BB: NCAC: North Coast Athletic Conference

[Pops33]

Wooster got a good pitching performance through 7 innings last night and actually led 3-2 going to the bottom of the 8th.  It was tied 2-2 and in the top of the eighth when Wooster hit a solo home run to put them up 3-2.  The bullpen then let them down in the bottom of the inning, giving up 2 singles, 2 walks and a hit batter before a bases clearing double made it 7-3.  The two teams were pretty evenly matched except for the 8th inning implosion by the pen.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Ohio Wesleyan punched their ticket to Chillicothe. They took two from Kenyon today 26-6 and 11 - 2. They now stand at 13 -5 in the NCAC.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Denison and Allegheny split. Oberlin and Depauw split. Wooster takes two from Wabash. (I am sure CR will come on here with the details.) As previously mentioned Ohio Wesleyan takes two from Kenyon.
So two spots are decided , Wooster and Ohio Wesleyan. Two still remain.
Hiram and Witt split.

[NCACfan22]

In today's action, Allegheny defeated Denison 3-0 and Oberlin upset Depauw 11-1 to finalize the Final 4 in the NCAC.

Here is schedule for Thursday (NCAC has elected to have a two-day tournament)
10 A.M. Wooster vs Ohio Wesleyan
1 P.M Oberlin vs Allegheny

Should be a great tournament!

[Bishopleftiesdad]

I wonder how they selected opponents. Not sure how OWU was set againt Wooster. I guess being the highest seed left in the west doesn't amount to much.
I thought it would be Allegheny vs Ohio Wesleyan, and Wooster vs. Oberlin. I in am not sure why the Gators got Oberlin.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

I think I get it now. It is stupid but I get it. They do not re-seed. The cross over games are like a bracket, even though they are not part of the tournament. The Tournament pairings are decided, when the Cross over pairings are decided. When we were the two seed in the west, no matter what happened we would be facing the winner of the 1-4, east/west winner.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Here's the bracket for the NCAC tourney. Note: if in game 6 the undefeated team loses there will be a 7th and final team. This is due to the double elimination format.

http://www.northcoast.org/sports/bsb/Tournament/Files/2015_Bracket.pdf

For all going to the games on Thursday, safe travels.

[Pops33]

In the Wabash vs Wooster game which ended 26-20 on Saturday, the two teams combined to set a Division 3 record for most doubles in the game with 20.  Each team ended up with 10 doubles.  Quite an accomplishment!

[Bishopleftiesdad]

I still don't understand the lack of love for Ohio Wesleyan in the regional ranking. Only thing I can think of is SOS. Some of the teams scheduled in Florida who are usually pretty strong have tanked. Although St John Fisher and Brockport are regionally ranked now. Ohio Wesleyan has wins over both. As per the D3baseball site here are the criteria for Pool B and C.

http://www.d3baseball.com/interactive/faq/ncaaTournament

Take a look at point 5

The primary criteria emphasize regional competition (all contests leading up to NCAA championships); all criteria listed will be evaluated (not listed in priority order).
• Win-loss percentage against Division III opponents.
• Strength-of-schedule (only contests versus regional competition).
    - Opponents' Average Winning Percentage (OWP).
    - Opponents' Opponents' Average Winning Percentage (OOWP).
• In-region head-to-head competition.
• In-region results versus common regional opponents.
• In-region results versus regionally ranked teams.
• Ranked opponents are defined as those teams ranked at any time of the rankings/ selection process.
• Conference postseason contests are included.
• Contests versus provisional and reclassifying members in their third and fourth years shall count in the primary criteria. Provisional and reclassifying members shall remain ineligible for rankings and selection.

If the evaluation of the primary criteria does not result in a decision, the secondary criteria will be reviewed. All the criteria listed will be evaluated (not listed in priority order). The secondary criteria introduce results against out-of-region Division III and all other opponents including those contests versus opponents from other classifications (i.e., provisionals, NAIA, NCAA Divisions I and II).
• Out-of-region head-to-head competition.
• Overall Division III win-loss percentage.
• Results versus common non Division III opponents.
• Results versus all Division III ranked teams.
• Overall win-loss percentage.
• Results versus all common opponents.
• Overall DIII Strength of Schedule.
Additionally, input is provided by regional advisory committees for consideration by the men's baseball committee. In order to be considered for selection for Pools B or C, an institution must play at least 50 percent of its competition against Division III in-region opponents. Coaches' polls and/or any other outside polls or rankings are not used as a selection criterion by the men's baseball committee for selection purposes.

The one that gets me is the one in bold above. It must be too low on the totem pole to make up for strength of schedule. Ohio Wesleyan has beat many of the mideast regionally ranked teams. BW, Berg, Marietta. (Split with BW and Marietta). We did lose to ONU. We also beat NY regional ranked teams, SJF, and Brockport. Denison, Depauw and Witt being down must have really hurt us.

[wally_wabash]

A couple of things about the regional rankings and the criteria- we shouldn't look at them in any sort of priority order.  I think naturally the people voting on these lists have their own personal preferences, but ultimately I think it tends to wash out and the criteria are considered more or less equally.  That said, I'm personally very much a "who did you beat" guy when it comes to these things and if OWU has beaten more quality teams than, let's say Marietta, then I think OWU deserves ranked.  The SOS as the NCAA computes it is a weak metric and sometimes it appears that the RACs lean on it too much. 

Case and point- in the fall Wabash's soccer time had a tremendous season.  One of the (maybe THE) best ever.  Regional rankings time came around and I was crushed when Wabash wasn't only not ranked in the top 3-4 in the region (as I would have expected an unbeaten team that late in the season to be...validated by a win against Kenyon), but they weren't ranked at all.  After a couple of quick questions with the folks that follow soccer closer than I do, I was basically told that if you don't have an SOS of .500 you can pretty much forget being ranked.  That's how it works in soccer.  Maybe there's a similar SOS line of demarcation in play in baseball as well. 

[Dr. Acula]

Personally, I think the biggest thing hurting OWU is outside their control...the weakness of their half of the NCAC this year.  It hurts their SOS obviously.  But beyond that one of the things I always look at is how you do against the quality competition in your conference because those are the games that matter most.  That's when you're throwing your best pitchers for entire games.  The problem for OWU is that they didn't play Wooster yet and that's really the only pelt to be had in the NCAC this year.  Beating the other regionally ranked teams is good and it certainly helps their case, but my fear would be that some voters may discount it because they don't view it as a "true" measure of how good the teams are because it's usually not going to be my #1 and #2 against yours or whatever the case would be in a conference DH.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Wally you are right their is. I believe it is at that .500 level. Ohio Wesleyan has beat every regionally ranked team that they played except ONU. They did split with some of those teams, BW and Marietta, the losses were early in the season. They beat Berg pretty badly in a weekday game.
We have also beat some teams ranked regionally in other regions, St. John Fisher and Brockport. Both from NY. Even if we were ranked I am not sure it would be high enough to get a pool c.
We will see how the tournament goes. we will have to try and get in through a Pool A. As they say. Win your conference.

[Bishopleftiesdad]

Well Dr. We play Wooster at 10 am Thursday.  Your point about the west is accurate.  Thats why I would like to see round robin in the NCAC. But that wont happen. I understand the difficulty of making that happen.

[motorman]

I thought OWU was on the verge of making the 2nd regional rankings till they lost a pair to Wittenberg who only had 7 wins going into that series and ending up in a tie for the division with a Depauw squad that only won 3 out of conference games the entire season.

[countyroad]

Wooster defeated OWU 12-3 today in game one. Wooster takes on the winner of the Oberlin/Allegheny game (1:00) @ 4:00 pm.