BB: ASC: American Southwest Conference

[Ralph Turner]

The representation of DIV I in Texas in the Regionals - 8 teams (Houston, Dallas Babtist, Texas A&M, Rice, Texas, Sam Houston State, Texas Southern, TCU) the representation in DIV III - 1 team (McMurry).  I realize that Texas has more teams in DIV I but that is a ridiculous diffence 8-1. Only 6 teams are picked in the entire Western Region. Something needs to change. A regional with 8 teams spread into subregions of 4 like they do in DIV I would be a start.

Let's look at the D-I teams that made tourney.

Houston -- C-USA Pool A bid
Dallas Baptist -- Independent Pool B bid
Texas A&M -- Big XII Pool C bid
Rice -- C-USA Pool C bid
Texas -- Big XII Pool A bid
Sam Houston State -- Southland Conference Pool A bid
Texas Southern -- Southwestern Athletic Conference Pool A bid
TCU -- Mountain West Pool A bid.

Respectfully, you have five conference winners maxing out on the automatic qualifier bids.  Every conference that has a team in Texas has a Texas team winning the Pool A bid!  Dallas Baptist got a Pool B bid as an independent!  Rice and Texas A&M got the Pool C bids that UT-Dallas got in 2007, except that D-I gives more at large (Pool C bids) bids to its tourney than D-III gets.

Secondly, D-I is where the money goes!  We cannot change that.  D-III gets 3.2% of the total NCAA budget.  We have a limited time frame for games, 18 weeks.  We start the playoffs as late as the northern schedules will let us in D-III.  There will be no other format!  No money, no time, no Omaha and no national TV coverage wire-to-wire!

Simply speaking, if the ASC can split into 2 conferences, East and West, then we get another bid.  As I was talking to Jim Dixon, I saw the Pool C teams that fell just short.  If there is a game that you should not have lost on the schedule, then that is the game that knocked you out of the tourney!  You saw how close the West Regional was.  McMurry takes Chapman to 12 innings, and there are at least 6 other teams in the ASC that think they could have been there!  Chapman went to Wisconsin by winning three one-run games and with a 12th inning walk-off two-run HR in the Regional.  In those 15 games played in Wisconsin, there was one blowout!  The national championship was that close!

UT-Tyler has an East Division Crown.  They lost twice to Concordia in the ASC.  Concordia would have hosted, if they had not lost to Schreiner.   Every team in the ASC can find a coulda/shoulda/woulda game or series.

For D-III baseball, there are so many teams that are so good, that you cannot lose a game once you start down the final stretch.  In the ASC, that means the Crossover best 2-of 3!

Edit:  Texas is the Big XII 2008 automatic qualifier. 2008 Division I Automatic Qualifiers     2008 Div I At-large selections

[TexasBB]

OK Ralph your point is well taken. Its time for me to get off this issue, the season is dead and burried.

I would however, request a lobbying effort, if you or Jim have any influence at all for expanding the west region to 8 teams. That will not only help the ASC but all the good teams in the region that got left behind. The region is hurt by the 6 team limit. Even if the ASC went to two conferences unless the region is expanded to 8 teams it would just mean one less Pool B or C bid would get a bid to the West Regional.

Thanks

[Ralph Turner]

OK Ralph your point is well taken. Its time for me to get off this issue, the season is dead and burried.

I would however, request a lobbying effort, if you or Jim have any influence at all for expanding the west region to 8 teams. That will not only help the ASC but all the good teams in the region that got left behind. The region is hurt by the 6 team limit. Even if the ASC went to two conferences unless the region is expanded to 8 teams it would just mean one less Pool B or C bid would get a bid to the West Regional.

Thanks

Texas BB, if the Pool B's and Pool C's had fallen correctly, then we would have had an 8-team regional in Abilene.  We had the 6 West Region teams here and then Linfield was shipped to the Regional in Rock Island, IL instead of flying an extra team to Abilene to make an 8-team bracket.  Several schools were shipped "out-of-region" to fill a 6-team or an 8-team bracket.

(What if UTT had won just two more in-region games, e.g., Concordia in Feb, McMurry or HSU in Mar, Austin College or Mississippi Collge or Ozarks late in the season.  Two more in-region wins may be enough for a Pool C bid.)

Very important point, the NCAA does not pre-assign the number of teams in the various brackets before the Committee meets!  The West Region teams are only guaranteed three Pool A bids, i.e., the ASC, the NWC and the SCIAC.  If DePauw wins the SCAC, and Austin College, Southwestern, or Trinity Tx do not earn a Pool C bid, then no SCAC team likely is sent to Texas.

