Quote:
Originally Posted by SnDvls
Fullerton does...they can pretty much punch their ticket to Omaha. If they fail it will be a major failure.
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ASU's is almost as easy.
The Road to Omaha | Barking Carnival
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tigercat
This isn't about East or West, I don't even consider the Big 12 the "West" when it comes to college baseball.
Check in with Baseball America, who every year pimps Western teams exclusively if they can. (And were big Big 12 conference supporters before this year.) They are absolutely killing the committees selections, for the same reasons I am. Oklahoma St and Baylor had no business being in the field this year. The only thing OSU and Baylor had going for them is RPI and my other complaint, non conference scheduling.
Heavily rewarding teams in college baseball for scheduling strong non conference teams is horrendous bullshit. Any person who has followed college baseball for a long time knows that you are almost just as likely to lose to a decent small conference team in the mid week games or in the early season as you are really good teams. This is because your rotation isn't set or used for those games, it gets set and prepared for conference games.
To reward Oklahoma State heavily for squeaking by good teams in OOC when both teams aren't throwing their regular pitches or the bullpen isn't at full strength yet, and then to ignore the fact that when Oklahoma State does come at full strength in the conference slate Oklahoma State was HORRIBLE..... How can anyone defend that?
RPI alone, and especially RPI influenced by OOC scheduling has no buisness being the sole factor determining the field of teams for college baseball, period. And this year it was.
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Well, I agree that college baseball RPI is terrible. But Okie State had more than just that going for it.
They're a good baseball team, they split two games at East Carolina, beat Oregon State at that neutral site, split with Fullerton at home, etc.
And if you don't reward teams for scheduling tough non-conference games, then you encourage them to schedule weak non-conference games. Furthermore, with the condensed schedule these days, winning mid-week games now that there are usually two and not just one requires pitching depth, something that can come up again during the regionals.