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North Carolina went into this weekend's ACC tournament ranked No. 1 in the nation in college baseball. But earlier this season the Tar Heels lost to Elon, 2-0. The Phoenix though, dropped a game to UNC-Wilmington, 18-16. The Seahawks fell three times to East Carolina, which lost twice to N.C. State, which fell once to UNCG. The Spartans lost two of three to Elon, which dropped its second meeting with UNC, which edged Charlotte 5-4 in extra innings.

This isn't one of those parlor games you can use to prove that some Division II football team should be playing in the BCS title game. This is tangible proof that college baseball in North Carolina is very good this year. Maybe as good as it's ever been.

Need more convincing?

Start at the top with the No. 1 Tar Heels, who have reached the national title game the past two seasons. Head over to Raleigh, where N.C. State has been nationally ranked all season. Don't forget about East Carolina, which has racked up yet another 40-win season.

Go a level deeper -- in name recognition but not necessarily talent. Elon, UNC-Wilmington and Charlotte all won or shared regular-season conference titles this season.

Add UNCG, which swept Southern Conference runner-up College of Charleston and played three one-run games against Elon, while you're at it.

"North Carolina has really good baseball," said Kyle Seager, a UNC infielder from Northwest Cabarrus High School. "I think a lot of people are starting to realize that."

A lot more will realize that Monday, when the field for the NCAA tournament is announced (12:30 p.m., ESPN). It's very possible that six teams from the state could be part of that 64-team field.

So there's no question that the state of North Carolina has become a power in college baseball. There is another question, though:

How did this happen?

Year-round baseball

UNC coach Mike Fox chose the simplest explanation: The players in the state are getting better.

Fox pointed to the explosion in recent years of travel baseball and the growing number of players playing the game year-round as reasons for the improvement of in-state talent. Seager, who started playing on travel teams when he was 11, is one of the products of that system and one of its proponents.

"I just think it gives you a chance to fine-tune things," he said. "Going year-round, you can just think of it as an extra six months of practice to get your body ready and to learn new things."

Fox and other in-state coaches have mixed feelings about the travel and putting so much emphasis on baseball at an early age. But Fox also acknowledged his program is benefiting from an influx of players who are polished before they ever set foot on campus. This season 26 of UNC's 35 players are from North Carolina high schools.

Staying Home

Maybe the in-state talent is getting better -- opinions vary among college coaches in North Carolina.

Or maybe many of the best players coming out of high school are staying close to home for college.

"It's not easy at all to poach talent out of this state," said Aaron Fitt, a national college baseball writer for Durham-based Baseball America. "Very seldom do you see an out-of-state program come in and get an elite player."

Thus the heavy in-state slant to UNC's roster. The Tar Heels aren't the only ones benefiting from home-grown talent. Charlotte has 22 in-state players on its roster, while ECU has 21 and UNC-Wilmington has 28.

Top-down excellence

What's keeping the best North Carolina baseball talent from crossing the borders for college? It may sound a bit self-congratulatory, but several coaches cited those in their profession as a big draw.

"I think you have to give a lot of credit to the coaching staffs in the state of North Carolina," said Charlotte coach Loren Hibbs. "The level of play has definitely gotten better in the 16 years."

That Hibbs has had 16 years at Charlotte to form that opinion is an indication that the school thinks he's one of those top coaches. Other schools in North Carolina feel the same way about their coaches. From Mike Gaski (18 years at UNCG) to Elon's Mike Kennedy (12 years) to UNC-Wilmington's Mark Scalf (17 years), the state is loaded with experience in the dugout.

So Many Choices

North Carolina baseball also has positioned itself in a beneficial cycle of prosperity. Because there are so many good baseball programs in the state, there are more and more options that keep players close to home. Because more players are staying close to home, there's enough talent for numerous programs to be successful in the state. And so it goes.

"If it's close to your house and it's a good school and it's doing well and winning, it's pretty hard to turn down," Seager said.

Even if Plan A doesn't work out in-state, Plan B can also be quite attractive. Former Asheboro standout Neal Pritchard couldn't catch the eye of UNC's coaches and signed with Elon.

He's now starting at shortstop as a true freshman and, thanks to the Phoenix's strong non-conference schedule, Pritchard got a little revenge when Elon beat UNC this season.

"It really made my day," he said, "just like when we took two of two from Wake Forest."

Baseball Matters

Perhaps the strongest argument for the rise of college baseball in North Carolina is the increased commitment to the sport by athletics departments across the state. It's a factor that is intertwined with all the others.

More top players can stay in state because more schools are moving closer to funding 11.7 scholarships, the maximum allowed by the NCAA.

The recruiting pitches for in-state schools have been markedly improved because shiny new facilities often are part of the sales pitch. N.C. State, ECU and Charlotte have built, or completely renovated, their stadiums in recent years.

Elon and UNC-Wilmington have made improvements to theirs. UNC is in the midst of a massive stadium project that originally had a price tag around $7 million but is now projected to cost around $25 million.

Sure, stadiums don't win games. But they do attract players who can win games.

"You want to go somewhere where you're going to be on a nice field in a stadium where lots of people will be able to watch you play," said Matt Payne an N.C. State outfielder from Alexander Central High School.

Players also want to go to a school with a stable coaching staff. Now more North Carolina schools are paying enough to keep their head coaches and to fully fund two assistant coaching positions.

That's something that programs such as UNC-Wilmington didn't have until just a few years ago.

"It affords you an opportunity to teach as much as possible in the length of time that's allowed to us," Scalf said of the staff increase.

Good Investments

What brought about this sudden financial interest in college baseball in the state?

It's at least partly due to ESPN, which gave college baseball a much bigger public stage when it started broadcasting more NCAA tournament games.

That's particularly enticing for programs such as UNCG, UNC-Wilmington and Charlotte, which don't have football to draw attention to their universities.

"As expensive as baseball is -- and it is -- it's still not football," Gaski said. "You can get quite a bit of attention, quite a bit of activity on campus, for pretty low dollars."

It's not just cost-benefit analysis, though. It's also the competitive juices flowing in athletics departments statewide.

"If you don't play well, you're going to look bad in this state," Kennedy said. "That's just the way it is."

To avoid that undesirable fate, schools have poured resources into their programs, produced a sort of arms race that has gained momentum in the past decade.

"It's almost like keeping up with the Joneses," Kennedy said.

Rising Tide

In this case, though, the competition is not a zero-sum game. Instead, coaches use another metaphor to describe what's happening: A rising tide lifts all boats. Higher and higher.

That has college baseball coaches, players and fans across North Carolina feeling the same way Charlotte catcher Chris Taylor feels about his program:

"I think the sky's the limit."

Contact Jim Young at 373-7016 or jim.young@news-record.com