So every year we get to hear about Bracketology from the second the college football bowl season ends until that great day in March when the NCAA tourney starts.  There are even people who have made careers out of  projecting who will and who won't make the field in the NCAA College Basketball Tournament.  It's pretty ridiculous actually.  Well maybe that it being too kind.  It is flat out insane how much time is spent on predicting the field of 64 errrr 65 errrr 68.


tool

I wish someone paid some attention to the baseball tournament with 1/1,000,000th the fervor that the Bracketologists do with the basketball tourney. 

Why do I care?  Because the stiffs who are picking the field for the NCAA Baseball Tournament are inept.  They could be replaced by anyone who can read the NCAA RPI rankings the day of the selections.  People who think that a sacrifice fly is some sort of offering to a frog prince could do the job equally as well as the NCAA committee.  No preparation needed.  No studying teams.  No interest in baseball needed.  Heck, Trey Parker and Matt Stone could have picked the field that these slackers presented us with this season.

So here's how it goes in the world of college baseball.  If you play in the ACC, SEC, Pac-10 and to a lesser degree the Big XII you merely need to show up for all of your games and you have a very good chance of being selected for the post-season.  No reason to actually strive for a successful season.  Just show up and win a few games here and there and you are in with a #2 seed most likely.

If on the other hand you play in Big Ten, Atlantic 10, Conference USA or to a lesser degree the Big East you better win your conference regular season and conference tournament to make sure you can get a #3 or #4 seed.

The baseball field consists of 30 automatic bids and 34 at-large bids.  With 300 teams playing D-1 baseball that leaves 270 with a chance at an at-large selection.  Of those 34 at-large bids 21 were taken by teams from the ACC, SEC and Pac-10 this season.  That left 13 bids from the other 27 conferences that consist of about 235 teams who did not receive an automatic bid.  The Big XII got 4 of those 13 so that left 9 bids from the other 26 conferences and 220+ teams.  REALLY?

That is utterly ridiculous.  There is no way in the world that you could ever convince me that there are only 9 teams worthy of at-large bids that don't play in the big 4 baseball conferences.  9 of 220.  Just staggering.  It's like the rest of the country is playing t-ball or t-bag or something that definitely isn't baseball.


The Ruben Sierra of t-ball

So why so few?  Well it's because of the RPI and the laziness of the committee to do any homework or reward teams who actually accomplished something during the regular season. 

The worst offender this season was the Pac-10.  The conference received 8 bids to the tourney this season.  Mostly because the Pac-10 was the RPI darling of 2010.  For ample evidence all you need to do is look at the USC Trojans.

USC is one of the most storied programs in college baseball history, but that shouldn't mean anything when they suck.  The team finished a sad 7-20 in Pac-10 play this season.  Dead last and their record for this forgettable season was 28-32.  Guess what there RPI is?  66th.  The last place team in the Pac-10 is better than 234 other teams in the country.  Sorry, but I ain't buying that.  No more than I wanted to buy a Suzuki from Joe.  Utter bull mularkey.

4 teams from the Pac-10 that had very unimpressive seasons were sacrificial lambs in the NCAA tourney after the first weekend.  Cal, Stanford, Oregon State and Arizona.  RPI's are 41st, 37th, 27th and 25th respectively.  Of the 4 only Stanford actually finished Pac-10 play with a .500 conference record.  A mundane 14-13.  The others were either 13-14 or 12-15.  For the season (pre-NCAA tourney) the teams were 6, 8, 9, and 11 games over .500.  Very pedestrian.  Predictably these highly rated teams went 2-8 this weekend and were all heading home by Sunday afternoon.  Were they really worthy of at-large bids?  HELL NO!!!!


goose is excited now

Teams like Southeast Louisiana (40-19 overall, 21-12 in Southland and 51st in the RPI), Texas State (38-22 overall, Southland regular season champs at 23-10, 49th RPI), Liberty (42-19 overall, 19-8 in Big South, 48th RPI), Wichita State (41-19 overall, Mo Valley regular season champs at 15-6, 56th RPI), Pittsburgh (38-18 overall, 18-8 in Big East, 58th RPI), Michigan (35-22 overall, 14-10 in Big Ten, 69th RPI) or Charlotte (39-17 overall, A-10 regular season champs at 20-7, 82nd RPI) did the work during the season to warrant an invite to the post-season. 

Reward them for their success this season.  Don't just go down the RPI list and find every team from the big 4 conferences with a pulse.  It's a shame and a slap in the face to all those teams that actually won baseball games and accomplished something besides being a member of a certain conference.