TUSCALOOSA ?? Add another first to this 2006-07 University of Alabama men’s golf team’s growing list of accomplishments.
The NCAA released its seeding Tuesday morning for the 2007 NCAA Men’s Golf Championship finals, and the Crimson Tide golf team is the No. 3 seed. It is the highest Alabama has ever been seeded in 10 trips to the finals.
“The great thing about the seeding is, first of all the pairing,” said Alabama head golf coach Jay Seawell who coached Alabama to the NCAA finals in 2005 as well and has advanced Alabama to postseason play in four out of his five seasons at Alabama. “You’ll get to play with the teams that will be competing for the national championship. I know we’ll be playing with Georgia and Tulsa who just won the Central Regional. Tulsa is also very good. So I’m looking forward to that pairing. Plus, you get the times that are usually not affected much by weather. We’ll see how that goes there but they are usually very good and very helpful on the weather end.”
Top-ranked Georgia is the No. 1 seed. Georgia was the winner of the NCAA East Regional. Tulsa, winner of the NCAA Central Regional is seeded second. Alabama is seeded third. UCLA is seeded fourth, Florida fifth, Southern Cal sixth, Lamar seventh, Georgia Tech eighth, Arizona State ninth, Tennessee 10th, Oklahoma State 11th, Stanford 12th, Georgia State 13th, Coastal Carolina 14th, East Tennessee State 15th, South Carolina 16th, Louisville 17th, Auburn 18th, Florida State 19th, Vanderbilt 20th, Duke 21st, Arizona 22nd, Charlotte 23rd, Texas Tech 24th, North Carolina 25th, Michigan State 26th, New Mexico 27th, Wake Forest 28th, Texas 29th and Minnesota 30th.
The seedings were determined by the NCAA coaches’ committee, using the latest Golfstat rankings that included the regionals as well as the place/finish at the regionals for teams’ seedings within a wave. Alabama ranks No. 4 in the Golf Week/Sagarin rankings and finished No. 3 in the final Golf World/NIKE Coaches’ rankings.
The first round of the NCAA finals will be on Wednesday, May 30. The championship final round is June 2. Teams will be in Williamsburg, Va., for the May 28 and 29 practice rounds leading to the championships. The 110th annual NCAA Men’s golf championship is being held at Golden Horseshoe Golf Club’s Gold Course.
Alabama returned from the NCAA Central Regional where it finished second, three strokes out of the win, on Saturday night. The team has taken a few days off, and on Wednesday, Mark Harrell, Matthew Swan, Joseph Sykora, Michael Thompson and Gator Todd report back to prepare in earnest for the team’s shot at the national championship.
“We get started back tomorrow afternoon,” said Seawell. “Right after lunch we will start practice again and go all the way until it’s time to leave. We leave at 4 o’clock on Sunday. I think we’ve given them enough time to get their legs fresh and we’ll work pretty hard here for the next three or four days and then we’ll fly out on Sunday.”
Seawell’s 2006-07 Alabama golf team has set several firsts and records including first No. 1 national ranking, 54-hole team school record (819), individual school 54-hole record (199 by Joseph Sykora), most consecutive single season team tournament championships (three), highest seeding for NCAA Regional, and highest NCAA finals seeding as well as tying the school record for most single season team tournament championships at four. Alabama finished second in three other tournaments, including the 2007 Central Regional, giving it a first or second place finish in seven out of its 12 tournaments played this season.
