Some other USA-South News

Maryville has accepted conference membership.  With Shenandoah leaving after the 2012 season, baseball will look like this

Averett
Christopher Newport
Ferrum
Greensboro
LaGrange
Maryville
Methodist
NC Wesleyan
Piedmont

Top-to-Bottom one of the best D3 baseball conferences.

I know that.  They still have a influence or friends "other coaches on the committee" to help fight for them.  Its the human element as Pauperboy pointed out.

Whenever there is controversy over regional rankings and someone wants to question the validity of those ranking you should look at who is on the south region committee.  Last I checked Jeff Cleanthes (Rhodes Head Coach) is the chair of the committee.  Here's a question,  I wonder what Rhodes would be ranked if he wasn't the chair?  My guess would not be fifth.

Pauperboy,

Obviously you want to do a comparison between MU and Rhodes.  Maybe somebody has ruffled your feathers?  If you don't feel MU is capable of winning a regional then I'm not sure how you feel Rhodes is capable of winning a regional.  Methodist had their chances as did Rhodes.

Using the human element, Rhodes ended the season on fire, losing 3 of their last 4 games.  2 games to a Hendrix team that is one of the best in the country at 19-22.   Using your logic the win over Wooster means nothing since it was Wooster's 4th game in 4 days to start the season while Rhodes was playing its 18th game.  Wooster is also having a down year compared to their usually standards.

For every Immaculata, Swarthmore, and Purchase  (All 3 teams over .500 BTW) I can point out MacMurray (3-33), Centre (13-23), and Sewannee (10-21).  I guess MU should schedule bad south region teams to bulk up their in-region record like Rhodes.

BIG NEWS!

Piedmont College joins the USA-South!

LaGrange and Maryville still up in the air.  Great addition for Baseball at least.

1st NCAA DIII Regional Rankings

http://www.ncaa.com/sports/m-basebl/spec-rel/042910aaa.html


South Region                            In-Region Record    Overall Record
1. Shenandoah                    26-7                    34-8
2. Mary Washington            19-9                    24-10
3. Millsaps                            23-12                    25-15
4. Methodist                            23-10                    27-11
5. LaGrange                            24-16                    26-17
6. York (Pennsylvania)            23-12                    23-12


Biggest surprise... No Salisbury
Second biggest surprise...Mary Washington # 2?
LaGrange looks like they might get that Pool B bid over Huntingdon
The Methodist-York series this weekend has huge playoff implications

hokie,

Your the one that said players appreciate the chance to play in minor league stadiums or out of the ordinary places. No, they appreciate the chance to play in a regional.

D3 chooses sites ahead of time for logistical purposes, so they can plan ahead. The NCAA pays for all regional teams. The NCAA doesn't want to pay money to fly teams to different sites at a last second notice.  Some teams conference tournaments, pool A bids are the week before or end the day before regional selections. You can't have teams making a decision to host a regional tournament a couple days before it starts..duh...

BTW,
War Memorial host a CPL Pilots team that averages a couple thousand fans a game. The stadium is old but in the same shape as Burlington Stadium.

If you need to play in a minor league stadium to get you pumped up for games then something is wrong.

I have played in 2 south regional tournaments and I didn't care where they were or what field we were playing on. The competition and the chance to play for a world series bid is what we players played for.

Teams have to place bids for the regional and the bid gets selected. The ability to get a minor league stadium cost a ton of money and the host school probably makes little to any money hosting a tournament. Like I said earlier, most schools don't put in bids because of the time, effort, and money required to go into the tournament. 

Tell coach Harvell at CNU that you want them to host the regional tournament at War Memorial Stadium in Hampton, VA next year and see what he says. If you are hosting and you don't get in, that a huge risk to take.

Seating wasn't the point of my post. We can discuss who has the best facility if you want to. The point was to say that a regional does not have to be in a minor league stadium. It can be at an on-campus facility.

According to the stats,

The Championship game of the 2006 regional had 120 people (NCWC hosted and was in the game)
The Championship game of the 2007 regional had 610 people (Ferrum hosted and was in the game)
The Championship game of the 2008 regional had 108 people
The Championship game of the 2009 regional had 130 people

3 Teams in the South Region Tournament so far...

USA-South (Pool A)- Shenandoah University
CAC (Pool A)- University of Mary Washington
ODAC (Pool A)- Bridgewater College

NCWC hosted a regional in 2006.

Ferrum hosted a regional in 2007.

Both regional tournaments went well. The facilities are very similar.  Ferrum has a very nice grandstand but it doesn't sit 1000 people. Methodist has very similar seating as Wesleyan.

The Methodist regional will be run just as well. The water like always will be turned on. 

College's have to put in a bid to host a regional and then they have to be selected.  This process cost alot of money, time and energy.  Most schools don't want to put in a bid because of the overall effort that has to go into it

USA-South_Fan,

Nobody can argue that Shenandoah is a great team.  They won the south regional last year and the USA-South tournament this year.

You can argue that if they played a tougher schedule they wouldn't have as many wins.

Look at York College.  They are in the South Region and they are in Pennsylvania.

York has played is going to play 34 games against "True South Region" teams. York went down to GA and played LaGrange, Emory, Rhodes. They are going to play Ferrum at Ferrum and are traveling to Fayetteville to play, Piedmont, and Methodist 2 times each.

Shenandoah has played or is going to play 24 games against "True South Region" teams.

Methodist is now playing Stevenson 3 times instead of 2.

7 more in region games for them against teams that are all over .500

hokieone,

SOS is very important.  In 07, MU got an at-large bid because of their sos and one of the reasons CNU got in last year was because of sos.

The problem is both MU and CNU sos will go up because of their remaining schedule.  CNU needs alot of help and they need MU to stumble down the stretch.

D3 baseball needs to go to an RPI top teams get in.  The problem with an RPI is the NCAA would have to pay to send teams all over the country because the regions would be unbalanced.

http://www.d3baseball.com/notables/2010/04/19/strength-of-schedule-ratings.html

Mock Regional Rankings going on in the national topics section.

You can see in-region records, winning %, sos, owp, oowp

USA-South SOS

CNU- 55
NCWC- 61
MU- 101
GC- 115
FC- 122
SU- 148
AU- 195

MU- 20-10 In-Region with 6 region games left

4/24 @Stevenson
4/25 @Stevenson
4/30 York
4/30 Piedmont
5/1 York
5/1 Piedmont

5-1 I think will get them in. 6-0 will get them in.


CNU- 18-13 In-Region with 5 region games left

4/20 St. Mary's
4/22 Salisbury
4/23 @Salisbury
4/24 York DH
5 games in 5 days will be tough.

CNU has to win out and need MU to stumble to have a chance


In-Region record is very important.  Those mid-week region games are just as important as weekend conference games.


In the south regional...

Salisbury (Pool C)
Shenandoah (Pool A)
Mary Washington (Pool A)

Still playing for a regional bid...

CNU (Pool C)
MU (Pool C)
ODAC Champions (Pool A)- HSC, Bridgewater, VWC, Lynchburg
Huntingdon (Pool B) good shot
Mississippi College (West Region Team but closer to Fayetteville)
SCAC Champion- Millsaps or Rhodes or both

I don't think Birmingham Southern is eligible for NCAA play this year.  I could be wrong.  They won their division but are not in the SCAC tourney.

Coach of the Year- 3 Choices

NCWC- Long
MU- Austin
SU- Anderson

Long- Conference Champs after losing alot good players from last years team.

Austin- Solid record with a very young team.  Over half of the team is Freshmen.

Anderson- Did what they were expected to do and won alot of games