Hello everyone! Which conference tournaments are you most excited for? Being a Louisiana guy, I have an interest in quite a few. SEC notwithstanding, I'm keeping my eye on the American. Tulane winning 2 of the 3 in Charlotte and getting some help from Memphis getting a game vs Wichita State pushed Tulane to 3rd in the conference. I'm glad that Tulane got it's way out of the Pirate side of the bracket. Aside from a bad Mother's Day weekend/midweek, ECU seems to have righted the ship at the right time. While I have faith in Tulane's ability to win the conference tournament again, I'd much rather avoid a ECU team that seems to be getting Root back in the rotation and that is coming off a sweep vs Rice. Tulane playing a night game and not a 9 AM CT game gets some extra rest for Fladda and Welch also with the Charlotte series including a Thursday DH. Tulane could make another run after finishing with 16 more regular season wins than last year's historically low mark.
Thoughts on the American Conference tournament? Which tournament are you looking forward to?
I'll be a buzzkill first and say that I do not like postseason conference tournaments. To me all they do is potentially reward a team that gets hot for 4 days with a trip to the NCAA tourney. The resume should be built on 14 weeks of work, not 4-5 days.
Now, with that out of the way the obvious answer is the SEC/ACC because that's where the best baseball is from a depth standpoint. So I'll ignore those as too obvious.
The mid-majors conferences that have a clear leader who doesn't have an auto-bids resume is where I'll focus. The A-SUN ended in a 3 way tie for first but likely only 1 of them will make the tourney. Talk about do or die.
The Big East and Big South have good teams with not great resumes from an RPI standpoint. Better do good or you'll start your summer early. Same for the Southland. The Sun Belt is one of the few conferences where tourney results could make a big difference in final RPI and possible at-large even without winning the tourney.
@sean-miller I love the conference tournaments for the reason you hate them. I love the story of a team who had little to no shot of getting in the Final 64 except through one path: winning the conference tournament. I also think conference tournaments are great resume builders for teams who need a a bit more of a push to get in(looking at you LSU). They also provide a chance for smaller conferences to potentially become 2 or 3 bid leagues(like the American with ECU and Tulane last season) which gets more exposure for the conference and teams. I also think a team like ECU and other bubble hosts like DBU, UCSB, and Georgia can strengthen their positions from that standpoint as well. I respectfully disagree with you there.
Sorry, didn't mean to try to pee on your parade. Bank to the question at hand... In the American I'm very excited to see how ECU plays. Do they try to win it all or rest some guys for the regionals? With Wake, and to a lesser extent Oregon State and FSU stubbing their toes it might open up a small window for ECU to steal the #8 spot. If they don't I'd love to see the Roadrunners make a move.
Other than the American what tourneys catch your eye? The PAC has been garbage this year but this is their last ever tourney before they scatter teams to the four winds... Can USC or Utah get hot and steal a bid?
@sean-miller I think ECU plays to try and get back into top 8 territory. I think if they go two and out they fall out of being a host all together so I don't see a benefit there. As far as other tournaments, I'll probably be keeping an eye on the Sunbelt and Southland just from a local perspective. PAC12 baseball hasn't interested me much in years and that won't change with this being the last year. It is disappointing the way college athletics is trending with the dissolving of conferences like the PAC12 though.
@brenton-dufrene-iii I think Conference USA could be really interesting too. DBU and LaTech are the class, but can Sam Houston make a run and get back to their early season form? If so DBU and LaTech would still be in as at-large teams.
Same for the Big East. UConn would be in as an at-large, but if there's a bid-steal it could get fun. They only invite 4 teams to their conference tourney, so if St. John's or Xavier get's hot that would move them to a 3 bid league.
I could see some random team winning the Big 12 tourney this year too. It's been such an odd year for that conference I wouldn't be at all surprised if K-State, Kansas or Cincinnati went on some kind of run and stole a bid. UCF, K-State, TCU all need to improve their stock a little this week to be more comfortable as an at-large.
The Coastal Athletic Conf is top heavy, but a couple of those teams probably need some help. Northeastern, UNCW and Charleston could duke it out in some really fun games. Could Campbell or Stony Brook punch someone in the nose and mess things up?
