BB: SCAC: Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference

[Doc Nelson]

Re Coach of the Year: Coach Iwasaki is an excellent coach but despite the late-season surge his team's record this year was essentially .500.  Compare that to the record of Rhodes Coach Jeff Cleanthes, whose team has gone from 11 wins to 28 wins to 36 wins in the last three seasons, without his every winning the award.  Everything in its season: Iwasaki's season will come but Cleanthes's season is now.

[Baseball_fan]

I must agree with you here.  To often it seems that whoever wins the conference will be the coach of the year.  Certainly Austin has turned it around big time, coming from a 2 win season 4 years ago, but I agree with Doc, it must be noted that they are still sub .500, and I dont think they will go anywhere in a regional.

I thought that Jeff Cleathnes should have won it last year for sure for being the most improved in DIII.  He went from an 11 win year in 2005 to a 28 win year in 2006 to a 36 win year in 2007.  Austin has gone from a 2 win year to a 22 win year.  Certainly solid, but not on the same level.  Austin may have won the SCAC, but their coach (and not to bash him) still sits at the helm of a sub .500 team, and being coach of the year should account for the entire year, and not simply the SCAC tournament.

[Ralph Turner]

I slugged my way thru the Rhodes schedule and have calculated the QOWI.  (It makes me appreciate the tools that Pat has on the football and the hoops boards!!! )

I have about 75% confidence that I am within +/- 0.300 of the real value.

I count 350 QOWI points in 36 in-region games.  That gives an index of 9.722.

Please double-check me:

Ozarks              W           10
at Huntingdon   WW         26
Hendrix          L                 0
Millsaps         W                14
Maryville TN (WL)            20
Sewanee   WWWW         32
at Ogle      WWWW         36
at Piedmont   W               11
Methodist   (n)  W            15
DePauw    WWLL             34
at Rust            W               9
at Centre WWWW           44
LaGrange  LL                    10
Rust               W                  8
Emory (n)    WL                 22
Trinity (n)    WLW               31
Millsaps (n)     L                   7
Austin  (n)      L                    5
Total                                 350

Corrections appreciated!

[Baseball_fan]

Where would Millsaps size up with Rhodes in regards to this?  Would they have a better shot at getting the bid?

[frank_ezelle]

Ralph--Thanks for the post on Rhodes and it shows better the point that I was making a few days ago--a point that was probably buried in too long a post.

Rhodes plays Sewanee and gets 32 points for 4 wins.  Rhodes plays DePauw and gets 34 points for 2 wins and 2 losses.  It points out that if you are a team that is trying to get an at-large bid then winning is not enough.  Your opponents also have to have good seasons, something that isn't under your control.

Millsaps played 16 SCAC games during the regular season, going 12-4 but those were all wins and losses against teams with losing records.  That is a tremendous blow to the QOWI number.  Rhodes faced the same probem in the East.  Was this just an off year in the SCAC or are good teams coming up with losing records because of the 4-game weekends?  It seems like this is something that needs to be considered by the SCAC in the future.

[frank_ezelle]

Ralph, one question on your efforts.  When calculating the win-loss percentage of each opponent, did you look at that teams overall record or just their regional record?  I was going to do a QOIW for Millsaps last week but then I saw that the win-loss percentage that you have to use for a team is their regional games only and that would be a nightmare to calculate.

I'd also like to point out that this ranking system only looks at wins and losses when determining the strength of your opponent.  Beating a good team that plays a tough schedule and is just below .500 doesn't give you as many points as beating a bad team that plays a creampuff schedule and is just above .500.

One final thought is that maybe Millsaps and Rhodes have to look at dropping Rust from their schedule.  It would be a blow to the Rust program (they need to play teams in their area) and it would be a missed opportunity for Rhodes and Millsaps to play guys who don't get to play much, but wins against Rust actually hurt a team's chances to get an at-large bid.  The system seems to have some flaws.

[Pat Coleman]

It does have some flaws, which is why it's going away at the end of the season.

However, keeping teams from playing bottom-tier opposition is not a flaw. It's probably the intent of the rule, in fact.

[frank_ezelle]

Pat, I understand what you are saying and I see that point of view.  I also know that there is no system that could be created that would be perfect for every situation. 

I don't know exactly who Rust played or the results because they don't have a webpage for baseball, but I'm sure they were overmatched in just about every game they played this year.  I did find that they lost to Crichton, Lambuth and Huntingdon in addition to Rhodes and Millsaps.  I also saw that 4 games in mid-April with the U. of Dallas were cancelled.

I don't know why the U. of Dallas games were cancelled but the reality is that U. of Dallas has hopes for a pool C bid and winning 4 against Rust would have diminished their chances--that seems to be fundamentally wrong.  For baseball to continue at a school like Rust, they need to be able to schedule games with some of these better teams and while I don't think those better schools should gain by beating a team like Rust, I also don't think they should be penalized.

Maybe they could change it where schools under a .333 winning percentage just doesn't count as anything, much like playing a D2 school, an NAIA school, or a school out of your region.

[Ralph Turner]

Ralph, one question on your efforts.  When calculating the win-loss percentage of each opponent, did you look at that teams overall record or just their regional record?  I was going to do a QOWI for Millsaps last week but then I saw that the win-loss percentage that you have to use for a team is their regional games only and that would be a nightmare to calculate.

