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The Way the World Should Be

Publication Date: May 18, 2004

My World, And Welcome to It

I'm going to go all Andy Rooney on you this week. Instead of continuing with the Kremlin-watching aspects of our sport and trying to predict what the selection committee will do, I'm going to tell you what the field would look like in Boyd's World. They'll have the advantage of knowing what will happen in the next two weeks by the time they make their choices, but I have the advantage of knowing the following things, so I'm willing to bet my list is better than theirs in the end.

My rules for selection are simple. Finish first in your conference (there are no conference tournaments except perhaps for the SEC and Big 12 in Boyd's World; we'd think about getting rid of automatic bids, but I think we'd keep them while possibly reintroducing playin rounds) or be one of the best remaining 34 teams, and you're in. For conferences with divisions, I just picked one. Near the margins for the at large bids and around the boundaries between the seeding tiers, I looked at conference standings, head-to-head results, and mitigating factors in cases where the ISR's were unclearly close. I'm not listing sites, because I don't care; despite the general home field advantage, there's not enough evidence to know if it matters here (it may just be that the home field advantage is due to batting last, which is negated in the postseason) and no evidence that home teams win regionals more often than they should.

In bold for those intent on missing it: This is not a prediction; this is what should happen and won't. Regionals are listed in seed order with ISR rankings for reference:

  1 Stanford                         14 South Carolina
 33 Notre Dame                       19 Oregon State  
 32 Nebraska                         54 Birmingham-Southern
202 Southern                         55 College of Charleston

  2 Texas                            16 Arkansas
 30 Washington State                 18 Oklahoma
 34 UC Riverside                     49 Central Florida
197 Bethune-Cookman                  59 Minnesota

  3 Rice                             15 Arizona
 31 Texas Tech                       17 Florida
 35 Tulane                           44 UC Santa Barbara
173 LeMoyne                          74 George Mason

  4 Long Beach State                 12 Miami, Florida
 29 Florida State                    20 Vanderbilt
 36 San Diego                        45 North Carolina
155 Central Michigan                 76 South Alabama

  5 Arizona State                    13 UC Irvine
 28 Lamar                            21 Georgia
 37 Wichita State                    47 Auburn
139 Princeton                        81 Nevada-Las Vegas

  6 Washington                       11 Cal State Fullerton
 27 Oral Roberts                     22 Southern Mississippi
 38 Loyola Marymount                 43 Tennessee
135 Central Connecticut State        98 Austin Peay State

  7 Louisiana State                  10 East Carolina
 26 Virginia                         23 Georgia Tech
 39 Southern California              42 Baylor
130 Northeastern                    112 George Washington

  8 Texas A&M                         9 Mississippi
 25 UCLA                             24 Oklahoma State
 40 Cal Poly                         41 Clemson
127 Army                            123 Illinois-Chicago

Some surprises or points worth pondering:

Tournament Watch

In keeping with what I've been doing since the conference seasons began, here are my predictions for who will actually get in as of this week:

Atlantic 10      Oral Roberts          Texas Tech             Arizona State
America East     Rice                  Baylor                 Washington
CAA              Wichita State         Minnesota              Arizona
Horizon          Florida State         Penn State             UCLA
Ivy              North Carolina        Notre Dame             Louisiana State
MAAC             Georgia Tech          Pittsburgh             Mississippi
MAC              Virginia              Birmingham-Southern    South Carolina
Mountain West    Clemson               Coastal Carolina       Florida
NEC              North Carolina State  UC Irvine              Arkansas
OVC              Central Florida       Long Beach State       Tennessee
Patriot          Florida Atlantic      Cal State Fullerton    Auburn
SWAC             Texas                 College of Charleston  Vanderbilt
Sun Belt         Texas A&M             Southern Mississippi   Georgia
WCC              Nebraska              East Carolina          Mississippi State
Bethune-Cookman  Oklahoma              Tulane                 Texas State
Miami            Oklahoma State        Stanford               Lamar

Pitch Count Watch

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.