[TexasBB]

Interesting, thanks for the clarification.

[Pat Coleman]

Ralph -- how many times this season did you or Jim tell people that?

[Ralph Turner]

Ralph -- how many times this season did you or Jim tell people that?

It is almost Sisyphian!    

[TexasBB]

The selection is nuanced so us "dummy's" need clarification from time to time. What I got out of Ralph's response that was enlightening is that the determination of 6 or 8 team region is made at the time of selection and is not predetermined thus going to a "fixed" 8 team west regional is not an available option and even if it was would not be meaningful. The total pool of teams elligible for participation would have to be expanded and even then there would be no guarantees that the west region area would have 2 more representatives. I appreciated his  comment since it improved my understanding of the selection process even if he had stated it many times before.


An aside:

When you look at the DIV I selections it is heavily weighted to the south and west which is intersting. There are not many at large - pool selections from the northern conferences. For example the Big 12 teams exspecially the southern teams in the Big 12 are heavily represented in comparison to the Big 10.   

[Ralph Turner]

The selection is nuanced so us "dummy's" need clarification from time to time. What I got out of Ralph's response that was enlightening is that the determination of 6 or 8 team region is made at the time of selection and is not predetermined thus going to a "fixed" 8 team west regional is not an available option and even if it was would not be meaningful. The total pool of teams eligible for participation would have to be expanded and even then there would be no guarantees that the west region area would have 2 more representatives. I appreciated his  comment since it improved my understanding of the selection process even if he had stated it many times before.


An aside:

When you look at the DIV I selections it is heavily weighted to the south and west which is interesting. There are not many at large - pool selections from the northern conferences. For example the Big 12 teams especially the southern teams in the Big 12 are heavily represented in comparison to the Big 10.   

Texas BB, I shall defer to other posters who follow D1 more closely than I, but I think that

-- the best baseball is played in the South and West, where you can get in a ton of games.
-- the better "college-bound" players from the north head to schools in this part of the country to get more "reps". (When was the last time that a northern school won the College World Series?  Ohio State 1966?)
-- there is less "competition" for that next tier of talent, the D-2 talent and D-3 talent in the north, so they are less likely to attend a baseball powerhouse schools that we see in the south and west in D-1's, D-2's and the developmental JUCO's.  (I shall defer to any trends that the recent drafts have started with respect to JUCO's.)  Therefore there are strong state schools in the north, northeast and midwest in greater predominance than we see in football and basketball.

Honestly, I don't think that the northern state schools have the dominance in football and basketball that we see in baseball, especially in pitching.  The quality conferences in baseball include the Little East, the NJAC and WIAC.  Power programs that are state schools in the north include Cortland State NY and Salisbury MD if you want to go that far south.   Restated, I think that the northern schools in D-III are relatively stronger than the other divisions because they don't have the problems with "talent dilution" that we do in the south and west.

[TexasBB]

You may be right but I am not yet convincend. UT Tyler has had 2 pitchers drafted the past 2 seasons. Holland is only a junior and given the low round I think he will be back next year. Booher doesn't throw as hard and that is why he was not drafted. I am not yet convinced that the schools in Texas lack the pitching talent. If you only have 2 schools (i am including TRinity and Austin) going to the playoffs each year your chances are not good. The big 12 in D-1 had almost half the conference make the playoffs. If the ASC had 4 or 5 teams in the playoffs the chances of one of those teams making it to the DIII college word series would improve dramatically.  I guess the bottom line is that I still don't think the northeastern team are any better in fact given the fact that our schools have so many JUCO transfers I beleive ours are better just, under represented. Look what happened to Marrietta when they came down to Texas. I think if you took the national champion and brought them down to Abiline to face McMurry, Concordia, UTD, UTT, HSU, TL and MC they would be beaten up just like Marrietta was. Those schools are primarily made up of under classmen whereas the ASC is dominated by juniors and seniors that played JUCO ball as underclassmen.  Its a numbers game and we are getting the short end of the stick.  Chapman only had to take on one ASC school and barely survived. It there were multiple ASC teams they would have gone down.  I still believe the ASC is much stronger than our representation in the playoffs. Bring all of the best down to face the ASC and watch the carnage. I am that confident in the level of our talent!!!

