May 26, 2014

 

Reaction to Regionals

 

By Sean Ryan

CollegeBaseballInsider.com Co-Founder

Sean@collegebaseballinsider.com @collbaseball

 

A lot has changed over the 13 seasons our site has covered Division I college baseball. I used to stay up later the night before Selection Monday, churning out copy and arguing with co-founder Phil Stanton more about who would be in and who would be out. I used to wake up after a couple hours of sleep an go through our projections at least another 10 times. During the Selection Show, I’d post instant reaction to our site – so old school and much more of a hassle than Twitter. And then when the Regional pairings were announced, I used to spit out rapid reaction and post to the site, often kindly ripping the selection committee for some (or many) injustices.

 

I was still up late last night, and Phil and I still bounced a few teams around. I feverishly jotted down the teams and Tweeted out some reaction as my kids took turns of “Who can be the loudest kid in the neighborhood?” and “Does it hurt when I do this?” Instead of firing off thoughts in this column within an hour or so, I went 3 for 3 in nap time (sorry to gloat, but I’ll take a 3 for 3 day in getting the kids to sleep any day).

 

Maybe it’s these life changes that have settled me down this year. Or maybe the selection committee did a good job. Or maybe, similar to last year, the cases for the haves and have-nots were so similar that it’s tougher to argue.

 

One thing that hasn’t changed, however, is that the committee sure likes the power conferences.

 

Dennis Farrell, chair of the NCAA Baseball Selection Committee, told ESPN viewers that were Clemson, North Carolina, Texas A&M and UC Irvine were the last four in. That left Mercer out of the Atlantic Sun and UCF out of the American Athletic Conference as two of the first four out (along with USC and West Virginia, big-program schools that had just-above .500 records that I might not have put ahead of the likes of Illinois or UC Santa Barbara).

 

We felt pretty certain about North Carolina (NCAA RPI 42) and Texas A&M (39). We were more uncertain about UC Irvine (44) and Stanford (45), which apparently was very safe after sweeping Utah (4-26 in Pac-12).

 

We thought two from the batch of Stanford, UCF (48), Mercer (46) and Clemson (49) would get in, and UC Santa Barbara (50) would fall victim to Cal State Fullerton’s (54) late run, even though UCSB won its series with Fullerton. We took Stanford and UCF; the committee took Stanford and Clemson.

 

Mercer was a team with an RPI in the mid-20s just a couple weeks ago, but finished 2-6 including losing three of four to Stetson and dropping two straight in the A-Sun tourney. Couple that with the fact that the Bears didn’t win the regular-season title and had a 13-0 mark against teams rated 201 or lower (per WarrenNolan.com), and we took a late eraser to Mercer as we tried to predict what the committee would do. Still, we paused again. A win on the road at SEC regular-season champ and No. 2 national seed Florida, two wins against ACC tourney champ Georgia Tech, three wins against MVC regular-season champ Evansville looked nice.  

 

UCF was tougher for us to erase. The Knights, playing with a lot of new faces in the new American Athletic Conference, took a little while to get going. We liked that they finished second behind Louisville and in front of Houston, one team a host and the other a near-host. We thought that would be enough. We also liked that UCF beat FSU (1 of 3), split with Miami and took two of three from Louisville. The tough part here is that the Knights proved they could play with anyone on their schedule (47 strength of schedule), but may have been one or two wins away. And to think, they had two extra-inning, one-run losses at Ole Miss and one-run losses to Miami, Louisville, Florida State and Houston (not to mention eight other one-run losses, including three in extra innings; losing two one-runners at UConn the last weekend of the year ended up hurting). Talk about close.

 

As for Clemson, we thought the 15-14 ACC mark could play a big role. But we also thought the 15-18 combined record against the top 100 per WarrenNolan.com (compared to 10-12 for UCF) might open the door for another team. Wins over Duke and Miami in the ACC tourney made up for a late-season league series loss to Boston College and a single loss to Notre Dame. The Tigers, too, proved they could play with the ACC’s best, going 2-7 against national seeds Virginia and Florida State and near-national seed Miami, with three of the losses by a single run. They also won two of two at Maryland, wins that got bigger and bigger as the Terps had staying power.   

 

Mercer, UCF and Clemson all had highs and lows. It had to be very close.

 

Some thoughts from inside the bracket:

  • No real issues with any of the national seeds or hosts. We predicted each of the national seeds in a little different order. We had long thoughts about Houston hosting a Regional over Louisville after winning the AAC title game between the two teams and its RPI of 10.

  • Florida was chosen as the No. 2 national seed, yet the committee didn’t do the Gators any favors. College of Charleston (RPI 53) is the four-seed, North Carolina (42) is the three and Long Beach State (29) is the two. We get that Charleston is within driving distance of Gainesville, but we thought Bethune-Cookman could have been sent to Gainesville and Charleston to Miami (or Columbia and shift a couple other teams). When you look at Miami’s Regional, which is paired with Gainesville, the RPIs look like this: Bethune-Cookman (208), Columbia (35) and Texas Tech (17).

  • We’ve complained in the past about similar matchups year after year, and the committee did a good job of avoiding that. It’s tough not to like the Texas/Texas A&M matchup in the Houston (Rice) Regional. Kentucky staying close for the Louisville Regional. Old Big 12 rivals Nebraska and Oklahoma State in Stillwater. Old friends with Clemson and coach Jack Leggett visiting Vanderbilt and protégé Tim Corbin. You have to think the committee thought hard about sending North Carolina to South Carolina, but it’s refreshing to see some creativity, which was dictated in part by a more diverse geographic Regional breakdown.