A Better Field

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A Better Field

Publication Date: May 17, 2005

Barking at the Moon

This is my annual last barbaric yawp, pointing out that things could be better before I settle down with the rest of you and swallow what the committee dishes out. Take a look at last year's intro for explanations of why this would be a better way of doing things.

My field, with ISR rankings because the names look naked by themselves:

  1 Oregon State                             18 Louisiana State
 31 Clemson                                  17 Cal Poly
 33 Northwestern State                       54 Troy
216 North Carolina A&T                       62 Brigham Young

  2 Cal State Fullerton                      16 Miami, Florida
 32 Washington                               14 Arkansas
 34 Mississippi State                        50 Michigan
208 Northeastern                             69 Illinois

  3 Texas                                    15 Stanford
 30 Florida                                  19 College of Charleston
 36 Texas Christian                          47 Georgia
202 Quinnipiac                               70 Ball State

  4 Tulane                                   13 Pepperdine
 29 North Carolina State                     20 Georgia Tech
 35 Vanderbilt                               46 Texas Tech
176 Marist                                   71 Oral Roberts

  5 Southern California                      11 Nebraska
 28 Southern Mississippi                     22 California
 37 Alabama                                  43 Auburn
171 Southern                                 80 North Carolina-Wilmington

  6 Long Beach State                         12 Arizona
 26 North Carolina                           21 San Francisco
 38 Tennessee                                45 Oklahoma
164 Harvard                                 100 St. John's

  7 Baylor                                   10 Rice
 27 UC Irvine                                23 Florida State
 39 Creighton                                42 South Carolina
126 Illinois-Chicago                        101 Austin Peay State

  8 Mississippi                               9 Arizona State
 25 Coastal Carolina                         24 Louisiana-Lafayette
 41 Wichita State                            40 Winthrop
125 George Washington                       122 Army

One of the common fan laments when looking ahead to the field goes something like, "Oh, they'll never let all of our teams get through; they'll put them together." I'm struck from looking at this just how many great matchups fell out just by arranging the teams as nearly as possible in order, swapping my beliefs in team quality only to avoid disallowed intraconference matchups. A Baylor-Rice super would be great fun, while the potential for an LSU-OSU matchup would be interesting.
One of the spots where I went against the ISR's was in essentially swapping Arkansas and LSU. Arkansas went 24-1 outside the conference against essentially no one of consequence and is a different team now because of a couple of major suspensions. That does leave a couple of cases where the #2 seed is slightly higher than the #1 seed in the ISR's.
The last spots came down to Texas A&M, Missouri, Georgia, Michigan, and East Carolina, with the decision coming down to Georgia and Michigan due to momentum and uncertainty about their quality. All of these will juggle completely over the next couple of weeks (even Georgia, who will be idle next week), so don't obsess over them at this point.
Yes, there are eleven SEC teams in here, with Georgia as the only real questionable one (and I can't make a case for any of the other teams on that list above that takes them out). I can't think of a sillier statement than, "There's no way the eleventh (tenth, ninth, sixth, pick one) place team in a conference should get in." If you built a conference with Texas, Stanford, LSU, Miami, Rice, Florida State, South Carolina, Cal State Fullerton, Georgia Tech, and Florida, someone would finish tenth every year, and that team would deserve to get in pretty much every year. Make your case on the merits of the team, not on conference affiliation.
Before you get too excited about that #1 ranking lasting for Oregon State (although, frankly, it is exciting -- fresh blood is good for the game), I got to thinking about who they remind me of, and I think it's the 2000 South Carolina team -- a major conference team who had been bordering on breaking through nationally for a few years after a long history of badness and who finally put it all together. That doesn't prove anything, but the end for that USC East team is a reminder that postseason experience does seem to be worth something, and that might end up biting this year's OSU team.

Tournament Watch

This means absolutely nothing, ignore it.

This is one generic layman's predictions for who gets in the tournament. I'm not going to bother picking a team from the one-bid conferences, since the conference tournament will just be a crapshoot, but if I only list one team from a conference, they'll get an at large bid if they don't get the automatic bid.

America East    Florida State         Long Beach State     Tennessee
A10             North Carolina        Cal State Fullerton  Mississippi State
Big East        North Carolina State  Cal Poly             Northwestern State
CAA             Georgia Tech          Oregon State         Wichita State
Horizon         Clemson               Stanford             Creighton
MAAC            Troy                  Arizona State        East Carolina
MAC             Central Florida       Arizona              Tulane
Mid-Continent   Florida Atlantic      Southern California  Southern Mississippi
Mountain West   Texas                 Louisiana State      Texas Christian
NEC             Nebraska              Mississippi          College of Charleston
OVC             Oklahoma              South Carolina       Georgia Southern
SWAC            Baylor                Florida              Pepperdine
Army            Oklahoma State        Arkansas             San Francisco
Rice            Missouri              Alabama              Louisiana-Lafayette
Illinois        Winthrop              Auburn               North Carolina A&T
Miami, Florida  Coastal Carolina      Vanderbilt           Harvard

