BB: NCAC: North Coast Athletic Conference

[Bishopleftiesdad]

NCAC team announced.
http://www.northcoast.org/sports/bsb/All-NCAC/All-NCAC_Files/BASE_ALL-NCAC_2015.pdf

Kevin Zullo gets Pitcher of the year AND New comer of the year.

[Dr. Acula]

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.

As I mentioned before, the NCAC killed Wooster and OWU this year.  The worst OAC SOS was Cap and they ranked 86 spots above Wooster.  SOS is clearly a big factor and their conference mates let them down.

The other thing that may have hurt Wooster is the way they limped to the finish line.  Obviously losing twice to a team with a losing record is not helping, but beyond that they really needed a win out of those ONU and BW losses to help their case.  ONU stung worse because BW was ahead of Wooster already, but throwing your ace against ONU's 2nd level starter and losing probably hurt their ranking relative to ONU. And beyond that it feeds into the perception that Wooster put up gaudy numbers against inferior teams when they struggle to score against both those teams.  Now, they scored plenty against other OAC teams, but the ONU and BW games were the most recent and, in theory, when these teams should be peaking.

The Wabash wins would have also raised an eyebrow for me because the Scots gave up A LOT of runs to a 12-26 team. 

[wally_wabash]

The Wabash wins would have also raised an eyebrow for me because the Scots gave up A LOT of runs to a 12-26 team.

I'm not going to excuse Wabash's 12-26 (we need to be better than that), but I don't think it's fair to hold it against Wooster that they gave up runs to a 12-26 team.  That 12-26 team could score.  That wasn't the issue.  They just couldn't get anybody out.  Do you know hard it is to win a game when you give up 20 runs?? Wooster won the games and that's the part that should matter. 

This does bring up an interesting point about the crossover thing that the NCAC does.  SOS is clearly a superhuge deal for the selection committee (way too much of a deal if you ask me).  So why are we forcing our best teams (read: the teams with the best chance at at-large selection) into a three game series with divisional 4th place teams (which will always have poor records) that damage the at-large résumé?  This is a bad, bad practice.  As I've thought more about this over the last week or so, I think I'm either in favor of breaking the tournament up over two weekends (the crossover weekend and then the weekend reserved for the tournament usually) or doing away with the tournament altogether and having a best-of-3 amongst the division winners to decide the autobid. 

[Pops33]

Oberlin is currently leading #1 ranked Cortland State 4-3 after 6 innings after being down 3-0.  We will see how the game ends, but the Yeomen continue to play very good baseball.  They are not the pushover everyone thinks they are. 

[countyroad]

I'm all in on Oberlin! 

[Dr. Acula]

The Wabash wins would have also raised an eyebrow for me because the Scots gave up A LOT of runs to a 12-26 team.

I'm not going to excuse Wabash's 12-26 (we need to be better than that), but I don't think it's fair to hold it against Wooster that they gave up runs to a 12-26 team.  That 12-26 team could score.  That wasn't the issue.  They just couldn't get anybody out.  Do you know hard it is to win a game when you give up 20 runs?? Wooster won the games and that's the part that should matter. 

I agree that winning the games is what should matter.  But my point in saying it'd raise an eyebrow for me was just that when you're dealing with a committee rather than computers the committee can be influenced by things that shouldn't matter.  For the record, in this instance I'd be shocked if it was even on the radar.

[wally_wabash]

The Wabash wins would have also raised an eyebrow for me because the Scots gave up A LOT of runs to a 12-26 team.

I'm not going to excuse Wabash's 12-26 (we need to be better than that), but I don't think it's fair to hold it against Wooster that they gave up runs to a 12-26 team.  That 12-26 team could score.  That wasn't the issue.  They just couldn't get anybody out.  Do you know hard it is to win a game when you give up 20 runs?? Wooster won the games and that's the part that should matter. 

I agree that winning the games is what should matter.  But my point in saying it'd raise an eyebrow for me was just that when you're dealing with a committee rather than computers the committee can be influenced by things that shouldn't matter.  For the record, in this instance I'd be shocked if it was even on the radar.

As I'm reading through the excellent work done by the D3baseball.com folks, it appears more likely than not that Wooster was never even considered for selection.  If they got jumped by ONU in the final Mideast rankings (they seem to think that was probable), Wooster was never even discussed.  That's rough.  The selection process is a cruel, cruel game. 

[wally_wabash]

The Obies just broke it open against Oswego  St.  7-1 Yeo, two on, one out in the 8th.  If they can make that stick for three more outs, our Yeomen live to play another game. 

[Bishopleftiesdad]

The NCAC needs the Obies to do well against other regions/conferences. We need to build the rep of the NCAC.

[wally_wabash]

The NCAC needs the Obies to do well against other regions/conferences. We need to build the rep of the NCAC.

I think that's got more to do with how ten teams do in February/March than what one team does in May. 

[Bishopleftiesdad]

I do not just mean this year. Too many years the NCAC goes 2 and done in the tourney. Or 1-2. We need to be respectable in the regionals or we will always be overshadowed by the OAC. We need to start rebuilding a reputation. It helps the all the teams when it comes to regional ranking time. Yes we also need to do better in March and April. But unless we change how we play conference games SOS will always be against us. Beacuse if one team beats up on all the others it drags the SOS down.

[Dr. Acula]

If I'm remembering correctly even Wooster had a couple short trips to regionals recently.  The thing that buoys the OAC is that they have sent (I think) 6 different teams to the NCAA regional in the last few years and 3 different teams have won a regional.  That is going to help your entire conference when regional rankings come around.  It probably didn't hurt ONU if they did indeed end up ahead of Wooster in those final regional rankings.

Hopefully Oberlin continues to play well.  They are certainly proving themselves to be a tough out for anyone.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Amen Doctor. +1. It just is not Oberlin doing well. Any NCAC rep has to do well. This is not something that gets fixed over night but over several years, but you need to start somewhere.

[wally_wabash]

If I'm remembering correctly even Wooster had a couple short trips to regionals recently.  The thing that buoys the OAC is that they have sent (I think) 6 different teams to the NCAA regional in the last few years and 3 different teams have won a regional.  That is going to help your entire conference when regional rankings come around.  It probably didn't hurt ONU if they did indeed end up ahead of Wooster in those final regional rankings.

Hopefully Oberlin continues to play well.  They are certainly proving themselves to be a tough out for anyone.

Whoa.  Is this really a thing that happens?  Because it shouldn't be.  Are the RACs not being guided by the selection criteria, or do they get to just make up whatever rules they want?  Prior championship results shouldn't be impacting current year's regional rankings.  Can it influence top 25 polls?  Sure (not my style, but I get it).  But not the regional rankings.  Those should be governed by the criteria.   

[motorman]

Dr, I believe it's just 5 dIfferent OAC teams to regionals in last 7 years. Don't know how long since Ott went but only Mount, JCU, BW, Berg and Marietta since at least 2009.