2016 College Baseball Thread

[Cosmo]

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.

 

[Steak Snabler]

Hell of a finish in Hattiesburg.
Rice gets runners on first and second with two outs, guy hits one into the gap in left center. They send the trail runner home and he's thrown out at the plate for the final out. Southern Miss wins 3-2, and Rice's 21-year conference championship streak is over.

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

 

[Cosmo]

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.

 

[justgladtobehere]

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

 

[micropolitan guy]

BC's OOC schedule is laughable. Losing conference record, no Power 5 OOC opponents, but play in the ACC. Perfect recipe for an at-large berth.

 

[Batman]

And slipped in as an apparent news dump on a holiday, in the middle of the selection show, is that Augie Garrido is out as Texas' coach after 20 years. They'd missed the NCAA Tournament three times in five years, including this year.

Augie Garrido stepping down as Longhorns baseball coach

 

[Big Circus]

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

NCAA decided to grade them on a curve after the football and hoops disasters.

 

[Jake_Taylor]

Power 5 out of conference opponents is a weird thing to judge teams on in baseball. Should you be rewarded for scheduling Washington State instead of Fullerton? Points for playing Northwestern instead of Houston?

 

[dixiehack]

And slipped in as an apparent news dump on a holiday, in the middle of the selection show, is that Augie Garrido is out as Texas' coach after 20 years. They'd missed the NCAA Tournament three times in five years, including this year.

Augie Garrido stepping down as Longhorns baseball coach

Mitch Gaspard gets the proverbial home version board game and box of Rice A Roni from Alabama.

Alabama Baseball Head Coach Mitch Gaspard Resigns

 

[Batman]

Power 5 out of conference opponents is a weird thing to judge teams on in baseball. Should you be rewarded for scheduling Washington State instead of Fullerton? Points for playing Northwestern instead of Houston?

Good point. The mid-major conferences in baseball are probably stronger on a national level than their counterparts in any other sport. The Big West and Conference USA might be better, in any given year, than the Big 10.

 

[micropolitan guy]

Power 5 out of conference opponents is a weird thing to judge teams on in baseball. Should you be rewarded for scheduling Washington State instead of Fullerton? Points for playing Northwestern instead of Houston?

Fine, I will acknowledge that point to an extent, although WSU is part of a conference that is much stronger, top to bottom, than the Big West.

BC played nobody. I would be embarrassed to be part of a selection committee that awarded BC an at-large berth. given it's virtually non-existent season accomplishments. The problem isn't giving bids to 6 or 7 or possibly even eight ACC teams, seeing as how the conference has become so bloated by expansion. It's 10, when clearly the resume of teams 9 and 10 are so terrible and their RPIs were artificially inflated in a large part by those of conference members they didn't even play.

 

[Batman]

Breaking down the regionals, Virginia and N.C. State not only got the benefit of the doubt as regional hosts, but gets what look like two of the easier sets of opponents.
Virginia has one top-30 team (Bryant). North Carolina State gets Saint Mart's (RPI No. 57) and Navy (No. 145), although Coastal Carolina is mixed in there and is going to be tough. Hell, even overall No. 1 seed Florida pulled No. 20 Georgia Tech into its orbit. Louisville got a cupcake draw, too, with no top 30 teams in its regional.
Florida State's regional is super tough with FSU, Southern Miss, a good South Alabama team and a sneaky-good Alabama State team. Alabama State went undefeated in the SWAC (yeah, it's the SWAC, but still ...) and can score some runs. Wouldn't surprise me if they win a game this weekend.

 

[Cosmo]

Fine, I will acknowledge that point to an extent, although WSU is part of a conference that is much stronger, top to bottom, than the Big West.

BC played nobody. I would be embarrassed to be part of a selection committee that awarded BC an at-large berth. given it's virtually non-existent season accomplishments. The problem isn't giving bids to 6 or 7 or possibly even eight ACC teams, seeing as how the conference has become so bloated by expansion. It's 10, when clearly the resume of teams 9 and 10 are so terrible and their RPIs were artificially inflated in a large part by those of conference members they didn't even play.

This is a ridiculous statement, sorry.

BC beat Ohio State (regional team) out of conference. It won two of three from N.C. State (regional host). It beat Louisville (national No. 2 seed) two out of three. It beat Virginia (regional host) two out of three. It won two out of three from Wake Forest and from Georgia Tech, both regional teams.

Boston College may not have done a ton out of conference, but to say it didn't accomplish anything this year is patently false.

 

[Cosmo]

Breaking down the regionals, Virginia and N.C. State not only got the benefit of the doubt as regional hosts, but gets what look like two of the easier sets of opponents.
Virginia has one top-30 team (Bryant). North Carolina State gets Saint Mart's (RPI No. 57) and Navy (No. 145), although Coastal Carolina is mixed in there and is going to be tough. Hell, even overall No. 1 seed Florida pulled No. 20 Georgia Tech into its orbit. Louisville got a cupcake draw, too, with no top 30 teams in its regional.
Florida State's regional is super tough with FSU, Southern Miss, a good South Alabama team and a sneaky-good Alabama State team. Alabama State went undefeated in the SWAC (yeah, it's the SWAC, but still ...) and can score some runs. Wouldn't surprise me if they win a game this weekend.

