BB: ASC: American Southwest Conference

[Ralph Turner]

This is UT-Dallas' OWP according to the Handbook.  This is why we do not compare favorably in the eyes of the committee when Pool C bids are granted.  I am sure that Mississippi College is not much different.

Opponent	Record	vs. MissColl	Revised Record	Revised W/L Percentage
CTX	19-16	3-2	16-14	.533
Trinity	23-18	1-3	23-17	.575
HSU	24-14	2-3	22-11	.667
Whittier	9-25	0-1	9-24	.273
TLU	28-13	0-4	28-9	.757
S'western	16-20	0-1	16-19	.457
LaColl	6-19	1-2	5-17	.227
UOz	13-23	1-2	12-21	.364
UTT	35-10	1-4	31-9	.775
Miss Coll	25-13	1-3	22-12	.647
AC	14-24	0-2	14-22	.389
LeTU	8-21	0-3	8-18	.308
McM	23-16	1-1	23-15	.605
ETBU	10-21	0-3	10-18	.357
Total	*	*	*	.4957

Ralph, great work. The numbers do not lie. SOS and OWP played a MAJOR part in the selections this year.

UTD played 13 over the 36 possible West Region opponents for computation of the In-Region Rankings.  (They did not play non-West Region Adminstrative Region #4 teams like UW-Whitewater.)  ASC-East Division members are in bold.

Austin College is only 45 minutes away from UTD.  Those were mid-week games.

UTD drove to Abilene to get another in-region game from Whittier, which flew in for in-region games that it needed.

[Ralph Turner]

Opponent	In-Region Record	Record vs Miss Coll	Revised Record	Revised W/L Percentage
Millsaps	29-7	3-0	26-7	.788
HPU	8-17	0-3	8-14	.364
TLU	28-13	3-0	25-13	.658
LeTU	8-21	1-2	7-19	.269
LaColl	6-19	1-2	5-17	.227
UTD	27-14	1-3	26-11	.703
Emory	17-16	0-2	17-14	.548
Rust	0-9	0-3	0-6	.000
ETBU	10-21	0-3	10-18	.357
UOz	13-23	0-3	13-20	.394
UTT	35-10	3-3	32-7	.821
UMHB	19-15	0-2	19-13	.594
Total	*	*	*	.4769

I checked the Rust website.  There is no schedule of games posted.  I found 9 D3 games among the schedules on the ASC, SCAC and GSAC member sites.  Rust went 0-9 against Miss College, Rhodes, Huntingdon and LaGrange.  Without Rust, MissColl's OWP is .5202.

[golden_dome]

Opponent	In-Region Record	Record vs Miss Coll	Revised Record	Revised W/L Percentage
Millsaps	29-7	3-0	26-7	.788
HPU	8-17	0-3	8-14	.364
TLU	28-13	3-0	25-13	.658
LeTU	8-21	1-2	7-19	.269
LaColl	6-19	1-2	5-17	.227
UTD	27-14	1-3	26-11	.703
Emory	17-16	0-2	17-14	.548
Rust	0-9	0-3	0-6	.000
ETBU	10-21	0-3	10-18	.357
UOz	13-23	0-3	13-20	.394
UTT	35-10	3-3	32-7	.821
UMHB	19-15	0-2	19-13	.594
Total	*	*	*	.4769

I checked the Rust website.  There is no schedule of games posted.  I found 9 D3 games among the schedules on the ASC, SCAC and GSAC member sites.  Rust went 0-9 against Miss College, Rhodes, Huntingdon and LaGrange.  Without Rust, MissColl's OWP is .5202.

Thanks for posting that Ralph, it reveals several things. First a question though, are the winning percentages only averaged once. So a team you play 6-7 times has the same influence on the OWP as a team you play once? That can't be right, can it?

If that is the case, it doesn't reveal much about strength of schedule. For example, MC could play Rust College 20 times and win all 20. Then play one game against UT-Tyler, Millsaps and UTD and drop all 3. We would have a 20-3 regional record and OWP of .578 because Rust's .0000 winning percentage would only be counted once.

