The Road to Omaha: 2018 College Baseball Thread

I know Tennessee Tech is a dangerous team, but what the hell, Ole Miss?

 

Washington blew a 5-2 lead in the 9th against Stanford in the final game of the year. Had it won, it would have been the Pac-12 champion.

RPI is built primarily in your conference schedule, where you play most of your games. Pac-12 schools do not get the RPI boost from conference games as the SEC and ACC do, even though the conference is on par in competitiveness. That's why Washington's RPI was artificially low, as it proved by easily winning a regional.

 

Mississippi State, a team that had its coach resign in a murky sex scandal after getting swept on opening weekend; was 14-15 overall and 2-7 in the SEC entering April; lost its opening game of the SEC Tournament to a team that just got clobbered 26-1 in two regional losses; didn't ensure its NCAA Tournament footing until sweeping a disinterested Florida team going through its only slump of the season on the final weekend of the regular season; that gave up 20 runs in its regional opener; that needed a coaching legend to make one of the most brain dead moves of his career to avoid elimination in its next regional game ... is on the brink of making it to a super regional.
Holy shit. Where's the Tylenol?

 

If they are a 3 seed it means they are considered somewhere between the #9 and #12 team in the nation. That's exactly what their resume showed them to be.

I guess you could argue that they should have been closer to the West Coast for the first weekend, but then you'd be bitching that they paired all the West Coast teams together in a knockout bracket.

 

They were a 3 seed in one of 16 regionals. That puts them in the high 40s.

 

Oh OK. Never mind me then.

I don't pay any attention anyway during the season.

But Washington doesn't show up anywhere in the rankings. This doesn't seem to be at travesty level.

 

So when it's not two national seeds, how does the NCAA determine the host for the super regional?
Not only did Mississippi State reach a super regional with all of that stuff I mentioned, but they have a higher RPI and roughly the same record as Vanderbilt. Could they actually get to host this thing?

 

One way is place better equipped to host.

 

The NCAA weigh$ $everal factor$ in determining the $uper regional $ite$.

 

Probably a wash in this case. I'd expect both places to sell out and they're both modern stadiums. Mississippi State is about twice as big, even with renovations underway right now.

 

Fullerton will have a dedicated 4,000 a game. What could Washington draw if it is the host??

 

Yeah, I slightly flubbed the math. Alas, third in the PAC-12. What? 30-23 on the season with a decent but not impressive non-conference? (Was the PAC-12 deep this year?)

I suppose you can argue the lack of whatever math that should help the PAC-12’s RPI didn’t lift them from that not-good non-conference season. Just a lot of losses to ok and sub-.500 mid-majors.

Which two seeds should it have been ahead of?