This Super Regional is ridiculous

[GoneGolfin]

You would be correct. USA was top 40, FIU and Troy were both Top 75 or so, ULM was 131. Also, our Non-Conference RPI was 1. Yes, 1. The absolute best RPI in non-conference games in the country. #2 was Alabama and if I remember correctly # 3 was Cal.

Texas was #3 ... Cal was #6.

Brian

[GoneGolfin]

Nope, I'm not. Just trying to make myself feel better about it, I guess.

I'm still trying to figure out how Washington wins 4 of their last 20 and warrants a number one seed over the likes of Stanford (who swept them)...

You know how I feel about this one ... selecting Washington as a #1 seed over Stanford may be the most egregious mistake I have seen a selection committee make in any NCAA sport. When comparing the complete resumes and metrics used by the selection committee (as outlined in the NCAA Softball Championship Handbook) ... and any other reasonable metric, it is not even close.

Yes, that totally contradicts everything else I've said. What can I say? Now I've had my coffee, and my reasoning faculties are returning.

LOL. That is it ... the selection committee needed more coffee.

Brian

[Turbine]

That is it ... the selection committee needed more coffee.

LOL

At least they would have had "grounds" to stand on.

[CajunRed]

So VO we need to kick the door in every year, we will never be given any respect until we tare it out of their cold dead hands.

Yesterday I heard something that really upset me. Farmer, according to Jay Walker, felt we were properly seeded. Some of the criteria, ie excuses used, were lack of numerous games against the elite programs, and one bad loss. Yes we had one bad loss, and that loss to ULM whose UPI ended up 131, and ASU had a loss against McNeese who ended up 108. Not a lot of wiggle room there. So checking out TAMU and they have a loss against no. 98 New Mexico. Now 108 and 98 are better than 131 but not much. As you move into those numbers the percentage difference drops a lot.

To bad I now have to list our AD as a BCS jock sniffer, jocking for possible jobs in the future. I have zero doubt, not 1% doubt that the Ragin'Cajuns would have done better than TAMU, and Mizzou given thier schedules.

I guess if we had enough money to go on the road for another nine games and we took 6/3 from top fifteen programs there would be some other excuse to not properly seed little old UL. You know we lost 7 games then instead of 4 game. By the way ULM beat McNeese, just saying.

I have to say that I have been somewhat disappointed in Scott Farmer over the last couple of weeks. His comment to Jay that we were seeded just about right was infuriating. Whether it is because he was under informed or simply did not have the guts to take a stand on behalf of his own University, those comments did not reflect well on him.

[Turbine]

I have to say that I have been somewhat disappointed in Scott Farmer over the last couple of weeks. His comment to Jay that we were seeded just about right was infuriating. Whether it is because he was under informed or simply did not have the guts to take a stand on behalf of his own University, those comments did not reflect well on him.

Scott takes pride in not reading message boards ( and I can see reasons) but in this case I think he went to work (as SBCC) unarmed.

Brian really put on a clinic this year.

[CRAWFISH61]

I agree with everything up until biology class started.

Farmer had no say-so in where the Cajuns were slotted.

But he could have told the world that the softball committee once again favored the BCS schools instead of rewarding merit. To say we were seeded correctly was either blatantly ignorant or cowardly.

[snote]

anyone understands why "alley-oop" so mad that caused the article to be written in the 1st place? (smiles)

[Cajun8]

A good article Kevin, and one that is Super accurate. We need to post it on message boards everywhere to expose the
inequities towards mid-majors. How many SEc or Big 12 schools do we need to knock out of the regionals before they
begin to acknowledge our talent? There is way too much credit given to power ratings and not enough consideration
given for straight up talent. We continued to get screwed, and our AD sat there and watched. Hopefully we can get
more Mid-Majors to fight for fair treatment. Farmer missed a Golden Oportunity to do so.

[BirdofParadise]

I'm going to take a lot of heat for this, but I heard Farmer's rationale for his comments, and it's hard to disagree.

One big thing the committee looked at was "very bad losses" - losses to teams outside of the top 99 RPI. We had four of them. Many teams had none.

We had 4 wins against top 25 rpi teams. Some teams had many.

From a selection committee member's point of view, that actually made sense.

With that said, I wouldn't be thrilled to go to Cal or Alabama or somewhere like that. Would I rather play Hofstra? Well sure. But that's not how it works.

And all things considered, I think UL is VERY comfortable going to play a team we beat 9-2 earlier in the season. I don't think ASU is ecstatic for their "reward" for a great season - a date with the Cajuns.

It's going to be fun this Thursday and Friday. I really think these games won't even be close. I'll probably be surprised, but I guess we'll see.

OK, the information here was partially correct.

1. Scott said, yeahhhh, we were probably seeded where he expected. He said he expected somewhere between 12-15.

2. The 4 bad losses referred to Stanford and why Washington was seeded ahead of them. We didn't have four bad losses. We had one (ULM).

3. The lack of games against the RPI Top 25 hurt us. We only played four.

You guys need to realize the question I asked was to the chairman of the committee, not our AD. And, what he meant was our seed was close to correct ACCORDING TO THE CRITERIA USED BY THE COMMITTEE.

THe problem isn't the committee. It's the criteria.

[CajunT]

You can certainly have a contrarian opinion on this board ... but your data must be correct.


Unequivocally not true on both counts. The Cajuns had one "bad loss" ... to #131 ULM ... not four. The other three losses came to teams ranked #43, #63, and #67. Another thing to note, the Cajuns had a winning record over every single team they played this season. How many other teams can say that? None!

Meanwhile, there are several teams seeded ahead of Louisiana that had similar or worse "bad losses". I recounted them in another post. But a summary ...

#3 Arizona State had (1) ... #109
#7 Tennessee had (1) whopper of a loss ... #202
#8 Texas A&M had (1) ... #121 ... and arguably two more (#96 and #98)
#9 Missouri had (2) ... #159 and #124
#10 Georgia had (1) #93
#11 Oregon had (1) loss to a #98 team
#13 Arizona had (1) ... #107


Some teams ... like #7 Tennessee and #10 Georgia had (7) and (6) wins vs. the RPI Top 25 respectively. But they needed 14 games each to record those wins. Are you honestly going to tell me that going 6-8 vs. the RPI Top 25 and 7-7 vs. the RPI Top 25 is better than going 4-0? And warrants Georgia jumping five spots from their RPI rank of 15?

Brian

Brian, I will say this again as I tried last season. The schedule is part of it, but there is a built in bias beyond RPI. Its human nature and it is not measured in statistics or weighted formulas. Your points on their decisions only furthers my argument that it exist.