This year, MC played UT-Tyler six times and UTD four times. That is 10 games against great competition, but it doesn't help the OWP at all because their winning percentage is factored the same as a team you play only once.

If you factored the record of each regional opponent per game, counting UT-Tyler's record six times, MC's opponents had a combined record of about 695-520 (.572). But using the NCAA's method our OWP is around .470.  The same thing applies to UTD, because they had a lot of games against us and UT-Tyler. It just doesn't make any sense.

If that is how it is calculated, then here is what ASC coaches should do. Play as many great teams out of conference as you can, but only play them once. Don't play 3 game series against great teams because they only help OWP once. Play in tournaments where you can play several good teams. If you have 16 nonconference opportunities, play single games against as many good teams as you can.

For the ASC, that is a killer because there isn't exactly a plethora of teams to play down here. And it's much worse for the Texas schools, because their options are much more limited than MC or Millsaps. At least we have a few options just East of us, but that would be major travel for the rest of the ASC.

[Ralph Turner]

Opponent	In-Region Record	Record vs Miss Coll	Revised Record	Revised W/L Percentage
Millsaps	29-7	3-0	26-7	.788
HPU	8-17	0-3	8-14	.364
TLU	28-13	3-0	25-13	.658
LeTU	8-21	1-2	7-19	.269
LaColl	6-19	1-2	5-17	.227
UTD	27-14	1-3	26-11	.703
Emory	17-16	0-2	17-14	.548
Rust	0-9	0-3	0-6	.000
ETBU	10-21	0-3	10-18	.357
UOz	13-23	0-3	13-20	.394
UTT	35-10	3-3	32-7	.821
UMHB	19-15	0-2	19-13	.594
Total	*	*	*	.4769

I checked the Rust website.  There is no schedule of games posted.  I found 9 D3 games among the schedules on the ASC, SCAC and GSAC member sites.  Rust went 0-9 against Miss College, Rhodes, Huntingdon and LaGrange.  Without Rust, MissColl's OWP is .5202.

Thanks for posting that Ralph, it reveals several things.

For one, I could be wrong but my first thought would be that averaging the winning percentages would not reveal much about strength of schedule. For example, MC could play Rust College 20 times and win all 20. Then play one game against UT-Tyler, Millsaps and UTD and drop all 3. We would have a 20-3 regional record and OWP of .578.

Another example. MC played UT-Tyler six times and UTD four times. That is 10 games against great competition, but it doesn't help the OWP at all because their winning percentage is factored only once.

If you factored the record of each regional opponent per game, MC's opponents had a combined record of about 695-520 (.572). But using the NCAA's method our OWP is around .470.  The same thing applies to UTD. It just doesn't make much sense.

Here is what ASC coaches should do. Play as many great teams out of conference as you can, but only play them once. MC played Millsaps College 3 times which significantly made our schedule harder, but they only helped the OWP once.

Yeah, or bring in three Admin Region #3 teams to Jackson/Clinton.  Invite LaColl in to play 3 games.  All teams win.

The travel pairs can do this all over the conferences.

It now dawns on me that this is why the USA South went back to 2-game conference series instead of 3, to 12 conference games from 18. It allowed them to increase the sample size of the OWP!

(I wish that Millsaps would petition to move to the West Evaluation Region, so that we could get in-region games out of them, especially in the ASC-East.)

[TexasBB]

It sounds like a flawed system that is subject to manipulation as is apparantly being done.

"Another example. MC played UT-Tyler six times and UTD four times. That is 10 games against great competition, but it doesn't help the OWP at all because their winning percentage is factored only once.

If you factored the record of each regional opponent per game, MC's opponents had a combined record of about 695-520 (.572). But using the NCAA's method our OWP is around .470.  The same thing applies to UTD. It just doesn't make much sense. "

It sounds like this could be easily fixed by using a per game factor so that teams that play tough opponents more than once get full credit for it. The game playing of picking and choosing opponents would be minimized.  The ASC has less of a chance to due to logistics than teams in the NE to play games with the system. To me it is leveling the playing field so that teams that are in remote regions and must in essence play multiple games against certain opponents are not penalized vs teams that are located in areas where they have more options. 

