BB: Top Teams in West Region

[108 Stitches]

Crash is probably right, however I would not want to be the higher ranked team and have to face Trinity with Klimesh on the hill for the first game. (assuming they get in)

[CrashDavisD3]

Crash is probably right, however I would not want to be the higher ranked team and have to face Trinity with Klimesh on the hill for the first game. (assuming they get in)

Trinity may not be the #1 seed in the West Regional if someone like St. Thomas is brought in. So who knows if Klimesh would even be the matchup depending on the seeding and how the schedule lines up.

[108 Stitches]

Crash I was thinking that TU would not be ranked number 1 in the West since they did not win their tournament and would end up being a lower seed, and would be facing a higher seed, which IMO would not be an ideal match up for the higher ranked team, but I am not familiar with how they set up the brackets. I will go take a look at last year's.

You are correct about the hotel situation at the site, most of the decent rooms are all 30 miles away.

[Ron Boerger]

Crash is probably right, however I would not want to be the higher ranked team and have to face Trinity with Klimesh on the hill for the first game. (assuming they get in)

Trinity may not be the #1 seed in the West Regional if someone like St. Thomas is brought in. So who knows if Klimesh would even be the matchup depending on the seeding and how the schedule lines up.

Regardless of seed, I doubt Trinity wants to risk the losers' bracket after the first game.  All the teams in the regional are going to be quality; Coach Scannell will likely start Ben and hope to get to the final day so he can get a few relief innings out of him then.   

[Ralph Turner]

Crash is probably right, however I would not want to be the higher ranked team and have to face Trinity with Klimesh on the hill for the first game. (assuming they get in)

Trinity may not be the #1 seed in the West Regional if someone like St. Thomas is brought in. So who knows if Klimesh would even be the matchup depending on the seeding and how the schedule lines up.

On other boards Pat Coleman has typed several times, and in my opinion and recollection, the higher seeds are usually kept in-region and the lower seeds are the ones that are shipped out.  (Only exception is Mount Union in northeast Ohio which is close to the East Region.  IMHO, the East Football Region rarely has a team that is a legitimate #1 seed.)

I would be very surprised if #1 Tommies (or even Midwest Region #2) is shipped out of the Midwest.  That plane flight makes it very expensive for you fans to follow.

IMHO, fly a lowly ranked, the "last Pool C bid" or someone who is just glad to be in the playoffs to Oregon.

[dp643]

What in the world happened to the West Region? 3-4 years ago all we were talking about this time of year is who is getting screwed out of a Pool C. This year all we can talk about is how we can't fill the tournament with west teams. What in the world happened?

[ILVBB]

dp - The reality is there are 3.5 conferences in the west. You will end up with 3 pool A's; we no longer have the Pool B's of a few years ago. What is left is for teams to build a record which is Pool C quality. For the most part they are very competitive which creates a degree of parity. That along with the true distances that makes travel cost prohibitive you get results like this year. It is not a matter of finding teams; it is developing a methodology which fits the D3 format for picking regional qualifiers (i.e. Pool C candidates).

Effectively there are three distinct areas of competition (NW, SoCal & Tx). Because each conference is a 2 hour flight from each other competition within the region is limited. Hence using the formula's the three componets that make up the regional rankings will be lower becuase it is a "zero sum" game (example - the best teams will always have a low sos if they only play within their conference). The only way to improve your numbers is through cross polinization which is difficult because of distance.

[dp643]

There has always been Parity. In 2008 I believe the ASC alone had 4 teams with 30+ wins. Are there 4 teams total in the west this year with 30 wins?

[(509)Rat]

To add, Whitworth (for example) played 7 games against DII and NAIA opponents. Pacific played 11. Willamette played 12. You get the idea.

Compare that to Wheaton (Mass.) who only played against DIII opponents. I just did a quick glance at a couple of NE teams and this was a pretty common theme.

Now, I don't know a ton about baseball's regional rankings but I know plenty about football and basketball in the NWC and being on a DIII island has hurt our teams in those sports in the past. Not having those extra "in region" games doesn't help your Pool C resume. I'd assume baseball is no different.

[Ralph Turner]

Wow!!!

The last three posts are something!  dp643 asked a good question that required in-depth understanding of the nature of D-III and the responses flowed quickly and accurately.  The assertions were substantiated by fact.

