For a day, or a tournament, David beat Goliath in the eyes of the selection committee for the NCAA Tournament.
Northeastern, boasting an RPI of 35 and the Colonial Athletic Association regular-season title, earned one of the last four precious spots into college baseball’s Field of 64. Among those being shunned by the committee were Kentucky (RPI of 30), Arizona (46) and Illinois (47).
The omission of Kentucky’s Wildcats – and for some, Arizona’s Wildcats – at the expense of Northeastern – and to some extent, Dallas Baptist and Troy – raised the most eyebrows of all the choices made by the committee.
When making final projections for the field, the Wildcats got our nod over the Huskies – we just didn’t envision the committee leaving Kentucky out and putting Northeastern in. We thought DBU and Troy, by virtue of topping 40 wins and finishing second in their leagues, would narrowly make the cut. The national power in addition to Kentucky we were most concerned about missing the field was Oklahoma State, which dropped 10 of 12 after sweeping rival Oklahoma to end April. Of note, each of those teams had an RPI lower than Northeastern’s 35.
But we don’t have too much of a gripe with the Huskies getting the call. Too many times in the past has a team from the Northeast, Midwest or West gone out and played a rigorous schedule to get an RPI worthy of a bid, only to be turned away. And again, it begs the question: Should the committee take the 10th or 11th team from the SEC or the first or second team from a mid-major? This year, it took the likes of Northeastern, Troy and Dallas Baptist.
Kentucky has a beef. Sixteen Top 50 wins, 22 if you go to the Top 100 – 22-20 against that competition. That compares to 9-16 for the Huskies, including only three Top 50 wins. The metrics seem to favor the Wildcats, but as committee chair Ray Tanner pointed out, Kentucky’s 13-17 regular-second record in SEC play (and 0-1 in the tourney) was a major factor in the Wildcats being left out.
Illinois and Arizona are other power-conference teams that fell just short. The Fighting Illini split with Coastal Carolina and had a win over Arizona in a season when only 12 games – including eight against league opponents – were against teams with an RPI lower than 150. That’s pretty impressive scheduling for a team from the Midwest. And Arizona appears to have fallen victim to the sub-.500 standard set by the committee after going 15-16 in the Pac-12. Would a 16-15 record have done the trick? If so, the Wildcats were even closer than that: eight of their 16 league losses came by a single run. So, a team that went 5-1 against Oregon State and UCLA also missed by a whisker.
UCF also was on the outside looking in after going 8-7 down the stretch before losing to NCAA Tourney teams East Carolina and Houston in the American Athletic Conference tourney.
How’d We Do?: After going 64 for 64 last year, we went 63 for 64 this year in projecting what the committee would do with the field. We included Kentucky and left Northeastern out. Our last six in were Kentucky, Troy, Oklahoma State, Dallas Baptist, Ohio State and Washington; our first five out were Northeastern, UCF, Illinois, Arizona and Louisiana. We also picked all eight national seeds correctly, although our order was a bit different than the committee’s. As for predicting where teams would be sent, we were kind of meh. In only one Regional (Stanford) did we pick three of the four teams – Cal State Fullerton going to Stanford seemed logical, but we also correctly put Baylor in that spot. Another decent pick was correctly sending South Carolina to Greenville when the Gamecocks could have been sent to Chapel Hill, Conway or even (gasp!), Clemson. We’ll try to do better next year!
What About Our Preseason Picks? For the first time, we predicted the Field of 64 in the preseason. We correctly picked the following from what we anticipated to be one-bid leagues: Stetson, Saint Louis, St. John’s, UNC Wilmington, Wright State, Columbia, Kent State, Morehead State, Oral Roberts and New Mexico State. We also picked a bevy of other teams correctly from multi-bid leagues. However, we missed on the Southland Conference, picking Sam Houston State and Southeastern Louisiana, who ended up the top two teams in the league, to make the tourney – Northwestern State foiled those picks. In all, 39 teams that we picked in the preseason made the Field of 64.
Notables: Overall, the committee did a really good job. It’s always hard to predict what it will deem most important: RPI, road wins, strong finish, etc. It’s also hard to predict where teams will be sent. We know we’re nitpicking a little bit, but here are a few thoughts…
- The committee sent Vanderbilt and John’s to the Clemson Regional for the second year in a row. That’s a mistake that shouldn’t have happened as the committee easily can take a quick glance to see where teams returning to the tournament went the year before. Sometimes, geography makes it practical to send a team to the same Regional (Missouri State going to Fayetteville several times, for instance, or Cal State Fullerton going to Stanford). For what it’s worth, we had Vanderbilt going to Chapel Hill and St. John’s going to Corvallis. Our Clemson Regional looked like this: Clemson, LSU, Troy and Samford.
- Speaking of Vanderbilt and John’s, we thought the Red Storm (RPI 27) should have been the 2 and the Commodores (RPI 38) the 3 instead of the other way around. We also had Missouri State as a 2 and Southern Miss as a 3, but the committee saw it the other way.
- The committee missed an opportunity to spread out the Regionals by rewarding Connecticut as a host. With an RPI of 16, it seemed a logical choice, especially when it was pretty certain there would have been four Regionals in North Carolina and South Carolina. Either NC State or Coastal Carolina could have hosted. Both didn’t need to host in this case, making it five Regional sites in the Carolinas.
- We’ll get into the Regionals themselves later this week, but we’re always intrigued by what happens to the four-seeds. The national seeds seemingly should draw some of the weaker No. 4s around the country, right? Yes, we know travel plays a factor. But Wright State, with an RPI of 69, being sent to Stanford, the No. 2 national seed doesn’t make sense when teams like Long Island (213), Columbia (184), Harford (150) and Canisius (133) could have hopped that flight since each school was limited with nearby Regional sites. With a Regional that includes the Big 12 champ (Baylor) and Big West champ (Cal State Fullerton), we thought a lower-RPI team like Columbia would have been a better choice.