[Ralph Turner]

Marietta comes down for their spring training trip.  We ASC schools have been playing a full month longer than Marietta when they come.

The athletes that we have seen in the WIAC and the NJAC are different from the usual ASC athlete.

hsusid's post about Ohio.
hsusid's post about East teams.

[TexasBB]

Oh Well we will never really know. The ASC is under represented IMO but that will not change until they win the D-III college world series. The odds of doing so with only one or two teams making the playoffs makes that a long shot. There is always next year but the odds are going to be long again.  The confernce is stonger than it was just 5 years ago and I believe is as good as any in D-III.  I guess it takes time to earn the respect but college athletes don' t have that much time.  I feel for all of those good athletes and teams that were left out and didn't get the experience of playing the national tournament.

[Ralph Turner]

Oh Well we will never really know. The ASC is under represented IMO but that will not change until they win the D-III college world series. The odds of doing so with only one or two teams making the playoffs makes that a long shot. There is always next year but the odds are going to be long again.  The conference is stronger than it was just 5 years ago and I believe is as good as any in D-III.  I guess it takes time to earn the respect but college athletes don' t have that much time.  I feel for all of those good athletes and teams that were left out and didn't get the experience of playing the national tournament.

As a point of clarification for new readers, the NCAA has moved away from any criteria that takes into account the "reputation" or "respect" that a conference has in the selection process.  Every new year brings a fresh slate.

In fact, in other sports, we have seen recent evidence of this being implemented.  In 2004, Trinity Women's basketball was the defending national champion, and their head coach was the national chair of the selection committee.  Trinity was up for consideration as a Pool C team and did not receive it.  Most knowledgeable observers think that Trinity was on the table as one of the next 8 teams to consider when the final 2004  Pool C bid was awarded.

My recommendations to the players in 2009 are these:

1)  Learn the Handbook.  Here is the link to the 2008 Handbook.  There will not be much change from year to year.  Learn the definitions.  This year I personally guessed all 6 Pool B's correctly and hit on 19 of the 21 Pool C's.  (I thought that Concordia TX would make it.)

2) Know the definition of an in-region game and who are the in-region games on your schedule.

3) Do not lose to a team that you are strongly favored to defeat.  Do not lose a game that you should not have lost!  There is no room for error at this level of competition.  I honestly believe that 90-100 teams in D-III are good enough to make it to the 54-team field!  I have not seen a season's results of some team sitting at home, who did not have a single game or a single series for whom a different outcome might not have made the difference!

[hsusid]

Hardin-Simmons has a new athletic's web site. If you have www.hsuathletics.cstv.com as your bookmark, you will have to change it to just www.hsuathletics.com.

[ATX]

Guess now that our season is over i can now post all the injuries and casualties we sustained through out the year.  Not that it matters but anyways here it is.

Pitcher Blaine Wieck - torn labrum
Pitcher Trey Hellman - torn labrum
Pitcher Jordan Lamb - transferred at break.  would have really helped us
Pitcher Jacob Ashcraft - problems with shoulder, probably going to have surgery this summer
Pitcher Arnold Toombs - The weirdest thing I have ever seen happen except for maybe Yurchick's injury.  While taking batting practice before the game against MHBU, in which he was scheduled to pitch he is hit with a line drive.  He was the bucket man and somehow the ball barely flew over the net and hit him in the head.  He sustained a concussion and was unable to pitch.  He never started again and was delegated to reliever
Pitche/1b Brent Voorhees - messed up shoulder in a game he pitched and won vs. Chapman first series of the year.  Later hurt it worse in freak accident against Howard Payne.  Was only able to swing with one arm the rest of the year.
Pitcher Dakota Smith - discovered he had a slight tear and extreme case of tendinitis in labrum after the Conference Championship.  Have to ask, if 100% healthy how many runs Chapman scores off him.  They only scored 3, but wonder if things would have been different.
Pitcher Aaron Redman - quit during the year because he was unhappy with playing time
Second Baseman Weston Franco - had tears in his hamstring and broke a finger in 2 spots
Second Baseman Steven Yurchick - was moved from the OF during the year.  Had a freak accident when he dove for a ball and his thigh hit the lip of the infield.  His thigh got 2 times bigger and was one of the weirdest injuries i have ever seen.
Second Baseman Greg Guse - while filling in for Nate Love at the first of the year against Chapman he tore his labrum
Catcher Thomas Beckham - pulled hamstring, re-aggravated it twice
Catcher Jeff Jackson - caught a ball wrong and his hand became swollen and missed a series or two
Outfielder Lance Jones - aggravated groin vs. SRU and had to wear a wrap the rest of the year to keep it from pulling
Outfielder Gerad Morris - extreme case of tendinitis in shoulder all year which limited him from throwing as hard as he could.  Whats weird is he still had the best arm on the team
First Baseman/ Catcher Ross Shores - quit after the TLU series because he was unhappy with playing time
Shortstop/ Second baseman Evan Reece - had nerve problems in his lower back.  This guy pushed Weston Franco in the fall to the point where coach told Weston that if he did not play well at the first of the season that Evan would be inserted.  This guy if healthy would have been great for us.  Would have put up huge numbers for us.  Lead the team in homers in the fall.