In December 2005, Pat Coleman let me start up the baseball message boards.  I knew that there must serious D-III baseball fans, just as we had on the football and men's and women's hoops boards.  Pat knew that Jim Dixon had a great website that had been on the Bridgewater College server for about a decade.   Having a strong group of D-III Baseball Fans would make Jim's website evevn more valuable as a tool for improving D-III Baseball and its following.

Here we are in our 7th baseball season, and we understand who is strong this year, which region is having a great year, what it takes to earn an at-large bid, etc.  And we have great cyber-friends with whom we can discuss the sports we like best.

THIS IS FUN.

[Ron Boerger]

Latest West Regional rankings:

WEST            
1   Trinity (Texas)   31-8   34-10   
2   Concordia (Texas)   33-9   33-9   
3   Whitworth   25-7-1   26-13-1   
4   Pacific Lutheran   22-10   24-13   
5   La Verne   24-12   25-14   
6   Pomona-Pitzer   23-11   25-12-1

Can CTX overtake Trinity if they win the ASC tourney this weekend?  36-9 vs 31-8 if they go undefeated, right?  Trinity does have the H2H win earlier in the season, true ...

[tigerfan_2001]

CTX, if they win their tourney, deserves to overtake TU.  They have a better record and should have a higher RPI.  If they dont win the tourney, it will be interesting to see which Team gets the first Pool C bid.

[CrashDavisD3]

Latest West Regional rankings:

WEST            
1   Trinity (Texas)   31-8   34-10   
2   Concordia (Texas)   33-9   33-9   
3   Whitworth   25-7-1   26-13-1   
4   Pacific Lutheran   22-10   24-13   
5   La Verne   24-12   25-14   
6   Pomona-Pitzer   23-11   25-12-1

Can CTX overtake Trinity if they win the ASC tourney this weekend?  36-9 vs 31-8 if they go undefeated, right?  Trinity does have the H2H win earlier in the season, true ...

I dont see all 6 teams making it to Oregon. Trinity TX, Concordia, TX, Whitworth, La Verne....BUT who will be the last 2.

[Whatagame]

PLU has the opportunity to run their in-region record to 24-10 this weekend, as they play non-conference games against against quality conference foes Linfield and George Fox.  Maybe on paper this gives them a remote shot of getting a bid to travel from Tacoma to McMinnville for the Regional?

The problem I have with PLU is that they lost 2 of 3 in each of their conference series to Pacific, Linfield and Whitworth.  They did take 3 of 4 from Chapman in Orange, and beat eventual SCIAC champ La Verne early in the season, but the only high quality conference foe they took a series from was George Fox. 

Pacific cooked their goose by playing 11 games against NAIA or D2 squads, including losing I believe 6 of 7 against such squads in Hawaii to kick off the season.  They were 20 - 6 against D3 opponents overall.  Should have have traveled to Arizona and/or So Cal instead, because they were a strong team that had quality wins.

[TexasBB]

Trinity looses twice last weekend and in their conference tourney and are still the top ranked team in the West. Concordia has lost 3 of their last 6 games and is still ranked 2nd.

I just don't think the system works well in the west. The West Region is just too spread out. It is like one poster said earlier - 3 divisions. NW, SCAL and Texas. There is nothing in common between the teams that are in the NW part of the Region and the teams from Texas. The weather significantly different, they are 2 times zones away and never play each other execpt at the regionals. Common opponents is a stretch. The closest is when they each play teams from S Cal. Head to head say Linfield against UTT or CTX just does not happen.

I think it is time we have sub-regionals 4 teams playing in each sub-regional in a double elimination format. The winners of the the 3 sub regional plus one other wild card a second team from the sub region with most teams, would play in the regional double elimination. Similar to what is done at D-I.  6 teams in a regional just doesn't get if for me. The regional rankings need to broken into sub-regions as well. This means that a total of 12 teams will be playing in the post season tournaments not 6. Since the sub-regional tournaments would be held within the sub-region their would not be alot of travel expense.

I am tired hearing about how the NCAA just doesn't have the money for an expanded region and somehow it is ithe schools fault for not spending money to travel to play "quality" opponenets to improve thier SOS etc. We need to stop making excuses for the NCAA. Bottom line is they just don't want to spend any more $$ on DIII level baseball. The schools are getting preasure to keep their tution and costs in line. However, with the current system, it is the schools that are being told, in effect, that they are just being cheap or are not willing to properly support their program, unless they are willing to spend more and travel more duing the regular season. Sorry, I am not buying the snake oil anymore.

Texas BB