BB: NCAC: North Coast Athletic Conference

[Bishopleftiesdad]

23-6 Wooster over the Obies.  Get ready for another butt kicking

Who's butt? 4-2 Oberlin top of 4.

Wooster had to beat Oberlin twice. They won the first game 23-6, but could not come back and win the second.

[NCACfan22]

Wooster denied an at-large bid...pretty unbelievable that Wooster's season was ended by Oberlin. Oberlin plays #1 SUNY Cortland on Wednesday in the New York Regional.

[mideastfan2]

Wooster denied an at-large bid...pretty unbelievable that Wooster's season was ended by Oberlin. Oberlin plays #1 SUNY Cortland on Wednesday in the New York Regional.

in the 20 or so years I've been around D3 baseball, that is definitely one of the phrases I thought I'd never hear!

I guess if you can't beat Oberlin 2 out of 3, when it matters most, you probably don't deserve an at-large bid.

[countyroad]

Can't disagree with mideastfan here. I really thought Wooster would out slug Oberlin in the final game Saturday. Not so fast my friend. Hope they can find some more pitching in the off season. I sure wish they had Buckingham. I never did hear what happened there..

[EttaFan1]

It is probably not a major stretch to say the primary reason Wooster was left out of the tournament was due to their weak SOS ranking (237th according to D3 baseball).  I guess going 36-9 against really bad competition does not impress too many of the committee members. 

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Oberlin and Kenyon being what they were and the Gators having a not so great record, really hurt Wooster. Same thing happened to OWU. We had a really good SOS before starting conference play and then we watched it plummet. I thought the NCAC was on an upward swing with DePauw and Denison getting better the last couple of years, but both took a step back this year.

[wally_wabash]

Can't disagree with mideastfan here. I really thought Wooster would out slug Oberlin in the final game Saturday. Not so fast my friend. Hope they can find some more pitching in the off season. I sure wish they had Buckingham. I never did hear what happened there..

That's one solution.  We could also not do things like schedule five games in two days.  That doesn't help anybody. 

[countyroad]

Can't disagree with mideastfan here. I really thought Wooster would out slug Oberlin in the final game Saturday. Not so fast my friend. Hope they can find some more pitching in the off season. I sure wish they had Buckingham. I never did hear what happened there..

That's one solution.  We could also not do things like schedule five games in two days.  That doesn't help anybody.

True, but Wooster had plenty of issues prior to the NCAC tourney.

[old scot]

I guess I stuck my foot in my mouth after saying Woo would kick the Obies butt.  After putting up 23 runs no way I thought they would lose the finial game. Congrats to the Obies.

The NCAC needs to figure out a better way to define the champion when it comes to baseball. I wish I had the answer but, I don't. The cross over series is garbage.  One hot weekend can take down a good team. I like the OAC format of 3 games against each team. I know everyone talks about the travel issue but, they make it work for basketball.
The NCAC tourney lacks respect for the players. No team should have to play 3 games in 1 day. Just my thoughts. No sour grapes because Woo did not win.

[Dr. Acula]

Minor correction, the OAC plays just a single DH against each of the 9 other conference foes.  I like the full round robin format as it's obviously the preferred way to do it, but the longest trip in the OAC is probably around 4 hours give or take.  I wouldn't be surprised if the NCAC had trips nearly double that duration (I can't imagine DePauw to Gheny is a fun ride).  I don't know that full round robin is feasible for an outdoor spring sport like baseball when travel is such a concern in the NCAC.

But if they were insistent of doing a full round robin they could do something like have DePauw, Wabash, Allegheny and the next longest drive from IN (Hiram?) meet in the middle and play each other Sat/Sun DH at a neutral site.  Wabash plays Hiram Sat, Gheny Sun and vice versa.  Play in Xenia at AIA Field or something.  It's all turf with lights.  And unlike Chillicothe there'd be decent hotels and places to eat not far from there.  I realize they don't want to incur the cost of that overnight stay annually though.

[old scot]

Thanks for the correction Doc.  NCAC teams need to compete against each other like OAC teams.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

A full round robin was tried back in 2011. Wabash for example played a DH at Hiram on Saturday and a DH against  Allegheny on Sunday. From what I understand the west teams wanted to continue round robin, and thought they had the votes, until one of the east coaches was swayed to vote the other way, at the last minute.

