2016 College Baseball Thread

Since the NCAA went to the regional format, 1994 is the only year without a regional west of the Rockies (thanks Wikipedia).

Edit: Other than 1950-54 when there were no regional or district tournaments, 1994 is the only year before this that there were no sites west of the Rockies.

 

I haven't kept track of college baseball much this season, but I know Cal State Fullerton thought it was getting a regional when it beat Long Beach State in the finale on Saturday. The Titans and 49ers were tied for first going into that last game.
Utah won the Pac-12 by 2 games. About 8 others all finished 1 or 2 games apart below the Utes. It was a classic case of everybody beating everybody.

 

The top half of the SEC is unusually strong and deep this year, too. Ole Miss was the No. 7 seed in the SEC Tournament and went 40-16 in the regular season. All seven of their regional hosts are also in the mix to be national seeds. Seven of the top 11 in RPI are in the SEC. The top 12 are all either SEC or ACC schools.

Meanwhile, out west, Utah won the Pac-12 and finished 25-27 overall. Arizona (38-20) and Oregon State (35-19) are the only teams with more than 35 wins. Arizona, at No. 21, is the highest west coast team in RPI. UC Santa Barbara is No. 23. And then Gonzaga (31) and Arizona State (38) are the only other teams even in the top 40. Fullerton (43), New Mexico (46), Oregon State (49), Washington (50) and Long Beach State (51) and California (70) are the rest in the top 70. So not only were the western teams down a bit this year, they didn't seem to have that handful of top teams that they usually do to prop up some of the others.
The ACC and SEC teams, this time around, were simply way more deserving of hosting. It's not a lot of bias, it's just the numbers.

 

According to D1baseball.com there's not a West Coast team in the Top 20 RPI.

 

"It's not a lot of bias, it's just the numbers."

RPI = garbage in, garbage out. Someone has to give a base start value to each team, and the system is rigged.

There are fewer Western teams. The Big West, WCC, MWC and Pac-12s all play full round-robins, so they can't skip a powerful conference opponent. They also pretty much play each other exclusively in OOC, so they will incur more losses , since there are fewer conferences to play. Most Pac-12 schools also play two OOC games against their traditional rival, instead of a regional cupcake, so that's 10 more losses over the course of the season. They also don't get to beat up on a bunch of A10, MAAC, Ivy, NE Conference, MAC or other schools from the Northeast/Midwest who can't practice outside before they head south to open their seasons, in February and early March.

NC State was 35-20, played ONE OOC game against a Big 5 opponent, played 30 home games, had only 12 road/neutral wins, and has an RBI of 10.
Oregon State (to use an example), was 35-19, played EIGHT OOC games against Big 5 opponents, all on the road or at neutral sites, had 18 road/neutral wins, and has an RPI of 44.

The SEC and ACC are excellent baseball conferences. But the lower 2/3 are always way overvalued in terms of RPI.

Are the Pac-12 and Big West as strong as they have ever been? Probably not this year. But they certainly merit one regional, and probably two, and have more than proven their strength in the NCAA tournament over the past 50 years. .

 

Always wondered why the Pac 12 doesn't schedule more early season games with the SEC and ACC. If they can afford to spend two week in Arizona - they could make the hop to the Carolinas or Florida.

 

Oh, RPI is certainly flawed, just saying that might have factored in. I think Fullerton had a pretty good case with out of conference sweep of Indiana and a series win against Texas Tech.

NC State might not have the Power 5 conference wins, but beating Coastal Carolina, UNC Wilmington and ECU is more impressive than Oregon State racking up wins against Kansas and Kansas State.

 

So if there are fewer western teams, that means there's fewer good western teams as well, correct?
And this year, who out west deserves to host? Who got screwed? Maybe Arizona and UCSB? Who And then who do you give the boot to in order to put a regional out west?
Virginia and N.C. State I could see, but it seems like Coastal Carolina and Southern Miss would be in line ahead of Arizona and UCSB if you do that. The smaller southern conferences have just as much of a gripe as the western conferences.
The western conferences have obviously produced good teams over the years. This year, though, I'm not sure they produced one of the top 16 or even 20 teams in the country to this point. Unless you start assigning regionals based on geography, this is something that's bound to happen once in a while.

 

RPI is weird. The Pac 12 has one team in the RPI top 40, but it's ranked fourth in RPI as a conference.

Then again, the ACC and SEC are so far above the rest of the field in terms on non-conference win percentage that the gap between 2 and 4 is probably greater than the gap between 4 and 12.

 

Here's the video. Didn't realize the play was a double cutoff for the out (8-6-3-2).

VIDEO: Southern Miss wins C-USA title on final play vs. Rice

 

So, not having covered college baseball this year, I'm a little out of the loop ... but it looks at first blush that BC really benefited from having two games at Florida State canceled due to weather. They have two fewer ACC losses than UNC, which gets them into the tournament ahead of UNC, and ultimately, probably gets them into a regional ahead of UNC. I'm no Tar Heel fan, so no whining here. Just interesting. BC did win series against Louisville and Virginia, so they're not undeserving. But I wonder what happens if both are 13-17 in the ACC instead of BC being 13-15.

 

Wait, what? BC made regionals? That team blows.