I'd also like to point out that this ranking system only looks at wins and losses when determining the strength of your opponent.  Beating a good team that plays a tough schedule and is just below .500 doesn't give you as many points as beating a bad team that plays a creampuff schedule and is just above .500.

One final thought is that maybe Millsaps and Rhodes have to look at dropping Rust from their schedule.  It would be a blow to the Rust program (they need to play teams in their area) and it would be a missed opportunity for Rhodes and Millsaps to play guys who don't get to play much, but wins against Rust actually hurt a team's chances to get an at-large bid.  The system seems to have some flaws.

Frank, that is why I said that I "slugged my way thru".      I actually tried to calculate the QOWI on every opponent's value.  That is why the football and hoops boards are so good for us fans.

I only used the games that the committee uses to the best of my ability.  I do not think that WashStL is in region...Different Conference SCAC vs. UAA; different evaluation region, South vs. Central; Admin Region #3 for Rhodes vs #4 for Wash StL and 292 miles away.

I also put out my assessment for everyone to double-check me.

[Ralph Turner]

Pat, I understand what you are saying and I see that point of view.  I also know that there is no system that could be created that would be perfect for every situation. 

I don't know exactly who Rust played or the results because they don't have a webpage for baseball, but I'm sure they were overmatched in just about every game they played this year.  I did find that they lost to Crichton, Lambuth and Huntingdon in addition to Rhodes and Millsaps.  I also saw that 4 games in mid-April with the U. of Dallas were cancelled.

I don't know why the U. of Dallas games were cancelled but the reality is that U. of Dallas has hopes for a pool C bid and winning 4 against Rust would have diminished their chances--that seems to be fundamentally wrong.  For baseball to continue at a school like Rust, they need to be able to schedule games with some of these better teams and while I don't think those better schools should gain by beating a team like Rust, I also don't think they should be penalized.

Maybe they could change it where schools under a .333 winning percentage just doesn't count as anything, much like playing a D2 school, an NAIA school, or a school out of your region.

Actually, I want to teams with "losing" percentages in the calculations.  It is best for all concerned.

UDallas has "cherry-picked" their schedule to optimize their playoff access.  You cannot blame a coach for doing that.  However, cherry-picking does have its limitations.  I don't know if UDallas can get a sufficiently high QOWI with their schedule.

The ASC is a very brutal conference.  It has lots of balance.  The 5th place team in the ASC-East took the #8 ranked ASC-West #1 TLU Bulldogs to 3 games on the road in the playoffs.  That is balance!  It is hard for a Trinity or Southwestern or AC or UDallas to cherry-pick among the "middle-tier" (those teams with an in-region record in the 12/13 point value, .500-.667) that is comfortably beatable.   (It is also balance that Trinity beat TLU.)

I don't think we have a Top 8 team too often, but I think that our Top 5 in each division are in the Top 100 in the country (of the 350 D3 teams that play baseball).

[frank_ezelle]

Much like the SCAC where #4 in the West Trinity beat 8th ranked Texas Lutheran on Tuesday in non-conference play and then took the #1 in the East (Rhodes) to a 3rd game while playing in Memphis.

[Ralph Turner]

Much like the SCAC where #4 in the West Trinity beat 8th ranked Texas Lutheran on Tuesday in non-conference play and then took the #1 in the East (Rhodes) to a 3rd game while playing in Memphis.

Yes!


I got called away while my previous post was in the modify mode.  You had "read my mind" (or "great minds on the same track") in the interval.

[Just_Some_Guy]

Much like the SCAC where #4 in the West Trinity beat 8th ranked Texas Lutheran on Tuesday in non-conference play and then took the #1 in the East (Rhodes) to a 3rd game while playing in Memphis.

But it's precisely why in the playoffs it's not single elimination and you play best of 3 series, etc.  Nearly any team can beat any other team on any given day at least once depending on who is on the bump.  In the case of Trinity, I still think they underacheived all year long with an okay offense and struggled finding a consistent middle infield.  It's hard to justify someone else's status because so and so beat so and so on this day and our team swept them on this day. I mean Austin College was 2-7 against the ASC West including 0-2 against ASC West 7th place Schreiner.  Does that mean I can say that Schreiner is better than the entire SCAC since they took both from Austin and Austin won the SCAC.... Of course not. Sul Ross beat TLU for their only conference win this year.  ANYTHING can happen in the game of baseball on any given day and you can't necessarily justify the strength of another team based on that.

Some_Guy

[Doc Nelson]

I'm down at (gulp) Millsaps helping my son Sam get situated for the fall semester. On Friday afternoon, while Sam was hanging out at the SAE house, I stopped by to introduce myself to (double gulp) veteran baseball coach Jim Page.  He's a huge admirer of the Rhodes baseball team (and, of course, of his own), which made it easy for us to fall into conversation. . . .

Read the rest of the story at http://seriousplay.com, and scroll down to read other entries like "Nicknames," "The Art of Chatter," and "The prose of Livestats."

[Doc Nelson]

CORRECTION: The web site is http://seriousplaythebook.com

The address I left in my previous message will take you to a Lego site--maybe not such a bad thing . . .