MSU baseball makes its first appearance in the NCAA Tournament since 1979 with Friday's regional opener against No. 2 seed Pepperdine.

Let's consider this the open thread for the game, if you so desire. I don't know much about West Coast college baseball, other than it's usually pretty good. MSU will be at a big disadvantage, as the other three teams in the Palo Alto regional (Stanford, Pepperdine, Fresno State) are playing in their home state of California.

Baseball America has a solid breakdown of the regional, with a good amount of info on each team. The LSJ has a nice story with a lot of cool anecdotes about the 1979 tourney.

Game time: 4 p.m. ET

Location: Klein Field at Sunken Diamond, Stanford, Calif.

Video broadcast: ESPN3.com

Radio broadcast: Spartan Sports Network (.com or on the smartphone app).

Live stats: Gametracker

Probable starters: MSU: Tony Bucciferro (6-3, 2.80 ERA) - PEP: Jon Moscot (6-5, 2.97 ERA)