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 13	Appalachian State	Chad Antley	North Carolina-Greensboro	8.0	10	6	4	4	7	34	40	134
May 13	Alabama	Wade LeBlanc	Arkansas	6.2	6	3	3	3	8	24	29	125
May 13	Arkansas-Little Rock	Bennett Cromer	New Mexico State	6.0	9	9	8	5	4	28	33	134
May 13	Buffalo	Kurtz	Central Michigan	9.0	7	3	2	7	9	31	39	144(*)
May 13	Coastal Carolina	Ricky Shefka	North Carolina-Asheville	9.0	10	2	2	1	4	35	36	130
May 13	North Carolina-Asheville	Tim Johnson	Coastal Carolina	6.2	10	8	7	7	6	28	36	145
May 13	Georgia Southern	Dustin Evans	College of Charleston	7.2	9	5	4	2	5	31	39	129
May 13	Georgia State	Romas Hicks	Central Florida	7.2	5	1	1	2	10	30	35	143
May 13	Hartford	Cekovsky	Binghamton	8.0	5	8	6	5	5	28	38	139(*)
May 13	Texas Christian	Lance Broadway	Louisville	9.0	6	1	1	1	12	32	36	126
May 13	McNeese State	Jacob Marceaux	Texas State	9.0	9	3	3	6	9	35	41	155(*)
May 13	Florida	Bryan Ball	Mississippi State	8.1	8	2	2	5	5	30	36	130
May 13	Duke	Greg Burke	North Carolina State	5.0	6	8	8	4	7	20	26	123
May 13	Nicholls State	Mark Fernandez	Northwestern State	8.1	6	4	3	3	4	31	38	130
May 13	Northwestern	Evan Blesoff	Ohio State	9.0	8	7	7	3	6	34	40	145(*)
May 13	Oregon State	Dallas Buck	Washington	9.0	3	0	0	4	8	31	36	148(*)
May 13	Washington	Tim Lincecum	Oregon State	7.0	4	3	3	8	9	23	33	141(*)
May 13	New Mexico	Danny Ray Herrera	San Diego State	8.0	7	1	1	1	5	30	33	123
May 13	Mississippi	Mark Holliman	South Carolina	9.0	5	2	2	3	13	32	35	147(*)
May 13	South Dakota State	Josh Elliott	Southern Illinois	8.0	12	7	4	2	5	34	39	128
May 13	Southeastern Louisiana	Bernard Robert	Texas-Arlington	9.0	7	2	2	4	1	30	34	127
May 13	Texas-Arlington	Jake Baxter	Southeastern Louisiana	9.0	8	4	3	1	5	33	35	122
May 13	West Virginia	Fagler	Villanova	8.2	8	0	0	4	6	30	37	139
May 14	Wisconsin-Whitewater	Greg Reinhard	Wisconsin-Platteville	7.0	4	1	1	3	9	24	27	108(*)
May 14	Wisconsin-Whitewater	Greg Reinhard	Wisconsin-Stevens Point	5.0	1	1	1	2	8	16	18	77(*)
May 14	North Carolina-Greensboro	Chris Mason	Appalachian State	9.0	9	3	3	3	7	32	38	138(*)
May 14	Arkansas-Little Rock	Nick Enlow	New Mexico State	6.0	9	4	4	3	7	26	30	133
May 14	Austin Peay State	Rowdy Hardy	Eastern Kentucky	9.0	8	2	1	1	6	35	37	136
May 14	Murray State	Billy Fares	Jacksonville State	7.0	11	6	6	1	6	31	34	125
May 14	Marist	Chris Tracz	Siena	9.0	11	4	2	3	6	36	40	122
May 14	Florida	Alan Horne	Mississippi State	9.0	9	1	1	2	9	35	37	130
May 14	Nicholls State	Marcus Markray	Northwestern State	7.0	5	4	3	2	11	25	27	124
May 14	Troy	Landon Brazell	Stetson	8.1	6	2	2	5	4	30	37	152
May 15	Arkansas-Little Rock	Trevor Clay	New Mexico State	6.2	12	5	5	2	5	32	34	124
May 15	Clemson	Robert Rohrbaugh	Wake Forest	6.2	10	5	5	3	6	28	31	132
May 15	Wake Forest	Charlie Mellies	Clemson	9.0	14	6	6	1	4	38	40	130
May 15	Northern Illinois	Brian Smith	Miami, Ohio	9.0	4	2	2	1	5	27	32	121
May 15	Texas Tech	Tanner McElroy	Nebraska	7.0	5	2	0	6	3	26	32	123
May 15	North Carolina	Daniel Bard	Florida State	5.1	7	5	5	5	5	23	29	121
May 15	Oral Roberts	Rene Recio	Western Illinois	9.0	5	3	2	4	5	32	37	142(*)
May 15	Western Illinois	Ryan Schmidgall	Oral Roberts	7.2	9	9	3	5	3	31	37	131(*)
May 15	Massachusetts	Keith Doherty	Rhode Island	7.1	7	5	5	6	4	27	34	132
May 15	Samford	C. Tidwel	Tennessee-Martin	9.0	9	1	0	3	3	35	39	144(*)
May 15	South Alabama	P. J. Walters	Arkansas State	9.0	12	5	4	0	8	39	41	152
May 15	Southeastern Louisiana	Jeremy Mizell	Texas-Arlington	9.0	8	2	2	0	5	35	36	122
May 17	IPFW	Keegan Laycock	Ball State	8.1	10	4	4	3	6	33	37	142(*)
May 17	Northern Colorado	Craig Ayers	Oklahoma	6.2	6	3	3	7	1	27	35	126
May 17	South Dakota State	Tyson Bothof	Kansas State	6.0	7	8	8	8	3	25	33	123
May 17	Xavier	Mike Creevy	Akron	7.0	6	4	4	4	6	26	31	133
May 18	East Tennessee State	Jeremy Hall	North Carolina-Asheville	8.0	7	1	1	4	9	30	34	143(*)

(*) Pitch count is estimated.

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