I think that about covers it.  Dont think i forgot anyone, but would be very easy to.  Didnt include the guys with arm fatigue cause every team has that late in the year. 

Thats a lot of injuries! but nothing can compare to the injuries sustained by Concordias Pitcher Garret Williamson who woulda been the ace of the staff. Those being a car wreck that left him paralyzed from the waste down at the time...by the way he is slowly but surely getting better everyday!

[Ralph Turner]

Guess now that our season is over i can now post all the injuries and casualties we sustained through out the year.  Not that it matters but anyways here it is.

Pitcher Blaine Wieck - torn labrum
Pitcher Trey Hellman - torn labrum
Pitcher Jordan Lamb - transferred at break.  would have really helped us
Pitcher Jacob Ashcraft - problems with shoulder, probably going to have surgery this summer
Pitcher Arnold Toombs - The weirdest thing I have ever seen happen except for maybe Yurchick's injury.  While taking batting practice before the game against MHBU, in which he was scheduled to pitch he is hit with a line drive.  He was the bucket man and somehow the ball barely flew over the net and hit him in the head.  He sustained a concussion and was unable to pitch.  He never started again and was delegated to reliever
Pitche/1b Brent Voorhees - messed up shoulder in a game he pitched and won vs. Chapman first series of the year.  Later hurt it worse in freak accident against Howard Payne.  Was only able to swing with one arm the rest of the year.
Pitcher Dakota Smith - discovered he had a slight tear and extreme case of tendinitis in labrum after the Conference Championship.  Have to ask, if 100% healthy how many runs Chapman scores off him.  They only scored 3, but wonder if things would have been different.
Pitcher Aaron Redman - quit during the year because he was unhappy with playing time
Second Baseman Weston Franco - had tears in his hamstring and broke a finger in 2 spots
Second Baseman Steven Yurchick - was moved from the OF during the year.  Had a freak accident when he dove for a ball and his thigh hit the lip of the infield.  His thigh got 2 times bigger and was one of the weirdest injuries i have ever seen.
Second Baseman Greg Guse - while filling in for Nate Love at the first of the year against Chapman he tore his labrum
Catcher Thomas Beckham - pulled hamstring, re-aggravated it twice
Catcher Jeff Jackson - caught a ball wrong and his hand became swollen and missed a series or two
Outfielder Lance Jones - aggravated groin vs. SRU and had to wear a wrap the rest of the year to keep it from pulling
Outfielder Gerad Morris - extreme case of tendinitis in shoulder all year which limited him from throwing as hard as he could.  Whats weird is he still had the best arm on the team
First Baseman/ Catcher Ross Shores - quit after the TLU series because he was unhappy with playing time
Shortstop/ Second baseman Evan Reece - had nerve problems in his lower back.  This guy pushed Weston Franco in the fall to the point where coach told Weston that if he did not play well at the first of the season that Evan would be inserted.  This guy if healthy would have been great for us.  Would have put up huge numbers for us.  Lead the team in homers in the fall.

I think that about covers it.  Dont think i forgot anyone, but would be very easy to.  Didnt include the guys with arm fatigue cause every team has that late in the year. 

Thats a lot of injuries! but nothing can compare to the injuries sustained by Concordias Pitcher Garret Williamson who woulda been the ace of the staff. Those being a car wreck that left him paralyzed from the waste down at the time...by the way he is slowly but surely getting better everyday!

IMHO, Garrett Williamson's performance as the "ace", literally being the best pitcher on the staff with the best numbers and moving everyone down a slot in the rotation, is enough to have propelled CTX to the throne room, and possibly hosting the ASC Tourney.

I hope that all fans will remember next season how close the difference is between sitting at home and going on.