Why hasn't the national brain trust thought this through?  Maybee they have and like it this way?

[TexasBB]

Another problem is factoring in the confernce tournaments as opponents since you may have already played some of these teams before. Using MC as an example they played UTT 3 times in the tournament after having played them 3 times in the regular season. Those three games in the conference tournament hurt them since they lost 2 of them but they get only watered down credit for playing those games in evaluating the OWP (6 games).  So they loose to a tough team twice in region but only get partial credit for in the OWP for the toughness of their schedule. That is what leads teams to start trying to manipulte the system. It sounds like the ASC might be better off not even having a conference tournamen and just take their chances with Pool B. Certainly they would have beat out Chapman this year as the Pool B group was weak.

[dp643]

Look at the North Eastern Athletic Conference's team stats. 

http://www.neacsports.com/MBAHTML09/lgteams.htm

Pretty frustrating that they get an automatic qualifier with a 7 team conference with those pathetic numbers, while you have the ASC with 15 teams and 6-7 VERY good teams that would destroy this conference with just one as well.

[royhobbs]

dp- do you think the ASC will ever get split into two? Maybe two Auto berths then?

[BigPoppa]

dp- do you think the ASC will ever get split into two? Maybe two Auto berths then?

I don't see it happening. They have to serve more sports than just baseball and splitting it would shrink the conference size in other sports, thereby denying themselves a Pool A bid in the process.

[Ralph Turner]

dp- do you think the ASC will ever get split into two? Maybe two Auto berths then?

This is how close the ASC is to getting 2 bids.  See Post 3501.


http://www.d3boards.com/index.php?topic=4502.3501

However, I wonder in the back of everyone's minds what might break up such a nice arrangement and the conferences fall below the minimums.

University of Dallas and Austin College have left us in this decade.

Texas Wesleyan University in Ft Worth left D-II , went thru the exploratory year and decided to go to the NAIA.

What if one of the private schools went broke in the economic downturn?

What if UT-Tyler continued to grow, and the impression among the UT-Tyler community said our peer institutions are UT-San Antonio, Sam Houston State, Stephen F Austin?  Why are we still in D-III? And then they moved on. 

Look at their archives page...

http://www.uttyler.edu/athletics/archives/

[TexasBB]

It is quite possible that both UTT and UTD may move up to DIV II or even DIV I  at some point but that is off into the future and several years away IMO. In the DFW area there are 3 DIV I programs (UTA, TCU and Dallas Babtist).  There are no DIV II programs which leaves an opening for UTD to move up and join the Southland Conference. In East Texas the you have Steven F Austin and that is it. I think if there is a move the two schools will move in tandem and I would guess the jump would be just to DII.  However both schools do not want to emphasis sports to the extend of offering athletic scholarships at least for now.  UTT has the superior facilities of the two schools and their baseball complex is big enough right now to be a DII school. UTD would have to upgrade and there is resistance as its emphasis is on going after research money. Thus they are playing down sports whereas UTT is more actively supporting them or so it appears. However if one of the schools move up it will probably cause the other to go also as they are both members of the UT System and are developing a natural rivalry. Still the move is years away.

I am more concerned about what is in store for the next couple of years. I do not see the confence splitting so unless the NCAA changes things we will likely get more of the same treatment we have experienced the last couple of years. (one team the conference champ and occasionally a second team from Pool C.) If however the NCAA would expand to 64 teams I think we would get 2 teams and occasionally 3.

[atlas385]

Tommy Boggs will be announced as the next Concordia Baseball coach.

[dp643]

Looks like Towns is still hurt for UTT, thats very unfortunate for them.

[royhobbs]

All of the bellyaching about the ASC getting shafted and UTT gets Crushed by a "mediocre" Pool pick. So much for us experts-I'm listening to Big Poppa from now on. D-Nut, how bad did this mess up everyone's Madness picks. Will it be a California sweep today?

[d3baseballnut]

THe UTT loss and Ithaca loss hurt alot of people.

SO did the ECSU loss