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:
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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.
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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).
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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.
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