@HSDad22 posted:Why not an NIT for baseball?
No $$$$
Well. For those that felt that Florida didn't deserve to get a bid, those Gator Boys just stunned Oklahoma and are going to the Super Regional in Clemson.
Not done yet!
Florida, Kansas State, UConn, and Oregon move on. That's half of the teams that people complained the loudest about not deserving an at-large bid.
And for the other things people complained about,
- P5 conferences getting lots of at-large bids. 2 of 2 (100%) at-large teams from the Pac-12, 5 of 7 (71%) from the ACC, 4 of 10 (40%) from the SEC, and 2 of 5 (40%) from the Big-12 move on. The only P5 conference that struck out was the Big Ten with 0 of 2 at-large teams moving on after getting placed in regions against the top 2 overall seeds.
- Sun Belt getting 3 at-large bids. While none of them moved on, they all won two games each and made it to their regional final.
Overall I'd say the committee did a good job.
How a team does in the tournament is irrelevant to whether they should have been selected or not. The teams that were dissed could have done the same thing, if not better. However, for the sake of this thread, lets say how a team does is the measure of how the committee did. Yes. Florida, who i still maintain should not have been in the tournament with their 28-27 record, played well and won the regional. FL has its merits.. high RPI, SoS, etc.. so it was not a complete stretch to have them in. I tip my cap to FL and Congrats to TPM' s son and best of luck the remainder of the way. Kansas State. Another bubble team that played great. They too had their merits so not a stretch to have them in.. but compared to TCU, they too should have been in. So their success should bolster TCU's case. FSU deserved the host no need to discuss. The other teams discussed that were on the bubble and had representation were Indiana, Coastal, and EC getting a host. None got it done. No one that I saw questioned UCONN. I championed them earlier in this thread. But UCONN success is an argument for CofC with a similar resume to get in, not proof that the committee got it right. Their success is also disproves those that championed the P5 with their followings getting in over mid-majors. Other bubble teams not discussed where JMU, GTech, and Oregon. Oregon got it done, the other 2 did not.
@auberon, was this your first year on the selection committee?
GloFisher, thanks for the kind words. Clemson is son's alma mater so he is excited. There is no place like Clemson.
CofC and Lamar may have won lots of games, but that usually isn't the criteria used for one bid conferences.
Interesting to see, the stadium was half empty. Nebraska had the best representation. Florida had a small representation of parents.
Where were the home team's fans?
I disagree that how the at-large bids do in the tournament is irrelevant to whether they were a good selection. The main job of the selection committee is to select at-large teams that are better than the automatic qualifiers. When 14 of the 16 regional winners are at-large bids, no one should be complaining. Also, 14 of the 16 regional winners are P5 teams, which is a much higher percentage than the overall percentage of P5 teams in the tournament. So no one should be complaining about a P5 bias.
The thing that screwed Lamar and Charleston the most (besides not winning their own conference) was not the committee, but Indiana State and East Carolina not winning their conference. That consumed two at-large bids that the MVC and AAC wouldn't have consumed otherwise. But that gave us a true Cinderella in Evansville, so again not a bad result overall.
If that’s the case, no criteria should be used, no auto qualifiers, the committee should just pick the teams they think are the best and will do the best in the tournament. Let’s quit pretending that you get in based on certain criteria.
The beauty of the auto-qualifiers is that no team needs to rely on the committee. Every D1 team fully controls its own destiny. Think the committee is biased against you? Just win baby. It's a great system and is one of the few things the NCAA gets right.
Wouldn’t conference winners followed by ranked RPI filling in the rest be the best answer? But how does a 28-27 team get ranked so high. It should just be who you play. You have to beat them.
@auberon posted:The beauty of the auto-qualifiers is that no team needs to rely on the committee. Every D1 team fully controls its own destiny. Think the committee is biased against you? Just win baby. It's a great system and is one of the few things the NCAA gets right.
