Tournament Bracket

TAMPA -- The University of South Florida baseball team (25-30, 16-11) will make its fifth straight appearance in the BIG EAST Championship as the fifth seed and will take on the fourth-seeded Red Storm of St. Johns on Wednesday, May 26 at Bright House Network Field.

The tournament's opening ceremonies and awards presentations will take place Tuesday, May 25 at 6 p.m. at Bright House Field, followed by the BIG EAST Home Run Derby at 7 p.m. Freshman Jimmy Falla will be the Bulls representative in the Derby. The Jesuit product hit .277 in his rookie season with a pair of homers.

The match-up will be the final first-round game and is scheduled to start at 8 p.m. The schools tied for fourth in the regular-season standings, but the Red Storm earned the higher seed after winning the regular-season series by taking two of three from the Bulls in Queens earlier this month.

Randy Fontanez will start game one for the Bulls while Andrew Barbosa will start the Bulls second game of the tournament.

Fontanez was one of the lone USF hurler to harness some success in the Bulls's series against St. John's.  The Oviedo native shook off a shaky start to and struck out 10 batters in 7.0 innings of work.

St. John's and USF have played 14 games all-time, with St. John's having won nine of those match-ups. The teams have split to two previous post season meetings.

The winner of the Bulls and Red Storm will move on will take on the winner of two teams that the Bulls did not face during the regular season. Two-time defending regular season champion Louisville and red-hot West Virginia, who used a walk-off homer to beat Villanova and punch their ticket into the tournament, will square off in the No. 1 vs. No. 8 match-up

With a 25-30 overall record, the Bulls only hope to qualify for an NCAA regional is to claim its first ever BIG EAST Championship. 

The Bulls are 6-8 all-time in the BIG EAST Tournament in four appearances and have made the post season each season since joining the BIG EAST.

In fact, the Green and Gold have qualified for post-season conference tournament play all but four times since joining the Sun Belt in 1978.

The BIG EAST Championship is an eight-team, double-elimination tournament, with the championship game scheduled for Sunday, May 30 at noon Eastern. The winner of the tournament receives the BIG EAST's automatic bid to the NCAA Championship. St. John's and Notre Dame have won a conference-best five tournament titles each, while Louisville has won the last two championships.

The May 30 BIG EAST Championship game will be televised live on ESPNU, marking the fifth straight year in which the title game will be carried live on the ESPN family of networks. In addition, every game of the 2010 Championship can be heard on Sirius XM Satellite Radio. The live broadcasts can be heard on XM channel 203 and on Sirius channel 216 for subscribers to the Best of XM package.

Coverage of the BIG EAST Championship will also be available on the web at www.bigeastbaseball.com. The site will include live streaming video of all games from the first four days of competition along with live statistics, a live blog from the site and live coverage of Tuesday's opening ceremonies and Home Run Derby.

2010 BIG EAST Baseball Championship Schedule
Tuesday, May 25
Opening Ceremonies/Award Presentations/Home Run Derby - Gates open at 5 p.m.; ceremonies begin at 6 p.m.
Home Run Derby Participants           
Cincinnati - Jimmy Jacquot (.291, 13 HR, 49 RB
Connecticut - Mike Olt (.320, 20 HR, 66 RBI)
Louisville - Cade Stallings (.240, 4 HR, 20 RBI)
Pittsburgh - David Chester (.342, 15 HR, 63 RBI)
Rutgers - Dan Perrine (.200, 1 HR, 3 RBI)
St. John's - Jeremy Baltz (.400, 20 HR, 71 RBI)
USF - Jimmy Falla (.277, 2 HR, 10 RBI)
West Virginia - Jedd Gyorko (.377, 17 HR, 53 RBI)

Wednesday, May 26 - Four games
(Live video on www.bigeastbaseball.com, live audio on Sirius XM Radio)
Game 1 - No. 6 Rutgers (28-24) vs. No. 3 Pittsburgh (37-16), 10 a.m.
Game 2 - No. 7 Cinicnnati (29-27) vs. No. 2 Connecticut (43-12), 1 p.m.
Game 3 - No. 8 West Virginia (27-28) vs. No. 1 Louisville (46-10), 5 p.m.
Game 4 - No. 5 USF (25-30) vs. No. 4 St. John's (36-18), 8 p.m.