Road to Omaha thread

The ACC getting 7 and the SEC getting 5 is absurd. And who was it that got 6?

I've got no problem, whatsoever, if the SEC is losing picks because the committee is giving those picks to lesser conferences. For other "power" conferences to get that many, though, makes no sense to me at all.

N.C. State and Wake Forest would get their doors blown off if they had to play an SEC schedule. SEC teams are punished for the conference's depth, while teams in other conferences are able to fatten their records up on some pretty wretched teams.

 

Wofford moved to the Columbia, SC, regional on account of NCAA's fuckup. Committee had two SoCon teams in the same regional. That's kind of against the rules. ;D

 

The Big 12 got 6 teams in.

 

Thanks. Figured it must have been them.

Also of note: Super Regional team from last year and conference co-champion this year College of Charleston left out. Western Carolina was the second team from the SoCon, a team the Cougars swept this season. C of C and WCU each went 2-and-out in the SoCon Tournament.

 

My Titans, sporting their worst conference record and worst conference finish (T-5) since 1989, somehow got a No. 2 seed and somehow stayed on the West Coast.

Figures. I'm actually tournament free around CWS time and there's little chance Fullerton will sniff Omaha this year with that pitching staff.

 

Good News: Big Ten got three spots.
Bad news: Big Ten champ has to go through a National Seed.

 

Did a little math before the ACC and SEC Tournaments started. The average RPIs for the tournament fields (8 teams apiece) went like this: The ACC - 16.1. The SEC - 26.4.
The ACC was simply a stronger conference this year, while the SEC had a down year. Alabama and Tennessee had RPIs in the 50's. Florida had a sub.-500 overall record.
Only a weak last 10 games (Georgia Tech was 2-8) kept the ACC from getting 8 teams in.
Will they make the most of it? Who knows. They didn't last year when they had 4 teams in Omaha. But the ACC is stronger than people give it credit for.

 

I'll say it, just so someone can post the foto again:

Shockers.

 

Yeah, a team that was outhit, outpitched, out-defensed, outcoached, couldn't run the bases and only led for eight of the 27 innings in the Championship Series, just gave it away.

Item of note: Stanford and USC finished 8-9 in the (nine-team) Pac-10 this year; the league had only one great team, ASU, but was awfully solid from top-to-bottom. Stanford and SC have had some national success in this sport.

 

Wow. That chip on your shoulder regarding the ACC weigh much?

 

No kidding. I don't think there's any doubt ACC football has improved substantially over the past 15 years or so. Wake and Virginia used to be gawd-awful, and virtually every league has a Duke.

 

As for Florida being ineligible, that's what Larry Templeton says, but there's nothing in the NCAA bylaws or the NCAA baseball championship handbook that says you must have a .500 record or better to be an at-large team. If you can find something other than a quote from Templeton, I'd love to see a link here, because the two applicable rule books are devoid of any such criteria. I'm not saying Florida should be in (although their schedule and RPI are impressive), but I see no such "rule" Templeton cited today.