It bothers me to this day.
If you recall, Steve Kittrell added a game (late in the season) on the road midweek (Tuesday) against Florida State between their last conference game and the Sun Belt Tournament. This was doable thanks to a conference scheduling advantage that befell the Jags . a bye between their last conference weekend vs. Arkansas State and the beginning of the Sun Belt Tournament (a span of 10 days). Kittrell was smart to make it a road game against a top RPI opponent (Florida State was #9 at selection time). Given it was a non-conference road game, it qualified for the max RPI bonus. Kittrell threw ace PJ Walters at the Seminoles and the Jags won 7-2. Despite pitching and beating Arkansas State 4-3 the prior Friday, Walters threw over 130 pitches against Florida State on three days' rest.
This win vaulted South Alabama a number of RPI spots, growing the RPI ranking differential with the Cajuns from 7 to 17 during that time (38 vs. 55 at selection time). Despite many metrics in factor of the Cajuns .
- including better conference regular season finish (2nd place 19-5 . 2.5 full games ahead of 16-7 South Alabama . 1 game behind regular season champion 20-4 Troy )
- a better overall conference record including Sun Belt Tournament)
- eliminating the Jags from the Sun Belt Tournament (head-to-head was 2-2 . with 3 games in Mobile and one at a neutral site)
- Cajuns were 2-1 vs. RPI Top 25 . South Alabama was 2-7
- Cajuns were 4-3 vs. RPI Top 50 . South Alabama was 6-12
- Cajuns were 14-12 vs. RPI Top 100 . South Alabama was 17-18
. the selection committee leaned on RPI differential to make the decision between the two teams. As you know, this was a team sandwiched between two good 2005 and 2007 teams . with 2007 making a strong run to host (#14 RPI at selection time . just did not have the RPI Top 25 wins . 0-3).
Brian
Apparently the selection committee reads RP
https://www.baseballamerica.com/stor.r-rpi-purpose/
Sunbelt goes 3-5 tonight and drops further behind the big 10 in rpi.
Do you mean what Kittrell did w/scheduling Florida State last minute? That was a component of the strategy employed with the Lotief schedules. But obviously it went much deeper than that. Most of the strategy was steeped in directives in setting up the schedule for the coming year. But during the season, especially late, I was advising on teams he might be considering adding midweek . as well as games he should cancel (for RPI reasons) if there was not another important reason for keeping it.
As far as Kittrell and gamesmanship is concerned . you never knew what you would get from him or his team in this regard, during or after a game. One of the reasons it was an excellent rivalry.
Brian
Brian, trying to make sense of how Indiana State's RPI is so highly ranked. Their schedule doesn't seem like anything special, but they have gone on the road/neutral 29 (20-9 record) times vs 12 (11-1 record) home games. Is that the main factor (along with winning obviously)?
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