By: James Gravley | WV Sports Chat
Baseball America, who is driven by analytical data, released its latest Field of 64 projections and quite frankly they dropped the ball.
How?
They don’t have a single Big 12 team hosting a regional in what is — behind the ACC and SEC — one of the toughest baseball conferences out there.
No Kansas. No West Virginia. No Arizona State. No TCU. Not one single Big 12 team is hosting, per Baseball America.
Here is what they said about West Virginia:
“West Virginia’s RPI dropped to No. 28 as of April 20, a number that becomes increasingly difficult to overlook despite strong overall and conference win totals.”
Sure, WVU dropped a game against Houston. However, they’ve not lost a Big 12 series other than to UCF and they get punished by Baseball America for playing a team late in their schedule. That doesn’t make sense.
Punishing a team just because of who they played later in the season is just lazy.
They then followed that up by saying this about TCU:
“TCU finished conference tournament play with a top 20 RPI last year, and the Big 12 still did not place a team on the host line, a precedent that looms with an RPI number approaching 30.”
Here’s the thing though. Out of the 16 regional spots, Baseball America has 14, yes 14 schools that span out from the Big Ten, ACC and SEC hosting a regional. While Coastal Carolina (Sun Belt) and Oregon State (Independent) are also hosting a regional.
Here is what Baseball America said about Arizona State and BYU:
“Two months ago, it would have sounded unlikely that Arizona State at BYU would carry significant Quad I weight for both sides. But that’s exactly what it became. Arizona State entered the weekend coming off an RPI slide following a midweek loss to rival Arizona in a Quad IV result. BYU, meanwhile, had played its way into a strong RPI position. The Sun Devils responded by taking the series, outscoring the Cougars 12-1 after the third inning of the finale to erase an early 7-0 deficit. The win pushed Arizona State back into the top 40 in RPI, enough for us to move it back onto the two-seed line after sitting as a high three last week. The remaining schedule will continue to shape that profile. Arizona State still has series against Baylor, UCF, Oklahoma State and Houston, with all but the finale carrying significant postseason implications for both sides.”
So, if the Sun Devils responded the way they should have, why aren’t they hosting a regional within the projections from Baseball America? Especially since their RPI took a major bump up. But take a breath because that series later down for ASU against Houston may hurt them like it did West Virginia.
Here’s how the bracket looks per Baseball America.
Cincinnati gets locked up with UCLA (No. 1 seed), Cal Baptist and Nevada.
Arizona State gets locked up with Texas (No. 2 seed), Texas State and Lamar.
TCU gets locked up with Georgia (No. 7 seed), Oregon and Bucknell. TCU is the three seed in that regional.
West Virginia gets locked up with Nebraska (No. 15 seed), Kentucky and Creighton.
UCF gets locked up with Florida (No. 13 seed), Virginia and Bethune-Cookman. UCF is the three seed in that regional.
Baylor gets locked up with Ole Miss (No. 12 seed), Liberty and Indiana State. Baylor is the three seed in that regional.
Kansas gets locked up with Oregon State (No. 10 seed), Gonzaga and Yale.
Seven total teams making the postseason for the Big 12. Not a bad number. But none of them potentially hosting a regional just doesn’t make sense.
Photo: Shanna Rose – WV Sports Chat
