As the commodification of college sports continues, the baseball selection committee became the latest to grapple with the question: Where does strength of schedule fit into the field, and how do we reward teams scheduling difficult games?
The answer after the NCAA Baseball Tournament bracket reveal on May 25? Frankly, unclear. While the Sun Belt got recognition as the extremely good baseball conference it is with five bids, the criteria used to evaluate teams was uneven to say the least. Fan favorite Mercer of the Southern Conference was left out despite a 44-15 record and a win over Georgia Tech, whereas the SEC fields 12 teams in the field of 64, including a Kentucky team that won just two series in-conference all season (with the consolation of never being swept).
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While the SEC gets the brunt of the scrutiny, the ACC is far from exempt. Virginia Tech somehow ended up among the No. 2 seeds despite looking like a bubble team coming out of tournament play, whereas NC State eked in despite a nonconference RPI of 114 and a nonconference strength of schedule of 244. The latter is largely thought to have been helped along by the announced retirement of coach Elliott Avent.
Mid-major schools already have a difficult path to the postseason. The vast majority of non-power conferences are one-bid leagues, slamming the door on teams who don’t win their respective conference tournaments. But on top of that, the troubling practice of actively gaming RPI by canceling games late-season or just not scheduling in-state mid-majors has been prevalent. While the committee issued warnings to teams who engage in this practice, which includes all three of the aforementioned schools, nothing came of those warnings. Virginia Tech canceled a game against Marshall, NC State against North Carolina A&T, and Kentucky canceled a game against Northern Kentucky that was to be played the same night Mercer defeated No. 2 overall seed Georgia Tech.
Not only did the committee not follow through on those warnings, it punished Texas A&M for proceeding with a midweek game over Prairie View A&M, whose RPI hovers around 300. Now, the Aggies go into the tournament an under-seeded No. 12 with Oregon, which canceled two games against Grand Canyon, ahead of them at No. 11.
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If all of that kind of feels like a rambling mess, it’s because it’s trying to ascribe sense to a land in which chaos reigns. The games you don’t play are as important as the ones you do, and the games you win can actually have a negative effect on your postseason prospects.
It’s the peril of nebulous terms like “the eye test.” RPI is imperfect, and college baseball adopting a system like college hockey’s NPI — which drops some “bad wins” and “good losses” from the formula — doesn’t address the mid-major SoS problem. But when Michael Alford was named committee chair, the emphasis on the eye test heartened some people.
“You can’t just come into the room and look at someone’s RPI and schedule,” Alford said, in September, per Baseball America. “You have to evaluate teams, and the eye test on teams matters to me.”
It isn’t just Mercer, either. UTSA, Kent State and High Point all had compelling cases to make the field. And while no one expected all four to get in, just as few people expected all of Kentucky, Virginia Tech and NC State to get nods. Conference USA didn’t end up with a single two-seed, with Liberty, Jacksonville State and Missouri State all landing all the 3-line. The Gamecocks in particular were a fringe case, and traded seeding for a lower bracket.
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So with all of the bellyaching about scheduling and its challenges, what’s the answer? Here’s a look at some of the options in front of the committee.
Don’t punish teams for wins
It feels so stupid this has to be pointed out, but here we are. Texas A&M is the poster child for this. Whether it’s throwing out mid-week wins or dropping certain low RPIs off the resume, the committee has to find a way to rectify this.
Baseball fans want to watch baseball, they don’t want to watch athletic departments scramble to figure out how to game imperfect systems. If the eye test is truly a factor, let it trump something like a 300-RPI Prairie View A&M. Those games are still worth playing, or at least they should be.
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Throw out the hypotheticals
Is Kentucky one of the best 64 teams in the country by talent? Very likely yes. Does it beat Mercer in a head-to-head? Also probably yes.
But college basketball just had this discussion about Miami (Ohio) and Auburn in March. Miami was a similar case to Mercer: An outstanding regular season followed by a disappointing conference tournament. That committee, however, put Miami in over Auburn because you can’t put in a team that went 8-12 in its conference over a team that went undefeated in the regular season, even with the brutal metrics. One team won the games it played. The other didn’t.
That’s how it should have been for Mercer vs Kentucky. Kentucky losing nine of its last 10 conference series does not make for a tournament team, talent disparity aside.
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Have a system to punish cancellations
Teams canceling games to manipulate RPI is hardly new, and the practice will only continue so long as the threats are empty.
Oh, but one team did possibly get punished for canceling. Mercer canned a series it was meant to have with… Kentucky in March before the season began. Kentucky instead played The Citadel, which ended up getting in.
The selection committee had a chance to send a message to the power conferences with multiple teams who canceled games on the bubble and another two teams close in seeding.
It instead decided to change… nothing. The power teams got in and Oregon was rewarded with a strong seed for its season, meaning games will get canceled again next year. And if nothing changes in that selection, they’ll be canceled again.
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Commit to using RPI or don’t
This is another big one. Alford and the selection committee are at a crossroads. It is clearly at least starting to move away from RPI… Mercer now holds the dubious honor of being the first team to ever miss with a top-30 RPI (the Bears finished at 28) with a winning conference record, and Alford pointed to SoS as the reason to keep Mercer out.
“Really looking at the strength of schedule,” Alford said on ESPN’s selection show. “And especially the nonconference schedule. That was something that stood out to the [committee] and if you compare them to other teams like Santa Barbara who intently went out and scheduled tough. You look intently scheduled tough. And looking at the geographic reason where Mercer’s located, we felt that they had those opportunities to go out and get some games.”
Now, to give Alford some credit: Troy was rewarded with a bid for the second-strongest SoS while playing in the Sun Belt despite being a 29-loss team. So having a rubric is fine, but that rubric can’t be applied selectively. NC State was 245th in OoC SoS, Kentucky was 141st. Mercer was 235th. So the message is, if you’re in a power conference, don’t schedule fringe teams, because playing in a power is enough.
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All of this is a problem that is hardly exclusive to baseball. These conversations will crop up any time there’s a selection committee until criteria is clear and established. This field, as baseball fields go, is overall solid. But Mercer shows, there is still work to be done in nailing down exactly what has to be done for mid-majors to get in.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Why did Mercer miss NCAA baseball tournament? Mid-majors punished by RPI
