Elliott Avent is not where he would like to be today. The colorful N.C. State baseball coach is in Raleigh, but his heart is in Omaha, Neb., where the College World Series will begin.

The Wolfpack came close to punching a ticket to Omaha, too. With a win Sunday at Georgia, NCSU would have given the ACC a fourth team in the CWS, which would have been half of the entire field.

"It still hurts. It hurts a lot, but our day will come," Avent said.

Playing in what has to be the nation's toughest college league, State recorded wins over four CWS entrants -- Miami, North Carolina, Florida State and Georgia. Who could be more qualified to size up the field? Here are Avent's thoughts on each of the eight teams:

FAVORITE: Miami.

"Miami, overall, is the best team we saw all season. They don't have any glaring weak spots. What they could have are a couple of areas of concern, I guess you might say. One is left-handed relief pitching, and the other could be overall pitching depth. But they are one terrific team. They're going to be extremely difficult for anyone to beat over the course of the entire tournament. The best team doesn't always win, but Miami is really, really good. I don't see how you could pick against them."

DARK HORSE: LSU.

"We didn't play against this team, so I don't have a first-hand scouting report or anything like that. What I do know is that they were just about impossible to beat during the final few games of the season, and that's something you can't throw out. Hot teams are hard to beat under any circumstances. LSU, in my opinion, is still a very hot team, and there can't be many questions about their talent level. That's always about as high as you can ask for."

THE REMAINING SIX:

* North Carolina: "There's no way to put a knock of any sort on the Tar Heels. They hit, they pitch, they field, they do the little things, and it's obvious that Mike [Fox] and his staff have done an excellent coaching job with this team. To make it there three straight seasons is unbelievable. They are going to be fun to watch, and it would be great to see that big trophy come back to a North Carolina school. But if they don't get it, I'd love to see it be Miami or Florida State. I want to see the ACC get the ultimate reward for the incredible season the league's teams had."

* Florida State: "The only concern for me about the Seminoles is their defense at times. They can score plenty of runs, and they have enough pitching. The one thing that worries me about them is making the right plays at the right time in the field. If they make those plays, they will be around a long time in Omaha. They are always tough in the clutch."

* Rice: "We didn't see Rice, but the tradition there is great pitching, day in and day out. It doesn't make much difference from one season to another, they are going to have very good pitching. That's more or less what the program has been built on, and you can't start with a better foundation than pitching. But over the course of a long tournament, the question with Rice probably will be if they can score enough runs in close games."

* Georgia: "Gosh, can they ever hit. They just have a doggone lot of players who can make contact with the ball. That was the thing that hurt us most against them. It wasn't so much that our pitchers weren't making good pitches, it was that their batters were able to hit the ball in play. I know our guys will look at them and think 'What might have been.' But they beat us, and they did it the old-fashioned way. They just put the bat on the ball. That's the first principle of hitting."

* Fresno State: "Oh heck, this would be a great dark-horse pick for me to make if I just knew a little more about them. I just don't know all that much, though. But what I do know is that they were good enough to beat Arizona State to get to the World Series. Arizona State, all season long, was one of the really top teams in the country."

* Stanford: "The first thing you think about with Stanford is programming -- just plain, solid programming. Even if this isn't one of their all-time great teams, which it may be, you know from their history in baseball they will be tough to knock out. They always have fundamentally sound, talented guys who really enjoy playing in big games. They're used to pressure."