[countyroad]

According to the headline in Wooster's local paper coach P is not too happy about not making the post season. Unfortunately you need to subscribe to read the full article online. I'm not a subscriber, but would like to hear what he had to say, not that I was expecting him to be happy about the situation.

[Pops33]

Really disappointed the committee did not select Wooster for the post season.  They had the second most wins in the country at 36.  I realize their SOS was not good, but you still have to win games without slumping to get to that amount of wins.  As Bishop stated, the NCAC conference schedule really weakened the overall SOS for the everyone in the conference.  Their Florida schedule did not help much either, but Wooster's OOC schedule once they got back to Ohio was strong.

Wooster had the #1 scoring offense in the country, which should carry a little cache with the committee.  You can say that had to do with their SOS, however, they played the top 5 teams in the OAC and those games help RAISE their runs per game average, scoring an average of 15.4 runs per game in those games.  I guess beating the OAC regular season champion 16-8 and the OAC tournament champion 19-8 did not carry enough weight with the selection committee, either.

In the end, all they had to do was take care of business against Oberlin.  I understand that point completely, it does not need to be re-stated.  Oberlin took 2 out of 3 against #1 (West division) seed DePauw, beat #2 (East Div) seed Allegheny, and beat Wooster 2 out of 3.  They are clearly playing significantly better than an 18-26 team.  But it does not change the fact that Wooster had the opportunity to take care of business and did not do it.

So is Wooster a better team if they played the top 6 teams in the country and if they lost to them all to finish 30-15, but with a respectable strength of schedule?  It does not seem logical, but that seems to be the message the committee is putting out.  I know there are other factors involved, but the boys won 36 games, it's a tough pill to swallow. 

Sour grapes.  I know.  You can call it that. 

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Really disappointed the committee did not select Wooster for the post season.  They had the second most wins in the country at 36.  I realize their SOS was not good, but you still have to win games without slumping to get to that amount of wins.  As Bishop stated, the NCAC conference schedule really weakened the overall SOS for the everyone in the conference.  Their Florida schedule did not help much either, but Wooster's OOC schedule once they got back to Ohio was strong.

Wooster had the #1 scoring offense in the country, which should carry a little cache with the committee.  You can say that had to do with their SOS, however, they played the top 5 teams in the OAC and those games help RAISE their runs per game average, scoring an average of 15.4 runs per game in those games.  I guess beating the OAC regular season champion 16-8 and the OAC tournament champion 19-8 did not carry enough weight with the selection committee, either.

In the end, all they had to do was take care of business against Oberlin.  I understand that point completely, it does not need to be re-stated.  Oberlin took 2 out of 3 against #1 (West division) seed DePauw, beat #2 (East Div) seed Allegheny, and beat Wooster 2 out of 3.  They are clearly playing significantly better than an 18-26 team.  But it does not change the fact that Wooster had the opportunity to take care of business and did not do it.

So is Wooster a better team if they played the top 6 teams in the country and if they lost to them all to finish 30-15, but with a respectable strength of schedule?  It does not seem logical, but that seems to be the message the committee is putting out.  I know there are other factors involved, but the boys won 36 games, it's a tough pill to swallow. 

Sour grapes.  I know.  You can call it that. 

OWU's schedule is very similar to Woosters against OAC teams. It is what it is. One of the problems I have with the SOS is it is against teams in your region. Ohio Wesleyan played ST. John Fisher, and while they started slow they finished strong with a decent win percentage, but OWU does not get the benefit of that because SJF is in the New York region. Also when you start winning, it can be tough to schedule good teams, in season. We had several games we could not make up against teams, on our schedule, with good win %, and ended up scheduling  additional games against the likes of Cap. One team canceled a late season game with us, not weather related, and again all we could find to play us was Cap.
Until more teams in the NCAC regularly beat the better OAC teams we are going to have this issue. Usually there are two good NCAC teams and the rest are middling to bad. Last year it was Denison  and Wooster. This year it was Ohio Wesleyan and Wooster.