C-USA baseball tournament begins, plus a softball sendoff

When it comes to draws, the Houston Cougars could have received a worse one for the Conference USA baseball tournament, which begins today at Trustmark Park in Pearl, Miss.

The Cougars’ three games come against teams that they have recorded wins against this season: East Carolina (today), Southern Miss (Thursday) and Tulane (Friday). UH (25-30) dropped two out of three to ECU at home, beat Southern Miss two out of three at home and swept Tulane on the road.

For the uninitiated, the tournament format splits the eight teams in the field into two separate four-team pods. Teams will play the other three in their pods, with the best record in each pod after three games advancing to the championship game on Saturday. If teams are tied with the same record, the higher seed in the tournament (based on their standing in C-USA), moves on. This is the second season of the current format for the C-USA Tournament.

The Cougars only hope to make it to an NCAA Regional is to win the C-USA Tournament. Meaning they’ll have to go at least 2-1 to have a chance to get to the title game (more than likely they’ll have to go 3-0 since they’re the No. 3 seed in their pod). Coach Todd Whitting will send righthander Matt Creel (5-5) to the mound today against ECU (37-18), Mo Wiley (4-4) to the hill in Game 2 on Thursday against Southern Miss (38-15) and will announce his Game 3 starter later.

“I’m going to do everything I can to win the first two,” Whitting said. “We’ll use those guys or anybody that we need to whether it’s (Codey) Morehouse, (Jordan) Lewis, Jared Ray, to get those wins. The third game doesn’t matter if you don’t win the first two.”

Ray is day-to-day so if he gets some action, it probably won’t be for a lot of innings. He left his last start with fatigue as he tries to rebuild strength in his arm after three surgeries and missing almost two years of game action before returning last month.

The fact that the Cougars have played well on the road in conference (8-4) gives them some confidence heading into the tourney, as does the fact that they’ve had some success against the teams in their pod.

“I think the team’s real confident with our side of the bracket,” Whitting said. “But the past is history and the future is a mystery. We’ve played really well against all three of these teams on our side. If we get out of the blocks on starting pitching we have a chance.”

For those who want to follow the C-USA Tournament action but aren’t in Pearl, Miss., here is how you can do it:

Via Twitter: Chronicle reporter Joseph Duarte is in Pearl and will be tweeting updates from the tournament. You can follow those updates on a live feed right here or you can follow him @Chronicle_Owls.
Live video streaming on ConferenceUSA.com <UH game link vs. ECU> – please note that the games appear to be part of C-USA and CBSSports.com’s All-Access subscription service and don’t appear to be free.
Live audio via UHCougars.com with Jeremy Branham and Pat Cauley <Audio link>
GameTracker <UH vs. ECU gametracker>

Note that Wednesday’s and Friday’s games will be streaming on C-USA’s site. Thursday’s games (all four of them) will be broadcast live on Comcast Sports Southwest (CSS). Saturday’s championship game will be on CBS Sports (formerly known as CBS College Sports).

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The softball team will be having a sendoff pep rally today at Cougar Softball Stadium.

The Cougars, who will be bound for Stillwater, Okla., to meet Oklahoma State in the NCAA Super Regionals on Friday and Saturday, will have an evening practice at 6 p.m. tonight at their home stadium. The pep rally is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. at Cougar Softball Stadium. Fans are invited to come out and wish the Cougars well before their road trip.

For a little more on the Cougars, check out Wednesday’s UH notebook.

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Some interesting reads for the day: