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A Serious Look at the Tournament

We've been here before; you know the format by now. First off, there are fifteen conferences where only the conference tournament winner will advance. Here they are, with my best wild guess at who will win:

• America East (Maine)
• Atlantic 10 (George Washington)
• Big East (Rutgers)
• Colonial Athletic (North Carolina-Wilmington)
• Horizon (Youngstown State)
• Ivy (Harvard)
• Metro Atlantic Athletic (Marist)
• Mid-American (Western Michigan)
• Mid-Eastern Athletic (North Carolina A&T)
• Mid-Continent (Oral Roberts)
• Mountain West (Brigham Young)
• Northeast (Monmouth)
• Ohio Valley (Austin Peay State)
• Patriot (Army)
• Southwestern Athletic (Texas Southern)

Ladies and gentlemen, your #4 seeds.

There are five conferences with teams that will qualify for at-large bids if they need to, so bubble teams should hope for them to win their conference tournament:

• Atlantic Sun (Central Florida)
• Big Ten (Illinois)
• Southland (Northwestern State)
• West Coast (Pepperdine)
• Western Athletic (Rice)

Rice's taking over first in the WAC is probably bad news for the rest of the league, since the 2-4 teams have cannibalized each other to the point where it's likely none of them get in. Rice and Pepperdine will be #2 seeds, the rest will be #3s; Rice will host.

There are no independents who will qualify this year, so that leaves us with forty-four bids to play with.

                            Conf    All    ISR  RPI  Status

North Carolina              14-4    35-8    25   11  I, #1
Georgia Tech                16-5    30-11   20    5  I, N#1
Miami, Florida              15-5    31-10   12    3  I, N#1
Clemson                     12-6    27-16   36   14  I, #1
Florida State               10-8    35-13   42   47  BI, #3(!)
North Carolina State        11-10   30-12   31   15  I, #2
Virginia                     9-10   30-13   62   40  BO

I would guess that the top three here get to host.

                            Conf    All    ISR  RPI  Status

Coastal Carolina            13-2    33-9    32   25  I, #2
Winthrop                    13-2    29-14   46   38  BI, #3
Birmingham-Southern         11-4    26-15   75   62  BO

                            Conf    All    ISR  RPI  Status

Baylor                      13-5    28-16   11    6  I, N#1
Missouri                    10-5    30-11   43   56  BI, #3
Texas                       11-6    35-8     1    1  I, N#1
Nebraska                    10-6    35-9    19   44  I, #2
Oklahoma State               9-9    29-16   55   43  BI, #3
Texas Tech                   7-9    27-14   50   46  BI, #3
Oklahoma                     7-9    23-18   54   49  BO
Texas A&M                    6-12   26-19   39   45  BI, #4

There are all sorts of interesting things going on here, mostly because the conference has refused to play out to form this year. Texas is a pretty clear choice for best team in the country right now, but they're stuck in third here, which may cost them the national #1 seed. Missouri is holding on to second, but that's all that's keeping them in the field right now, and they could easily tumble all the way out. Nebraska is neither as good as their poll ranking nor as bad as their RPI, so who knows where they'll go. A&M is much better than they've played in conference; they've just plain been snakebit this year. This could end up anywhere between four and seven bids. Right now, I think Texas, Baylor, and Nebraska host.

                            Conf    All    ISR  RPI  Status

Cal State Fullerton          8-1    30-11    4   17  I, #1
Cal Poly                     8-1    27-14   23   72  I, #3
Long Beach State            10-2    29-14    6   22  I, #2
UC Irvine                    4-5    21-17   37   22  BI, #3

Kind of an off year for the league. Fullerton may get to host, especially if they can hike the RPI a bit, because of the Pac 10 situation. Irvine might be well served to get the conference record to .500; you never know.

                            Conf    All    ISR  RPI  Status

Tulane                      14-4    36-7     3    2  I, N#1
Texas Christian             13-5    29-13   38   42  I, #3
Southern Mississippi        11-7    29-12   33   30  I, #2
South Florida               10-7    25-21   89   69  BO
Alabama-Birmingham          10-8    26-15   72   75  BO
Louisville                   9-8    22-16   91  101  BO
Houston                      9-8    18-22   70   71  BO
East Carolina                9-9    24-16   56   31  BI, #3

This is a weird one, once you get past the top three. None of the 4-8 teams are currently at a point where they'd get in, but one of them almost has to in the long run. I'm going to pick ECU since they're probably the best of the batch and they're only 1.5 games out of fourth at the moment. Tulane will host.

                            Conf    All    ISR  RPI  Status

Creighton                   11-4    32-10   45   66  BI, #3
Wichita State                8-4    35-14   29   41  BI, #3

                            Conf    All    ISR  RPI  Status

Arizona                     10-2    27-14   15   35  I, #2
Oregon State                 9-3    30-7     2    8  I, N#1
Arizona State                9-3    28-15    7   10  I, #1
Southern California          8-4    26-13    5   20  I, #2
Stanford                     7-5    24-15    8   21  I, #2
California                   7-8    27-18   27   63  BO
Washington                   4-8    24-17   28   61  BO

Cal and Washington are going to most likely be crying shames, although one of them could conceivably play their way in. USC West and Stanford are likely to be the scariest #2 seeds since, well, last year when they pulled the same crap, but you know what I mean.

There's an interesting phenomenon going on out West in regards to hosting this year. The two best candidates to host are Arizona State and Oregon State, assuming that Oregon State addresses their capacity problem with some temporary bleachers or something. That leaves Fullerton, USC West, and Stanford to scrap for a third site, with Fullerton having a slight edge at the moment. It's possible, if I'm being optimistic, that that might actually help some teams -- with only one California regional available, more teams are going to have to travel, and the logistics of getting somewhere back East aren't much different from getting to Tempe or Corvallis. We'll see, but there might be good things here.

                            Conf    All    ISR  RPI  Status

Florida                     13-5    30-10   10    4  I, N#1
Alabama                     11-7    30-13   34   27  I, #2
Tennessee                   10-7    30-13   40   32  I, #3
South Carolina              10-8    30-11   24   18  I, #2
Louisiana State             10-8    29-13   13    9  I, N#1
Mississippi State            9-8    28-12   30   26  I, #2
Vanderbilt                   9-9    28-12   26   12  I, #1
Mississippi                  9-9    29-13   17    7  I, #1
Arkansas                     8-10   32-11   14   19  I, #1
Auburn                       8-10   26-17   44   16  I, #2
Georgia                      6-11   22-18   53   29  BO

You want the really bad news? Kentucky is improving at the programatic and recruiting level.

Realistically, the only way the conference doesn't get ten bids at this point is if the committee decides that ten is too many. I can't predict that decision one way or the other. It's worth noting, though, that although the RPI does come in too high on most of them, the ISR's show the top ten here to be tournament-worthy. I'll guess that Florida, LSU, USC East, Arkansas, and Ole Miss get to host, but there's a lot of ball between now and that decision.

There's an oddity going on here and in the ACC in that several teams who would usually get a #1 based on RPI -- Clemson, NCSU, Vandy, Ole Miss, Arkansas, and Auburn -- are mired lower than expected in the standings. I'm assuming that situation will sort itself out, so any of that group could float between a #1 and a #2, and Southern California or Stanford could also slip in.

                            Conf    All    ISR  RPI  Status

College of Charleston       16-2    32-9    37   24  I, #2
Georgia Southern            13-4    28-12   47   23  I, #2
Elon                        15-9    26-18   81   57  BO

                            Conf    All    ISR  RPI  Status

Louisiana-Lafayette          9-3    36-8    16   13  I, #1
South Alabama               10-5    26-18   60   39  BI, #3

Louisiana-Lafayette is the current sixteenth host team; they'll need to end well.

Rather than keep returning to the subject of pitch counts and pitcher usage in general too often for my main theme, I'm just going to run a standard feature down here where I point out potential problems; feel free to stop reading above this if the subject doesn't interest you. This will just be a quick listing of questionable starts that have caught my eye -- the general threshold for listing is 120 actual pitches or 130 estimated, although short rest will also get a pitcher listed if I catch it. Don't blame me; I'm just the messenger.

(*) Pitch count is estimated.

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Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> A Serious Look at the Tournament

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