This Super Regional is ridiculous

[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.

[MelRock]

From an email I received from ASU
"Sparky's Insights

Your 2011 defending National Champion Sun Devil Softball team is set to host a Super Regional in their quest to return to the College World Series to defend their crown.

They open play against Louisiana this Thursday night and need your support to travel the road to Oklahoma City."

It is nice that they refer to us as Louisiana and not the other names. Anyway I hope they feel the same way when they wake up Saturday morning and wondering what happened the night before.

Geaux Cajuns!!

[Cajun8]

Still doesn't explain the double penalty question, and the fact that we did beat those 4 Top 25 programs. You can't just
take 54 wins and throw them out the window. The question is, "Is this team capable of beating a Top 10 team?"
and that answer is YES, and their seed should reflect it. One bad loss ? are you kidding me? Are you saying the Top 10 seeds
had No bad losses?

[CajunEXPRESS]

From an email I received from ASU
"Sparky's Insights

Your 2011 defending National Champion Sun Devil Softball team is set to host a Super Regional in their quest to return to the College World Series to defend their crown.

They open play against Louisiana this Thursday night and need your support to travel the road to Oklahoma City."

It is nice that they refer to us as Louisiana and not the other names. Anyway I hope they feel the same way when they wake up Saturday morning and wondering what happened the night before.

Geaux Cajuns!!

Makes perfect sense to me. Who would you rather beat UL at Lafayette, or Louisiana? Same thing if they lose. It makes no sense to try to deminish your opponent in any way.

[GoneGolfin]

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.

I do not know what point I made that you are trying to address. Of course I think there is bias in the selection process ... beyond the RPI itself. I made that point in this thread.

That said, again ... the RPI is the selection committee's touchstone.

Brian

[moorecajun]

I do not know what point I made that you are trying to address. Of course I think there is bias in the selection process ... beyond the RPI itself. I made that point in this thread.

That said, again ... the RPI is the selection committee's touchstone.

Brian

Brian, with that being said, would the only way for the Cajuns to improve their stock (seeding) be to schedule as many bigger conference out of conference games. Do they need to try to drop all of the Alcorn State's etc that is possible and replace with a Big-12, CUSA, etc type team?

I am just wondering if they may have maxed their potential seeding; I don't see them improving on their record, other than going undefeated.

So we need to figure out a way to get the committee to change their selection criteria.

[ATXCajun]

We've done that before to no avail. Before the Super-regional era we got sent to a regional at Arizona, where we eliminated the #1 national seed Arizona, and an Oklahoma team that had been to the WCWS the year before and lost nobody.

I agree. They say winning changes perception, but it hasn't changed perception much for this program. Consistently a top 25 team. Consistently deep in the post-season. Consistently defeats programs that are considered elite. Consistently overlooked. Consistently underrated. I think we could win a national championship and they still won't talk about us in the same sentence as some of the PAC12 schools. I will say one thing for the committee though. They knew damned well they better give us at least a 16 or we were gonna knock out one of their national seeds, again.

Whatever. Go on ladies. Take their damned trophy and bring it home to Lafayette, and tell them you're gonna do it. Let's see if they can stop you.

[CajunT]

I do not know what point I made that you are trying to address. Of course I think there is bias in the selection process ... beyond the RPI itself. I made that point in this thread.

That said, again ... the RPI is the selection committee's touchstone.

Brian

I agree, my point is that I made this point last year that it went beyond the scheduling of the Lotiefs. The schedule is something they can address to a certain point, depending on the funds raised to pay teams like Georgia Tech and Northwestern to come to Lafayette. The part they have no control over is the bias of the process and that will never change. This year was almost the perfect season for the Cajuns, going undefeated in their out of conference schedule and losing only four games. Despite that accomplishment along with a Top 10 Ranking and a #12 RPI, it garnered them nothing more then a #14 seed. Sadley, that is the reality of their situation.

[ATXCajun]

My data shows that the two smartest people on this board live in the Austin area. :-)