2012 NCAA Baseball Tournament: South Carolina 5, Oklahoma 1: Gamecocks Back to Omaha

All winning streaks come to an end. It's just something that Gamecocks fans need to remember. Because at some point, South Carolina is going to lose a postseason baseball game. But, for now, they know that the 21 straight NCAA tournament wins will take them back to Omaha.

We don't really need to go back over how this started out as the most unlikely of the last three teams to get to Omaha to begin with. Instead, we can look at just how hard it's going to be for South Carolina to keep things going and win the five games they need to become only the second team in the history of the College World Series to claim three titles in a row.

At least five and as many as seven of the eight national seeds are going to make it to Omaha this year. South Carolina was the last team to get one of those slots and could actually enter the tournament as underdogs to everyone except the Cinderellas even if you give them a slight bonus for experience.

Still, there's something about winning 21 in a row that makes you hesitant to pick against a team. Sure, the streak is likely to end once in Omaha -- but twice? Don't forget that South Carolina's streak began in the losers' bracket in 2010; they started winning a game precisely because they had to, and one thing the Gamecocks have done well during the streak is pulling out a win with their backs against the wall.

Regardless, the streak South Carolina has put together is one of the more impressive in college sports right now and is an accomplishment that team and head coach Ray Tanner should be proud of. Not that they wouldn't like it any more if they painted Omaha garnet one more time.