Lynnette Johnson serves as the deputy athletic director for sports and administration at Ole Miss. She completed a four-year term on the NCAA softball tournament selection committee that expired at the end of the 2018 season. That was her second four year term on the committee.
In a recent interview she made the following comments.
The answer in regards to hosting, according to Johnson, boils down to scheduling.
"We wanted to see our name go up on the board," Johnson began. "I learned from the RPI, the conversations, the full body of work. He (head coach) and I had a ton of conversations after that first year to say, 'Hey, it's not just about wins, it's about who you play. You have to beat them, obviously, but putting together those quadrants of (games) 1-25, 26-50, 50-100 and then 100 and up. We were very strategic in building that over time. This schedule this year shows the full body of work.
Johnson stated "When you're in the Southeastern Conference, you're going to get a lot of top 50 opportunities. However, that committee is looking at what is within your control, and that's your non-conference schedule."
Once you look beyond the raw RPI ranking it becomes pretty clear that she is right. Take Alabama for example. They played three quadrant 1 games OOC and two quadrant 2 games OOC. Ole Miss on the other hand played six quad 1 games and four quad 2 games.
When you look at the team sheets it is a little surprising. Certainly those SEC schools benefit from an SEC schedule however they also all scheduled some very good OOC teams.
So... lets look at the top rated teams based on adjusted RPI and how many Quad 1 & 2 games they played OOC.
1. Oklahoma 13
2. Washington 15
3. Arizona 15
4. Florida St. 13
5. UCLA 9
6. Florida 11
7. Texas 18
8. Alabama 5 (20 OOC games scheduled against quad 4 teams)
9. Minnesota 16
10. LSU 10
11. Northwestern 13
12. Michigan 14
13. James Madison 9 (note- 29 quad 4 games)
14. Oklahoma St. 14
15. Tennessee 8
16. Kentucky 14
17. Louisiana 3 (note- 22 quad 4 games)
18. Ole Miss 10
Now you can't use these numbers in a vacuum anymore than you can use RPI numbers in a vaccum however it is pretty easy to pick up on the outliers and a former committee member has said it is a point of emphasis.
So Alabama got knocked for their OOC schedule. Not only for the lack of quad 1 & 2 games against OOC teams but also for the outrageous twenty games against quad 4 OOC teams. I mean come on Bama you can do better than that and that is why the committee sent you a message.
This should make Louisiana and other non power conference teams happy to see them pay at least a little bit of a price. However if you are James Madison or Louisiana those quad 4 games are a concern as well.
James Madison did what they could with their OOC schedule but their wasn't anything they could do about their conference mates. Twenty nine games against quad 4 teams was just too much to overcome.
Louisiana had some bad luck with this years schedule as far as getting Quad 1 & 2 games on the book but we can't ignore the nine OOC games against quad 4 teams. Bottom line is that both ends of the schedule have to get better moving forward. Something Brian has emphasised in the past. Scheduling an SEC team is great but don't make it a wash by playing games against teams that are consistently in the dredges of NCAA softball.