I not only expect Coastal Carolina to win N.C. State's regional, I expect them to do it without losing a game. That was a bum draw for the Pack.

 

[micropolitan guy]

Wake Forest finished 6th in a 7-team division. Georgia Tech finished 4th in a seven-team division. Both had losing conference records. I don't consider winning a series from a team with a losing conference record a major accomplishment. It did have three nice series wins, two of which were over the weakest of the 16 regional hosts.

It lost to NDSU and Butler. It lost a series to Pittsburgh. It was swept by Notre Dame. It's biggest OOC win was over Ohio State, from a conference that others here don't even deem a power baseball conference. Call them what they are: A below-average ACC team with a losing league record, that benefitted greatly by skipping Miami and having two games against FSU rained out; that played no one OOC, but earned an NCAA berth because the selection committee over-rewarded the ACC with about three too many berths.

I can't remember a power conference team with a winning conference record, a plus-16 overall record and a 5-1 record in its last six games being left out. Interesting that the last team in was South Alabama, the school where the head of the selection committee is the AD, and that the power conference that got the fewest bids had no rep on the selection committee..

 

[Jake_Taylor]

Looking it over and starting to think A&M might have gotten a tough draw. I'm not sure I see Minnesota or Wake as teams that will make it to Omaha, but they both have a lot of guys in the lineup who can rake. I could see one or both of them making it tough on the Aggies by getting them deep in the bullpen.

 

[Cosmo]

Oregon State played three (!!) games against teams inside the top 40 of the RPI and lost all three. The Beavers lost two of three to Oregon (RPI 87) and lost a late midweek game to Portland (RPI 230). System may be rigged, because BC got a hell of a lot more opportunities to beat high-level opponents. But the Eagles did. I think the bigger argument is BC vs. UNC, truth be told.

 

[Jake_Taylor]

There have been years when they had a legit beef out west. This really isn't one of those years. The Pac-12 was fairly awful with every single preseason Top 25 team missing the tournament. Utah won the league by two games and was terrible in the non-conference, going winless against Minnesota and St. Mary's and 1-3 against the two worst teams in the Big 12. Arizona taking two at Rice the first week of the season might have been the best Pac-12 non-con series win. The way UNC and Duke beat up on UCLA and Cal teams that were supposed to be good might have had as much to do with overvaluing the ACC as anything else.

Fullerton and UCSB are OK and each had nice non-conference series win, but not No. 1 seed resumes. Gonzaga and St. Mary's didn't do anything of note out of conference.

 

[micropolitan guy]

UNC won 2 of 3 at UCLA, which placed 10th in the Pac-12. Duke took 2 of 3 over Cal at Durham; Cal took 8th. Hardly "beating up," and Cal or UCLA didn't belong in the tournament anyway, even though Cal had a comparable overall record and better conference record than Ga Tech, BC and Wake. and played a better OOC schedule.

BC lost 2 of 3 to Pitt, RPI 83, and all three to ND, RPI 96. It also lost to Butler, RPI 276. I can cherry-pick numbers too.

Stanford goes 31-23 and has an RPI of 73. Wake goes 34-25 and has an RPI of 25. ASU goes 34-21 and has an RPI of 43. UNC goes 34-21 and has an RPI of 19. Cal goes 31-21 and has an RPI of 68. BC goes 31-20 and has an RPI of 39. OSU goes 35-19 and has an RPI of 44. Georgia Tech goes 36-23 and has an RPI of 20. Washington goes 32-22 and has an RPI of 55. Duke goes 33-23 and has an RPI of 26.

Pac-12 teams that go 10+ games over .500 have an RPI 20-30 spots lower of comparable teams in the ACC. So the RPI says BC, Wake and Tech are top-40 teams, but ASU, Cal or Stanford (for example) aren't, even though all three played much tougher OOC schedules than BC, which, I admit, was probably the second-best team to Bryant in the Mass/Maine/Rhode Island tri-state area.

I concede that Utah's winning the league did not help the Pac-12. In it's defense, it played its first 18 games on the road because of weather. When it finally got to practice outside, and play some home games, it was a decent team, one I expect will win at least two games at its regional.

You can't play teams in top 40 of the RPI if the system is such that teams from your conference can't break into the top 40 of RPI. Garbage in, garbage out.

One thing that vexes me is, how the committee could decide that ASU (RPI 43, overall record 34-21, 16-14 Pac-12) is a No. 2 seed, while Oregon State (RPI 44, overall record 35-19, 16-14 Pac-12) doesn't merit a spot, even though it was 3-0 vs. ASU?

 

[Jake_Taylor]

I was simply saying that with UCLA and Cal preseason favorites in the Pac, that Duke and UNC winning those series helped shape the perception the ACC was a much better conference early on, right or wrong. One tough thing is, like you said, we are trying to put a value on these games in February and March when a whole changes in the meantime.

I'm not sure I see what was so great about Cal's non conference schedule other than racking up wins against teams near the bottom of the Big Ten and Big 12. Is one win versus Duke and one against Texas Tech better than a three-game sweep of Coastal Carolina.