Crack of the Bat

by Blaine Clemmens

 

California College Teams

CALIFORNIA – Last spring I was as guilty as anyone of getting upset about the low number of West Coast teams the NCAA selection committee selected for the tournament.  I was fired up regarding the omission of schools like Cal, Cal Poly, San Francisco, and San Diego.  It is hard to fathom that top programs in the state which produces more Major League players and more draft picks than any other state gets so few selections from the NCAA tournament selection committee. 

 

By the way, the rest of this article is me making a case for more deserving West Coast teams getting in the tourney and questioning how the selection committee makes its choices, not a bashing of East Coast teams.  Too many average teams from the East have gotten in at the expense of better West Coast teams and that hurts the overall product.  Last year a #1 seed from the East was placed out West and went home without advancing past the regional. 

 

And by the way, I have friends that are coaches at schools in those power conferences back East and more than a handful of them have acknowledged my forthcoming point of view as valid.  But they would never say so publicly.  I don’t blame them.

 

I do understand why it happens the way it does.  It is clear that the selection committee places a ton of emphasis on the RPI, which is basically owned by a few conferences.  To get a higher RPI, teams have to play the SEC/ACC/Big 12 teams, but that is not as easy as it sounds.  Do you think Texas really wants to go back and play at University of San Diego again?  Yes if San Diego keeps playing a killer schedule, but no if USD plays a schedule that is more commensurate to wins.

 

Do you think those teams from the SEC want to give any of the RPI they own to the Pac-10 or Big West or WCC?  Nope. Why would they play a team like San Francisco when they could lose games AND give away RPI points?  Some of the power teams in those conferences play less than stellar non-conference schedules because they know they will earn RPI points in their conference season.  They load up on wins vs. that less than stellar non-conference competition and then work to be .500 in conference.  It is smart, as long as the committee puts so much emphasis on the RPI. 

 

Now it also means that teams like San Francisco should be scheduling stronger teams if they want a higher strength of schedule that will be more attractive to power teams from other conferences.  I acknowledge that the door swings both ways.  Of course, if a team like USF wants to have a chance to get 40 wins, they cannot do that playing weekend series against the Pac-10 and Big West teams in their region, teams that really don’t want to play a strong mid-major anyway, so they have to schedule other teams. 

 

Also consider that traveling from California back East is too expensive for a mid-major like San Francisco or San Diego.  It is very unlikely that a team from the SEC or ACC would pay a guarantee for USF to come out and play.  Why would they spend money and then have to worry about losing two of three?  I wouldn’t do it either.

 

If you don’t believe me, take a look at some of the teams’ non-conference schedules…look at the top teams from the SEC/ACC/Big 12 and compare their non-conference schedule to the top teams from the Pac-10, Big West, and WCC – outside of the tournaments they play in, when all the teams benefit from playing each other.  Most of the RPI they get comes from their conference schedule, which means they own the RPI.

 

If you really want to see a strong schedule, take a look at San Diego’s full schedule…wow.  http://usdtoreros.cstv.com/sports/m-basebl/sched/usd-m-basebl-sched.html

 

I was shocked last year at the omission of Cal, based upon their finish in the Pac-10, their place ahead of Stanford in the conference, and their excellent finish to end the season, which included taking two of three from Arizona in Tucson.  They were robbed and there is no other way to put it.  Cal won the games, they played a strong schedule, and they still got hosed.

 

Last year the Golden Bears took series against ASU and Stanford and at the beginning of the year they swept Long Beach State.  I just couldn’t have agreed less with the NCAA sending Virginia as an at-large to the Oregon State regional at the expense of the quality West Coast programs like Cal and USF, even UC Irvine had a case to make for being a regional quality team.  Consider that the Pac-10 eventually put two teams in the College World Series, yet the 5^th place team that finished over .500 in that league was not good enough to get in?  They were the first Pac-10 team to finish over .500 and not get into the tourney. 

 

Cal Poly would have been a legitimate contender to get to Omaha with their Friday/Saturday combo of Garrett Olson and Jimmy Shull.  Olson (1^st round supplemental - Orioles) and Shull (4^th round - Athletics) both had outstanding professional summers, but had to sit home in June and watch an average ACC club play in a regional on the West Coast.  What made things even more difficult to understand was that Cal Poly finished tied with Long Beach State in the Big West, with a 14-7 record, behind only Cal-State Fullerton.  Apparently it was not enough.  But why?  RPI.

 

As for San Francisco, they did not play the schedule that the others did, but their team ERA (2.86) and fielding percentage were in the top 10 in the nation.  Their weekend rotation was one of the best on the West Coast, with Friday pitcher Nick Pereira going in the 10^th round to the Giants and Sunday starter Scott Cousins rapidly appearing on all the follow lists for the 2006 draft.  Last I heard, pitching and defense give any team a chance to win and the Dons had a great staff and good defense.  Not to mention they play in a good conference that gets very little ink outside of the West, the West Coast Conference (WCC).

 

Well, in the 2006 preseason polls, San Diego, Cal, Cal Poly, and USF all earned solid recognition.  It looked as though each of those teams was at least starting the season in better shape on a national scale, which could only help at tourney selection time.  Those teams did not exactly get off to the start they were looking for and only two of them are making enough noise at this point to earn at-large consideration this year… USF and San Diego.

 

 

To be fair, they have played a good schedule but their record is going to hurt them.  The series win vs. UCLA this weekend was a step in the right direction and they have some quality series wins, just not enough overall wins. 

 

USF also got off to a bumpy start, but in the last month they have been hot, taking series from Oral Roberts, Pepperdine, and San Diego.  The Dons’ record vs. teams in the Top 25 at the time they played them is 5-2 and they are 4-1 vs. the Pac-10 (wins vs. Cal x2, Oregon State, Stanford, and a 9^th inning loss to Washington State).  Their schedule will not get them a lot of points with the selection committee and early on USF did not take advantage of that schedule.  As it was last year with USF, their Friday and Saturday starters (Jr. LHP Scott Cousins/So. LHP Aaron Poreda) are good enough to beat anyone in the nation and their Sunday guy (Sr. RHP Patrick McGuigan) has nine wins.  Offense is a question mark for the Dons, as is a defense that has been hit hard with injuries. 

 

As for Cal Poly, they are again a talented club, particularly so on the mound.  The Mustangs were16-10 at the start but since then are 8-10, currently sitting at 24-20.  They have a legit 1^st round type prospect that pitches on Fridays, RHP Gary Daley and another hard throwing RHP, Bud Norris, that is also getting top five round consideration.  Cal Poly’s schedule has been pretty strong, and they play in a conference (Big West) that is loaded at the top every year with Cal State Fullerton and Long Beach State, among others such as UC Riverside and UC Santa Barbara.  However, at 24-20, at this point they are on the outside looking in.

 

So, it seems as though this may be a case of, “be careful what you ask for, you just might get it.”  Those of us on the West Coast that wanted more recognition for the quality of baseball out here got it in the preseason polls, but those teams for the most part have not lived up to the preseason ink.  Hopefully they turn it around by late May and they force the NCAA selection committee to pay more heed to West Coast baseball.  If not, hopefully they have no on to blame but themselves.

 

 

This column represents the thoughts and opinions of the author and are not necessarily those of Perfect Game.