Date   Team   Pitcher   Opponent   IP   H   R   ER   BB   SO   AB   BF   Pitches
May 07 Western Kentucky Hinchman New Mexico State 8.1 1 2 2 12 8 24 38 177
May 14 Georgia Tech Micah Owings Clemson 8.0 4 2 2 4 7 27 32 129
May 14 Northwestern J. A. Happ Ohio State 9.0 6 1 1 1 5 33 34 128
May 14 Ohio State Josh Newman Northwestern 9.0 6 4 2 1 6 34 36 133
May 14 Oklahoma State Thomas Cowley Texas Tech 7.0 5 2 2 4 3 27 32 141
May 14 Kansas Mike Zagurski Missouri 7.2 8 6 5 4 8 29 34 143
May 14 North Carolina-Asheville Gehris Birmingham-Southern 7.0 10 5 5 4 1 30 35 121
May 14 Cal State Fullerton Jason Windsor UC Irvine 9.0 5 0 0 0 8 32 33 121
May 14 UC Irvine Brett Smith Cal State Fullerton 9.0 9 3 3 3 9 34 39 121
May 14 William and Mary Shaver James Madison 9.0 3 0 0 3 13 29 33 141(*)
May 14 George Mason Eric Gibbons Delaware 9.0 4 0 0 1 7 32 34 126
May 14 Youngstown State Justin Thomas Illinois-Chicago 8.0 13 8 5 1 9 37 40 128
May 14 Toledo J. R. Duffey Bowling Green 9.0 11 8 4 1 11 39 43 154(*)
May 14 Eastern Michigan Ryan Ford Akron 9.0 8 0 0 1 11 33 35 140
May 14 Western Illinois James Kalinowski Valparaiso 9.0 3 2 2 3 10 31 36 148(*)
May 14 Southwest Missouri State Derek Drage Wichita State 8.0 7 5 4 4 9 31 35 143(*)
May 14 Utah Price Nevada-Las Vegas 8.0 9 8 8 1 7 29 35 133
May 14 Mississippi Mark Holliman Florida 7.2 9 2 2 2 7 28 31 127
May 14 Western Kentucky Grady Hinchman Arkansas-Little Rock 6.0 6 3 3 5 7 22 29 121
May 14 Gonzaga Eric Dworkis St. Mary's 8.0 12 7 7 2 9 35 39 150(*)
May 14 San Francisco Derek Tate Portland 9.0 8 6 6 2 6 36 38 147(*)
May 15 Vermont Chris Blazek Binghamton 7.0 3 0 0 8 8 22 31 138(*)
May 15 Indiana Nick Vitielliss Michigan 9.0 6 1 1 3 3 34 37 132
May 15 Texas A&M Zach Jackson Kansas State 9.0 5 0 0 3 13 32 35 148(*)
May 15 George Mason Stacen Gant Delaware 8.0 5 3 3 4 8 29 35 136
May 15 Cincinnati Aaron Moll Memphis 9.0 5 0 0 3 5 33 36 122
May 15 Memphis Jarrett Grube Cincinnati 7.2 3 0 0 2 10 25 30 137
May 15 Louisville B. J. Rosenberg Houston 7.0 9 4 4 5 1 29 35 130
May 15 Youngstown State C. Dennis Illinois-Chicago 9.0 3 0 0 6 13 27 34 139(*)
May 15 Miami, Ohio Graham Taylor Northern Illinois 9.0 7 3 1 1 2 36 37 129
May 15 Buffalo Eric Kelly Central Michigan 7.0 8 5 5 6 5 27 36 142(*)
May 15 Central Michigan T. J. Johnson Buffalo 9.0 5 2 2 5 14 30 38 149(*)
May 15 Western Illinois Patrick Kohorst Valparaiso 9.0 7 2 2 3 7 32 36 139(*)
May 15 Indiana State Brian Woods Illinois State 9.0 11 4 3 3 2 37 41 146(*)
May 15 Arizona State Jason Urquidez Oregon State 8.1 9 1 1 2 12 33 36 133
May 15 Mississippi State Alan Johnson Arkansas 8.2 9 2 2 0 5 31 34 131
May 15 South Alabama Doan New Mexico State 8.0 9 4 4 4 6 33 37 123
May 16 Seton Hall Joey Scott St. John's 8.0 10 4 3 4 6 33 39 148(*)
May 16 Liberty Jason Jones Coastal Carolina 9.0 4 3 2 0 9 31 31 134
May 16 North Carolina-Asheville Cook Birmingham-Southern 10.0 7 3 2 3 11 38 42 154
May 16 George Mason Brent Hitz Delaware 9.0 6 2 2 1 3 32 35 126
May 16 Iona Sean Kramer Rider 7.1 11 5 3 5 6 35 41 161(*)
May 16 Eastern Michigan Will Stewardson Akron 9.0 4 2 2 4 2 30 35 121
May 16 Tennessee Tech Hughes Southeast Missouri State 8.0 8 3 3 7 9 31 39 154(*)
May 16 Georgia Southern Josh Lairsey The Citadel 9.0 8 4 2 1 5 34 36 121
May 17 Iona Marty Hand Rider 9.0 8 2 2 3 4 33 38 141(*)
May 18 Savannah State Carlos Markyna Coastal Carolina 6.0 3 4 1 5 5 22 28 122
May 18 Louisiana Tech Mitch Tucker Louisiana-Monroe 9.0 6 1 1 2 9 33 35 130

The Hinchman correction is from an actual pitch count, showing that the estimator doesn't always go high when it misses.

(*) Pitch count is estimated.

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Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> The Way the World Should Be About the author, Boyd Nation