NCAA Baseball Regional Selection Show

[HOUCajun]

Any chance Hammond is back for this weekend?

[sportsfanatic21]

Any chance Hammond is back for this weekend?

He’s been declared out for the season.

[CajunFun]

Here ya geaux, and it’s pretty awesome:

https://twitter.com/ragincajunsbsb/s...KBZGYcONLTTXbg

I watched it over and over, to check out each person's reaction. Fun stuff.

[ZZeebart21]

This was my point ... which remains to be seen. Will they have enough rest to have their best stuff.

Brian

Send them to the traiteurs down in St Martinville. Let pray over those arms.

Z

[AboveAverage]

Send them to the traiteurs down in St Martinville. Let pray over those arms.

Z

Just what they need evil influence.

[AboveAverage]

I had give up all hope thinking with above average everthing UL had ran themselves out of way to many games to have a chance.

[Cajun90]

Kyle Peterson said the RPI system needs scrapping right now. Not sure what replaces though. John Cohen stated a more regionally fair system needed to be used.

Totally disagree with him regarding the regional aspect. You need to pick the best 64 teams end of story. I was very surprised that the committee dug as deep as they did and obviously were open about the problems with the RPI system. Certainly helped the Cajuns that they did do a deeper dig. In my opinion a modified ELO system (chess ranking system) would be an improvement. Warren Nolan does calculate ELO. A post season analysis of outcomes compared to RPI/ELO would certainly be interesting.

[GoneGolfin]

Brian,

One would be just to run a statistical regression of every possible factor, and how teams/conferences fared in the last 4 or 5 tournaments.

1) That will tease out the best predictors.
2) It will change every year.
3) And where it is predictable, go back to 1).

You could do this ... and knowing the data available and problem to some degree, I am fairly certain you would need to use a non-linear model (if you used regression analysis) ... potentially logistic regression. But there are much more advanced techniques that will get to a better prediction in a significantly shorter amount of time. Toolsets are available that can compare/contrast a variety of both supervised and unsupervised ML models ... but also pour over vast amounts of data and perform automated feature extraction. This is the part that takes so long to do ... select the most optimal features (fewest # of features yielding the most information) and then learn the coefficients ... and compare/contrast different models and varying feature sets rapidly.

Brian

[GoneGolfin]

RPI....I would make road wins more valuable. Lower home win value. Currently it's 1.3 for a Away win and 0.7 for Home win. Neutral site being 1.0. I'd make this to 1.4 and 0.6.....slightly neutralize the advantage the teams with home heavy schedules have. Force them to play a handful more away or neutral site games or stay home heavy but drop some in RPI.

No. You need to go in the opposite direction. NCAA Baseball overshot this arbitrary adjustment factor when they instituted it. It overvalues road games and undervalues home games. Teams should be using it more than they have. The smart ones have scheduled more road games.

Brian

[GoneGolfin]

I understand you are not in favor of this tweak. However would it be an improvement of the current system, even if marginally so?

Just marginally ... as was done with the last round of alterations. But the problem with tweaking is that you are not addressing root cause. By setting out to tweak the system (as they have done in the past), you give it legitimacy ... when what you should really be doing is burning it to the ground.

Brian

[GoneGolfin]

They win the Big XII ... they are better than their RPI rank. Very good pitching and defense (as usual) ... but not necessarily the dominant shut down pitching they have had in the past. Plenty of power, especially when you consider their 85 HRs in that cavernous ballpark (especially the way the win typically blows). They can score.

Louisiana will need to be on their game to beat Texas. Tough matchup. But they have done it before.

A major storyline in Coral Gables will be DC's (Dylan Campbell) Texas record 36 game hit streak. Would that not be fun to wreck?

Meanwhile, the Cajuns will get Big XII Pitcher of the Year Lucas Gordon. Gordon is a lefty with a good fastball and outstanding command. He has a nasty change-up and the Cajun hitters will need to show patience. It has good sink and has some run. In fact, Texas has an excellent 1-2 punch with power right-hander Lebarron Johnson Jr. (played high school at Strake Jesuit in Houston). Hard fastball and good slider. Gordon and Johnson were both 1st team Big XII selections.

Tanner Witt also seems to be on his way back from injury. He started the prior Sunday (Big XII regular season title game) against West Virginia and threw three scoreless innings. He was shut down early last year after a Freshman All-American campaign in 2021. Power right-hander with a very nice breaking ball. His Dad played pro ball and his Mom played softball for Texas. Texas has a formidable starting rotation if Witt can get back to form.

Brian

[GoneGolfin]

Alabama (last national seed) lower than I would have thought. No way Alabama is lower than Indiana State.

Alabama being at #16 was strange ... especially when you compare to #13 seed Auburn. Now, I will not get into Cohen (selection committee chairman) being Auburn's AD. But I will look at the resume breakdown ...

Record: Alabama 40-19, Auburn 34-21-1
RPI Ranking: Alabama 11, Auburn 19
NC RPI Ranking: Alabama 11, Auburn 47
SOS: Auburn 12, Alabama 15
Record vs. RPI Top 25: Alabama 10-13, Auburn 6-11
Record vs. RPI Top 50: Alabama 17-14, Auburn 15-16
Record vs. RPI Top 100: Auburn 27-18-1, Alabama 23-16
Record vs. 150 and below (bad losses): Alabama 11-1, Auburn 5-1
Road Record: Alabama 9-9, Auburn 8-10
Conference Record: Auburn 18-15, Alabama 18-16
Last 10 Games: Auburn 8-2, Alabama 7-3
Last 15 Games: Auburn 11-4, Alabama 10-5
Head-to-Head: Alabama over Auburn 3-1 (4 meetings)

Alabama clearly has the better resume. Eight spots better in the RPI and record vs. the peer group for which they are being evaluated clearly stand out (RPI Top 25). RPI Top 50 is clearly better for Alabama ... the reason Auburn has a scant number of percentage points better Top 100 record is because Alabama's Top 100 is weighted more heavily with six more RPI Top 25 games.

And then we have Alabama taking 3/4 games from Auburn and eliminating them in the SEC Tournament.

Conference Record is basically a wash. Alabama clearly had the more difficult SEC schedule due to playing Florida, Vanderbilt, and Kentucky from the East ... while Auburn had Florida, South Carolina, and Missouri. Alabama also had additional games vs. Florida, Vanderbilt, and Kentucky in the SEC Tournament (in addition to eliminating Auburn) ... while Auburn simply had Vanderbilt and Missouri (and Alabama).

Both teams are very close in Last 10 and Last 15 games. It should also be noted that Auburn's last two conference series of the season (both sweeps) came against the dregs of the SEC ... 6-24 Ole Miss and 10-20 Missouri. And we saw above how Auburn had the easier SEC Tournament schedule.

Last 15:
Alabama closed with LSU (0-1), Vanderbilt (2-2), Troy (1-0), Texas A&M (2-1), Ole Miss (3-0), Kentucky (1-0), Florida (0-1), and Auburn (1-0).

Auburn closed with South Carolina (0-1), LSU (2-1), Ole Miss (3-0), Missouri (4-0), Vanderbilt (0-1), Alabama (0-1).

That is 7 wins against Ole Miss and Missouri in the Last 15 games.

This is not close.

BTW, it was interesting that Cohen mentioned coaches canceling games late in the season for RPI purposes. While the cancellation of the game vs. now #62 Samford in 5/9 would not have been a damaging RPI game ... the one against #180 Jacksonville State at home was. I wonder if there had been some discussion between Cohen and Butch Thompson about this.

Brian