UCLA has Advantage No Other World Series Team Has

Coach John Savage and the UCLA Bruins are making their first College World Series appearance since 2013, when they won the national championship, and are the only Big Ten representative in the tournament, giving them an advantage no one else has.

This wont be the first time the Bruins are spending a week in Omaha. Thanks to the Big Ten Tournament, hosted and won by Nebraska at Charles Schwab Field in Omaha, UCLA comes into the CWS with the most familiarity of the stadium.

The Bruins played four games in the tournament just a few weeks ago, winning three of them and losing in the championship game to the Cornhuskers. At the College World Series media day, Savage was asked if his squad having recent experience in Omaha is an advantage at all.

"Yeah, I think it is," Savage said. "We're the only team that's been here. This is the first time in forever that the eight teams last year are not back. So that mean's there's a bunch of new faces. The fact that we played a week long tournament here, I think is an advantage. Just in terms of the hotel, practices... we played Nebraska in front of 15,000... we can use that environment to our advantage and we haven't lost since that game.

"In many ways, we can't get too comfortable, right? I told the guys, 'it's not about getting comfy here and losing that edge that we have right now.' So, I think at the end of the day, baseball's baseball. That's what's great about our team. We'd like to play anywhere, anytime, against anybody, and I think they'll just treat like another game.

"But, at the same time, I have to say that being here for a whole week in Omaha, and seeing where you want to go. A lot of teams talk about Omaha, but you haven't seen it. And we had the advantage of seeing it, and loving it, and wanting to get back to it. At the end of the day, I've got to believe that we could se that to our advantage."

Just as Savage mentioned, the Bruins lost that Big Ten Championship game to Nebraska in front of a hostile home crowd, 5-0, but haven't lost since, going 5-0 in the regional and super regional rounds and outscoring their opponents 50-16 in the mean time.

UCLA is rolling ahead of its matchup against the Racers on Sunday afternoon and each of its opponents moving forward don't have the recent experience in the ballpark that they do.