The University of Alabama at Birmingham Athletics
UAB Draws Rice, UCF, Memphis In C-USA Championship Pool
5/21/2011 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 21, 2011
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The groupings for the 2011 Conference USA Baseball Championship presented by Trustmark were finalized on Saturday and feature UAB in a pool with league co-champion Rice, UCF and Memphis.
The tournament, played in Pearl, Miss., includes the top eight teams from the regular season split into two, four-team pools based on seed. Teams will play all three other teams in their pool, and the team with the best composite record in each pool advances to the championship game.
UAB, the No. 8 seed, will play its first game Wednesday at 12:30 p.m. CT against top-seeded Rice. The Blazers will then meet fourth-seeded UCF on Thursday (regionally televised by CSS) and fifth-seeded Memphis on Friday with both games scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. CT.
The other pool features No. 2 seed Southern Miss (the regular season co-champion with Rice), No. 3 seed East Carolina, No. 6 seed Houston and No. 7 seed Tulane.
All games will be played at Trustmark Park, home of the Mississippi Braves, the Double-A affiliate of the Atlanta Braves. The championship game will be played Saturday at 7 p.m. CT and nationally televised by CBS Sports Network with the league's automatic bid to the NCAA Championship field on the line.
UAB (28-26, 9-15 C-USA) played out of conference this weekend and wrapped up its regular season Saturday by rallying for a 6-4 win at Utah for a split of its weather-shortened, two-game series with the Utes.
The Blazers met all three of the other teams in their pod in Birmingham earlier this season. UAB won two of three games from Rice (38-18, 16-8 C-USA) to claim one of its four conference series victories but suffered series sweeps to both Memphis (29-25, 12-12 C-USA) and UCF (36-20, 12-12 C-USA).
All of UAB's tournament games will air live on radio in Birmingham with the station to be determined. Every tournament game not televised by either CSS or CBS Sports Network will be streamed live on conferenceusa.com. Tickets for the event are available via ticketmaster.com or by calling 601-932-8788.
C-USA Championship Pool Assignments
Pool 1: (1) Rice, (4) UCF, (5) Memphis, (8) UAB
Pool 2: (2) Southern Miss, (3) East Carolina, (6) Houston, (7) Tulane
C-USA Championship Schedule
Wednesday, May 25
Game 1: (5) Memphis vs. (4) UCF; 9:00 a.m.
Game 2: (8) UAB vs. (1) Rice; 12:30 p.m.
Game 3: (6) Houston vs. (3) East Carolina; 4:00 p.m.
Game 4: (7) Tulane vs. (2) Southern Miss; 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, May 26 (all games televised by CSS)
Game 5: (4) UCF vs. (8) UAB; 9:00 a.m.
Game 6: (5) Memphis vs. (1) Rice; 12:30 p.m.
Game 7: (7) Tulane vs. (3) East Carolina; 4:00 p.m.
Game 8: (6) Houston vs. (2) Southern Miss; 7:30 p.m.
Friday, May 27
Game 9: (5) Memphis vs. (8) UAB; 9:00 a.m.
Game 10: (4) UCF vs. (1) Rice; 12:30 p.m.
Game 11: (6) Houston vs. (7) Tulane; 4:00 p.m.
Game 12: (3) East Carolina vs. (2) Southern Miss; 7:30 p.m.
Saturday, May 28 (televised by CBS Sports Network)
Championship Game; 7:00 p.m.
All times Central.
