SB Final: Louisiana 5, McNeese 4

[GoneGolfin]

Softball (and Baseball) has evolved to the point (for a while now) where they assign the national seeds on merit ... period. And while it has not always been this way, for a while national seeds have been hosting unless they did not have adequate facilities ... or failed to meet other NCAA hosting criteria.

Re: LSU and Louisiana never hosting in the same year ... I cannot recall a year where both schools were legitimate national seeds and they did not both host. Last year, the Cajuns did not have a national seed resume and I said that for weeks leading up to the selections.

BTW, both #10 LSU and #14 Louisiana hosted in 2015 and 2016 (LSU #5 Louisiana #13). Both advanced from their own regionals in both years.

Brian

[GoneGolfin]

I remember you saying that at the time. Still, our adjusted RPI ranking was 11 [.66274] as of selections. Hard to believe that anyone with that ranking would not have done enough to host.

Only hard to believe if you believe that the RPI is a good arbiter of strength. You can game the RPI system to have a very high RPI without actually having proved that you can beat those peer teams (national seeds). Indiana State is proving this in baseball for the second consecutive season. As such, the NCAA considers other important metrics. Louisiana was left out last year for the same reason Minnesota was in 2017. Neither had the requisite wins.

As to this year, OSU still has series with Kansas and OU; better than our remaining schedule, clearly, but also much greater chance to lose a few games. Also Alabama has series with Tennessee and Auburn. The same metric seems to apply there as to OSU. If those two win out, they should pass FSU in RPI, but say OSU loses 1 to Kansas and 2 to OU and Alabama loses 2 to Tennessee and 1 to Auburn. Given us winning out, should we not be ahead of those 2 at the end of the regular season?

No, not necessarily. Most of those are not damaging losses. In some situations, you can lose games and your RPI will increase. This was part of my case to the NCAA back in 2012.

Brian

[GoneGolfin]

Maybe someone can remember, but has LSU and UL hosted a regional same year?

Given mindset is/should be growth, have a hard time seeing committee handing out 2 regionals in Louisiana at schools separated by less than 60 miles.

Softball (and Baseball) has evolved to the point (for a while now) where they assign the national seeds on merit ... period. And while it has not always been this way, for a while national seeds have been hosting unless they did not have adequate facilities ... or failed to meet other NCAA hosting criteria.

Re: LSU and Louisiana never hosting in the same year ... I cannot recall a year where both schools were legitimate national seeds and they did not both host. Last year, the Cajuns did not have a national seed resume and I said that for weeks leading up to the selections.

I mentioned elsewhere that both Louisiana and LSU hosted regionals in 2014 and 2016. Being 60 miles down the road from each has never been a reason why one of the schools did not host a regional. It was about having the resume of a national seed (or not).

I did go back and look at recent years regarding the awarding of national seeds and host sites. Only once since 2011 did a national seed not host a regional. In that span, Georgia hosted as a #2 seed over #13 national seed Duke (2021). Why?

Recall that the 2020 season was canceled due to Covid and in 2021, the NCAA used pre-determined sites because of health and safety protocols .... such that there was sufficient time to certify third-party testing at the site. The pre-determined sites were a group 20 schools that were selected a few weeks earlier. Duke was not among those top 20 at the time. Duke closed strong and moved up into a national seed by selection time (15 consecutive wins). The NCAA expressed regret ... but also felt it was fair to award Duke the #13 national seed because they earned it.

Brian