage, UCLA	No tournament, regular season champion earns auto bid
					Campus sites
	East - VanderbiltWest - LSU	Andrew Benintendi, Arkansas	Paul Mainieri, LSU
	East- Alabama State West -
						Oral Roberts
						Louisiana–Lafayette
						Pepperdine

College World Series

The 2015 College World Series will begin on June 13 in Omaha, Nebraska.

Coaching changes

This table lists programs that changed head coaches at any point from the first day of the 2015 season until the day before the first day of the 2016 season.

Team	Former coach	Interim coach	New coach	Reason
Arizona			Jay Johnson	Retired[6]
Auburn				Fired[7]
Baylor			Steve Rodriguez	Fired[8]
Cal State Bakersfield			Bob Macaluso	Retired[9]
Clemson			Monte Lee[10]	Fired[11]
College of Charleston			Matt Heath[12]	Resigned to accept coaching position at Clemson.
Eastern Illinois				Fired
Eastern Kentucky			Edwin Thompson	Fired
James Madison				Retired
Nevada			T. J. Bruce[13]	Resigned to accept coaching position at Arizona.
Northwestern			Spencer Allen[14]	Retired[15]
Pacific				Fired
Pepperdine			Rick Hiretensteiner[16]	Resigned to accept coaching position at Baylor.
Portland			Geoff Loomis[17]	Fired[18]
Washington State			Marty Lees[19]	Fired[20]
Western Kentucky			John Pawlowski[21]	Fired[22]

See also

• 2015 College Baseball All-America Team
• 2015 NCAA Division I baseball rankings
• 2015 NCAA Division I baseball tournament

Notes and References

1. Web site: Collegiate Baseball Div. I Poll - Pre-season. December 22, 2014. Collegiate Baseball. December 22, 2014.
2. Web site: 2015 Preseason College Top 25. January 20, 2015. Perfect Game USA. January 20, 2015.
3. Web site: CWS Champion Vanderbilt No. 1 In 2015 College Preseason Top 25. January 26, 2015. Baseball America. January 26, 2015.
4. Web site: USA Today Top 25 Coaches Poll. January 30, 2015. USA Today.
5. Web site: 2015 NCBWA Preseason Poll. College Baseball Daily. February 9, 2015. February 10, 2015.
6. Web site: Arizona's Andy Lopez Retires. Baseball America. May 25, 2015. May 31, 2015. Vince Lara-Cinisomo.
7. Web site: Auburn fires baseball coach Sunny Golloway with cause. Montgomery Advertiser. September 28, 2015. April 11, 2016. Matthew Stevens.
8. Web site: Steve Smith let go as Baylor baseball coach after 21 years. Waco Tribune-Herald. May 25, 2015. June 16, 2015. Brice Cherry.
9. Web site: Kernen's CSUB legacy won't be forgotten. The Bakersfield Californian. June 1, 2015. June 26, 2015. Jeff Evans.
10. Web site: Clemson Hires Monte Lee As Head Coach. Baseball America. June 18, 2015. June 25, 2015. Michael Lananna.
11. Web site: End Of An Era As Leggett's Fired. Baseball America. June 4, 2015. June 16, 2015. Vince Lara-Cinisomo.
12. Web site: College of Charleston's Matt Heath: 'It's time I became a head coach'. The Post and Courier. June 23, 2015. June 25, 2015. Andrew Miller.
13. Web site: Nevada Hires UCLA Assistant As Head Coach. Baseball America. June 26, 2015. June 26, 2015.
14. Web site: Northwestern Hires Illinois Assistant Allen. Baseball America. June 14, 2015. June 16, 2015. Jim Shonerd.
15. Web site: Baseball: Coach Paul Stevens to retire after 31 years. The Daily Northwestern. June 14, 2015. April 2, 2015. Bobby Pillote.
16. Web site: Pepperdine Appoints Hirtensteiner To Succeed Rodriguez. Baseball America. June 16, 2015. June 25, 2015. Vince Lara-Cinisomo.
17. Web site: Portland Hires Loomis As Coach. Baseball America. June 10, 2015. June 16, 2015. Vince Lara-Cinisomo.
18. Web site: Portland Pilots part ways with baseball coach Chris Sperry. OregonLive. May 18, 2015. June 16, 2015. Oregonian/OregonLive Sports.
19. Web site: Cougars Cougars hire Marty Lees as their baseball coach. Seattle Times. June 3, 2015. June 16, 2015. Jacob Thorpe.
20. Web site: Cougars fire baseball coach Donnie Marbut. Seattle Times. May 26, 2015. June 16, 2015. Jacob Thorpe.
21. Web site: Pawlowski Lands At Western Kentucky. Baseball America. June 4, 2015. June 16, 2015. Vince Lara-Cinisomo.
22. Web site: Myers removed as WKU baseball coach. Bowling Green Daily News. May 19, 2015. June 16, 2015. Zach Greenwell.