As we enter the last weekend of conference play, a time of preparation for our best teams who’ve enjoyed the best seasons to congregate into a beautiful tournament to determine a champion, I’m bothered by a recurring question.
Why are we bending and contorting our bodies and squinting our eyes to try and find a way to get not one but 2 .500 OVERALL SEC teams into the tournament? As an SEC fan, I admit that the teams in this league have EVERY built in advantage. Best coaches, players, facilities, and scheduling advantages- yet you couldn’t muster up anything better than barely at or over .500?? Who cares if they manage to pull it off, do Florida and Ole Miss actually deserve to be in this tournament?
You’re baked in to have a high RPI regardless of your actual performance (see this season’s results) so don’t tell me about RPI. That work was done by their conference. What has either team done for themselves to deserve a shot? For Florida, was it when they lost to the likes of St John’s, UCF, Stetson, Jacksonville that did it for you? Maybe it was their being swept by Missouri? Perhaps the fact that FSU was their daddy this year? Was it the Vandy and South Carolina series losses? Seriously- what have they done?
Well, the baked in RPI is two sides of the same coin... The reason their RPI is guaranteed to be high is because they play 10-12 of the best teams in the nation. When you play the best teams You're going to lose a few, and admittedly they lost more than a few.
There's a few questions to consider...
- What is the goal of the selection committee? Is it to get the best at-large teams after all the auto-bids are filled? If so UF is likely one of the better, most talented teams remaining.
- How much do they weight mid-week games? UF was notoriously awful in mid-week this year. But that is primarily pitching guys that will never be seen in the tournament. It's an "experiment" day if you will. Get freshmen experience, work injured guys back into playing shape, etc. That's also true of their opponents but a Jacksonville is going to place a lot more emphasis on a midweek than the Gators are because it's critical to their RPI and tournament chances so they might pitch their better relievers if there's a chance if winning.
- Do you consider the conference? Clearly the answer is "Yes" but to what extent? Let's say you flip Indiana State and Florida... What is ISUs record? What is UFs if they're pitching Cags vs Valpo? I don't really know, nor does the committee, but the likely answers are "a lot worse" and "a lot better." It's hard for the committee to make those calls I'm sure.
The reality is that the 10th SEC team likely could win the Valley or the American. And they could do real damage in the post season as evidenced by Ole Miss' Natty two years ago. Hence the tortuous twisting of resumes. But it's also the reason the committee inserted the .500 requirement which will probably keep Ole Miss out.
Fantastic
As expected you told me what the conference and their schedule did to earn them a high RPI but I’m still clueless as to what either team has done to EARN a spot in the tournament.
- “they would win - name your conference-“. Ok so why did we bother playing 56 games if we’re gonna put teams in based on who we THINK would win a conference?
- they had quite literally EVERY advantage known to man and are gonna be at best a 50/50 - AKA- definitively mediocre ball club- and we’re stumping for them over other teams who’ve actually won games??
At the end of the day, I’d prefer to see teams earn their way in between the lines. This isn’t football where the biggest fastest strongest win 90% of the time. It’s baseball. The greatest equalizer sport.
@coachwadebucksbaseball-co So, who are you suggesting we put in above them? By the way, while I think UF will get in, I wouldn't be shocked if they don't. But it's not like we're talking about putting them in above a 45-7 team. They're competing with other teams that have more or less under-performed on the season compared to their competition. I'm not a UF fan, so I don't care if they make it. But let's say it's them or Kansas State... Kansas State is 15-15 in the #3 RPI conference, 31-22 overall. UF is 13-17 in the #1 RPI conference and 28-26 overall. They have series wins over A&M, LSU, Georgia... Kansas State has series wins over Oklahoma State and.... that's it. that's the only tourney team they won a series from.
I get that it can't be all about RPI, but RPI figures in the difficulty of the teams you play (with too much emphasis on road games, IMO). But it can't be all about record either or every team would just schedule 54 games against UM-Eastern Shore.
UF has an objectively better resume than a lot of teams. They should be one of the last 6-8 teams in the tournament as of today in my opinion.
give and take ... not for it either but a Florida team is better than KSTATE and others. College Football requires 50% win rate for post season spare not enough to play ...
Well, the Famous Five SEC teams at 13-17... UF loses and is eliminated. Their RPI is still in the upper 20s but the 13-18 conference record and 28-27 overall record could put them in jeopardy. At this point the other four (USCe, Vandy, Bama, LSU) should all be comfortably in the tourney. D1 still has UF in but I think they're just on the wrong side of the bubble.
If you can't win half of your conference games, even SEC, you don't deserve a chance to play for the championship.
