Road to Omaha thread

Based on what I saw this weekend, Florida would have deserved to get in over Alabama and Mississippi STate, even with a sub ,.500 record.

 

Wake Forest finished 14-16 in the ACC. Deacs' conference wins were over:

Virginia (2)
N.C. State (1)
North Carolina (1)
Maryland (3)
Clemson (1)
Duke (3)
Miami (1)
Va. Tech (2)

So, conference series wins over teams in the tournament = 1

I've got no problem if you want to say the ACC was up this year and the SEC was down. That's fine. But the idea that the ACC is TWO TEAMS better than the SEC is laughable. Take Wake's bid and give it to an SEC team and roll from there.

 

Very true. I had to do a double-take when I saw that seeding and that geographic placing. If Fullerton made the tournament -- and I wasn't sure it would -- I had the Titans getting shipped out to Texas or somewhere in the Southeast.

San Diego? That's a reputation gift with a bow on it. Not something that pitching staff deserves. Not when your closer has an ERA north of 4.4, your best pitcher (who was the conference POY and an All-American last year) had his ERA jump by more than a run a game (as his wins went from 13 to 9) and you had only one pitcher post double-digit wins.

If they somehow get out of that region, there's no way they survive the Super Region.

 

I didn't know that Florida was out. I was kind of hoping for a chance at the triple crown.

 

Larry Templeton did not say Florida was out by rule. He said by policy. Which is a big difference. Maybe it was just a standard the committee decided upon at some point, rather than a rule in the book. I don't know, but if I were a Florida baseball writer (there is one, I think), I'd be very interested in this.

 

Well they do have 30-31 Wofford to point to as a team that made it, although I think that was as a conference champion.

 

Yeah, it was. Good rule of thumb, .500 teams should never get at large bids.

 

Pop tarts?

 

Alabama football?

 

Martha Stewart?

 

In interest of full disclosure, I might be a bit more biased towards Wake's case since I saw them at the ACC Tournament this weekend (but don't cover them).
They probably should have beaten Clemson in their weekend series..... Clemson led 5-4 in the bottom of the ninth on the Sunday afternoon game and Wake had the tying run at second with one out when rain moved in. Two hours later, with water standing in the outfield, the game was called as a Clemson win (thanks to ACC travel policies that say teams can't play on Monday).
They also beat Clemson and Miami in the ACC Tournament. They have a No.23 RPI. According to WarrenNolan.com, they have played the nation's second-toughest schedule (which includes a pair of non-conference wins over Coastal Carolina and a win over San Diego).
That looks like an NCAA-worthy resume to me, much more than Alabama or Tennessee. If Florida could have gotten its record at or above .500, it might have been worthy. But otherwise it's not as simple as yanking an ACC bid and giving it to a middling SEC team.