NCAA baseball Week 2: What to watch for

After an entertaining opening weekend, college baseball is in full swing, though the season’s second weekend doesn’t feature quite the same quantity of big-name matchups as opening week did. Still, there should be plenty of intrigue. Here are a few things to watch in week two.

Round Rock Classic: For the most talent in one stadium, the place to be this weekend is Dell Diamond. The Round Rock Classic features a pair of Top 10 teams in Arkansas and Stanford, a Louisiana team that’s coming off a series win at UC-Irvine and an Indiana team with postseason aspirations.

The marquee matchup is Saturday at 5 p.m. ET, when the Hogs and Cardinal face off. That game should feature an intriguing battle between touted Arkansas freshman lefty Hagen Smith and star Stanford outfielder Brock Jones, rated as MLB Pipeline’s No. 7 prospect for the 2022 Draft. All games will be streaming on FloSports.

Test for Texas? Making the trip to Round Rock? Be sure to head just down the road to Austin while you’re there, because there will be some good ball in the state capital as well. Undefeated and consensus No. 1 Texas hosts Alabama for a weekend series at Disch-Falk Field.

The Longhorns absolutely trucked Rice last weekend before taking a pair of midweek games against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, while the Tide are also off to a 5-0 start. All three games will be carried on Longhorn Network.

The Tommy White show: North Carolina State entered the year with Omaha aspirations, and nothing we’ve seen so far has put any dent in that notion. The Wolfpack have scored 74 runs in five games, and freshman first baseman Tommy White has led the way. He’s already amassed five homers and 15 RBIs, both of which lead the nation on the young season.

White and State will look to keep up their torrid early pace in a weekend series at home against Quinnipiac. Friday’s game will be a 6 p.m. ET start on ACC Network, with Saturday and Sunday afternoon games streaming on ACC Network Extra.

No rest for ECU: East Carolina, a consensus top-15 preseason pick, ran into an ambush at the hands of Bryant over the opening weekend, dropping all three games while ace Carson Whisenhunt sat due to a suspension. The Pirates picked up a midweek win at Campbell, but they’re in for another challenge this weekend.

The 2022 North Carolina squad may not be quite up to some past Tar Heel teams, but they’re no pushover, either. ECU will try to get things back on track with a weekend series against their in-state rivals. Friday and Saturday games in Chapel Hill will be on ACC Network Extra, while Sunday’s game in Greenville will stream on ESPN+.

Assorted pings: It got a bit lost as Mississippi State dropped its opening series to Long Beach State, but former closer Landon Sims was brilliant in his first collegiate start, striking out 13 over seven innings of five-hit, one-run ball. Sims, the top-rated healthy college pitcher in MLB Pipeline’s Draft rankings, will face Northern Kentucky on Friday. The game will stream on SEC Network+. … Texas Southern will face Division I competition for the first time this weekend, taking on Houston and Texas-Rio Grande Valley. Why might that be of interest? In six games against non-NCAA opponents, outfielder Johnathon Thomas has amassed 14 – yes, 14 – stolen bases. Time to see what he can do against stiffer competition. … James Madison outfielder Chase DeLauter, ranked as Pipeline’s No. 8 Draft prospect, had a rough first couple of games against Florida State but heated up quickly, with two hits on Sunday in Tallahassee and his first homer on Wednesday against George Mason. The Dukes host Fairleigh Dickinson this weekend. … The Ivy League did not play baseball in 2021, but the Ancient Eight is back this week. And you can’t say they’re tiptoeing back into competition. Harvard plays at Miami, Yale is at Auburn, Dartmouth visits Louisville, Cornell plays at Virginia, and Penn travels to Texas A&M.