Where is the "just win baby" when it comes to Florida who lost half the games they played this past season?
Maybe the D2 selection committee should pick the D1 teams, the D3 selection committee could pick the D2 teams, and the D1 committee could pick the D3 teams...
@Ster posted:Where is the "just win baby" when it comes to Florida who lost half the games they played this past season?
Florida had 15 wins against P5 teams. Charleston had 0. When you have 0 wins against P5 teams, you have to win your conference. When you have 15 wins against P5 teams, you don't. Nothing unfair or biased about that. Unless you want to argue that the CAA is stronger than a P5 conference which nobody seriously does.
Charleston went 0-3 against Nebraska who Florida beat twice in the regional. Are you really still arguing that Charleston should have gotten in over Florida?
I often question the validity of RPI and the college baseball world just blindly trusting it.
A few things I don't think are fair that need to be taken into consideration - cold weather teams going south to open the season and putting together a lackluster start. This is something RPI does not consider. A lot of those 30 win midwest/NE teams are better than their record shows.
RPI does not necessarily consider the geographic limitations of some schools - midweeks SOS not great.
The one thing I will say - not being able to win your non P5 conference tournament is a red flag. I'm not talking SunBelt, AAC. But if you can't win your not all that deep conference tournament - it is indicative you don't have the pitching to get it done over a weekend tournament format (regional)
I'm also of the opinion that if your conference tournament is going to be more than 4 teams (aka larger than a regional) it needs to be spread out over a full week. Playing 7 games in 4 days doesn't produce the best team - it rewards the team with the most viable arms.
I agree on most of what you say.. especially tougher schedules for NE/MW teams should be rewarded.. I disagree not winning the non-P5 conf tournament as a red-flag however. UCONN for example went 0-2 in their conf tournament but won the league over the whole season. Do you use two days of the season to judge the whole season? its baseball, anything can happen. one team is the host with an inherent advantage. some teams go all out just to win one game and play spoilers. tough pitching matchups..etc. Obviously not a good thing, but there are a lot of non-P5 conferences... top 10 for example, that have teams that are in the 27-36 RPI range that deserve consideration. Below the top 10 conferences, i agree. but... as college baseball landscape continues to evolve with the portal and NLI... a ton of talent from the lower conferences will head to the top conferences and your statement could prove correct. Lower conferences will get weaker.,, and maybe the top 6 conferences will be the only conferences that deserve multiple bids.
@GloFisher posted:I agree on most of what you say.. especially tougher schedules for NE/MW teams should be rewarded.. I disagree not winning the non-P5 conf tournament as a red-flag however. UCONN for example went 0-2 in their conf tournament but won the league over the whole season. Do you use two days of the season to judge the whole season? its baseball, anything can happen. one team is the host with an inherent advantage. some teams go all out just to win one game and play spoilers. tough pitching matchups..etc. Obviously not a good thing, but there are a lot of non-P5 conferences... top 10 for example, that have teams that are in the 27-36 RPI range that deserve consideration. Below the top 10 conferences, i agree. but... as college baseball landscape continues to evolve with the portal and NLI... a ton of talent from the lower conferences will head to the top conferences and your statement could prove correct. Lower conferences will get weaker.,, and maybe the top 6 conferences will be the only conferences that deserve multiple bids.
The Big East was uncharacteristically strong this year - 5 teams with 30+ wins. 4 with 35+. That should be good for a multi bid conference.
That being said, I didn't think UConn had the resume. Lost to ISU, lost to Northeastern, swept by Cal, swept by UCSB, lost series to Auburn, Rutgers, BC - who all had down years. If I'm Northeastern and I miss out to that - I have every right to be annoyed. I will give credit where it is due - UConn will play anybody, they play a very difficult schedule every year.
I think there are plenty of good mid major teams who should be rewarded for winning games. I think the committee tends to overlook they are forced to play their conference schedule.