Whom to Root For - No bid stealers, please

[AuroraHawk]

D1 Baseball's latest projection projects these conferences to be multiple bid conferences:
SEC (10)
ACC (9)
Big 12 (7)
Pac 12 (6)
Sun Belt (3)
B1G (3)
Big West (2)
Colonial (2)

That means a few other conferences have a chance for a "bid stealer" if the clear #1 doesn't win. By my count, there appears to be a chance for up to 7 bid stealers this year.

Here's a short summary of which conferences will only get one bid so long as the clear favorite wins the tournament. Iowa fans should be watching and who Iowa fans should be rooting for.

Big East. UConn (RPI 25)
Big South. Campbell (22)
American Athletic. East Carolina (24)
Missouri Valley. Indiana State (10)
Colonial Athletic. Northeastern (31)
Conference USA. Dallas Baptist (17)

One other interesting conference:

Sun Belt. D1 has Coastal Carolina (13), Southern Miss (28) and Troy (35) in the tournament. Texas State (52) is one of the last 4 out. Iowa fans probably want to be rooting against Texas State winning the Sun Belt tournament or even making a deep run.

Warren Nolan has a conference tournament page to keep track of what is happening across all conferences: https://www.warrennolan.com/baseball/2023/conference-tournaments

 

[ssckelley]

I think the Big Ten is getting in 3 this year, the only bid stealers that are a concern for me is if anyone other than Iowa, Maryland, or Indiana win the BTT. If that were to happen then your list here becomes very relevant.

 

[AuroraHawk]

I think the Big Ten is getting in 3 this year, the only bid stealers that are a concern for me is if anyone other than Iowa, Maryland, or Indiana win the BTT. If that were to happen then your list here becomes very relevant.

I look at it this way. There are 30 automatic qualifying teams and 34 at-large bids (non-AQ).

Where is Iowa on that list of 34 teams?
D1 Baseball projects 11 non-AQ teams to host a Regional. We can logically conclude that those 11 teams are getting in before Iowa.

That leaves a list of 23 teams. Where is Iowa on that list of 23?
D1 Baseball projects 10 teams as receiving #2 seeds that are non-AQ. Iowa is projected as a #3 seed right now. We can logically conclude that those 10 teams are currently seeded above Iowa.

That leaves a list of 13 teams.
Every #4 seed is a AQ. Thus, the final 12 teams are currently #3 seeds. That list is TCU, Texas A&M, Kansas State, Southern Cal, Oklahoma, Arizona State, Texas Tech, Troy, Oregon, UC Irvine, NC State, Iowa and Notre Dame.

We know that D1 has listed its Final Four In as:
61. Arizona State
62. Notre Dame
63. Oklahoma
64. NC State

That leaves Iowa somewhere among 9 teams in the #51-#60 range.

I wholly agree with you that the B1G (#6 overall conference) should get 3 teams in. Hell, a good argument can be made that it should get 4 bids if a bid stealer emerges but, with Iowa likely in the 3rd slot, you don't want to see a B1G team steal Iowa's spot.

I like that the final 4 in are from Pac-12, ACC, Big 12 and ACC. If an upset occurs in any one of those 3 conferences, I'd think that one of those 4 takes a hit.

You just don't want "May Madness" where a bunch of unheralded teams start forcing their way into the tournament and grabbing spots from those teams who are in the last 7-8 getting in.

This is simply one of the fun (or, for the bubble teams, not so fun) times of the year with all of these conference tournaments. All in good fun.

 

[ssckelley]

I wholly agree with you that the B1G (#6 overall conference) should get 3 teams in. Hell, a good argument can be made that it should get 4 bids if a bid stealer emerges but, with Iowa likely in the 3rd slot, you don't want to see a B1G team steal Iowa's spot.

I agree with this, the Big Ten can make a strong case for 4 teams this year but this is where your bid stealers becomes a concern if Iowa got swept out of the BTT as I think they could drop into that 'last 4 in' spots. If you look at RPI one would think Maryland could have the same issues (RPI 45) but I can't see the committee keeping Maryland out since they won the regular season crown. Indiana is solidly in no matter what, they have too good of a record (40-16) and a very strong RPI (27th).

 

[AuroraHawk]

#8 seed South Florida just beat #1 seed East Carolina in the opening game of the American Athletic Conference. The final was 12-11 in 11 innings.

Bubble teams across the country cursing the Pirates.

EDIT: And Arizona State (a "last 4 in" according to both D1 and Baseball America) loses a first round tournament game to Arizona. ASU was the 5 seed; Arizona was the 8 seed. To have a chance to advance to the Pac-12 semi-finals, ASU will have to beat #2 seed Oregon State. ASU baseball fans' sphincters just tightened up a bit.

EDIT 2: Craziness right now in the AAC. #7 Tulane just hung an 8 on the board on #2 Houston in T2.

 

[Birky]

Shouldn’t need to stress about bid stealers any longer.

 

[leiserom]

Well I am going to the DBU/Rice game tommorow. Secretly I will be pulling for DBU but since I will be sitting with Rice diehards I will keep my mouth shut

 

[ssckelley]

Shouldn’t need to stress about bid stealers any longer.

I agree, I think Iowa is in.

 

[BigOHawk]

I agree, I think Iowa is in.

100%, no more watching RPI and looking at scores across the country, although it is fun!

 

[AuroraHawk]

100%, no more watching RPI and looking at scores across the country, although it is fun!

One of my favorite times of year. So much good baseball - all over the country.

1, 2, 3, and 4 seeds all lost in AAC last night. Haven’t done any digging yet but I cannot imagine that has happened anything other than handful of times (if any) in college baseball history.

 

[ssckelley]

One of my favorite times of year. So much good baseball - all over the country.

1, 2, 3, and 4 seeds all lost in AAC last night. Haven’t done any digging yet but I cannot imagine that has happened anything other than handful of times (if any) in college baseball history.

Go for it! Don't let us discourage you from tracking this stuff. I'm still checking the RPI updates myself even though it's kinda pointless.

 

[BigOHawk]

Go for it! Don't let us discourage you from tracking this stuff. I'm still checking the RPI updates myself even though it's kinda pointless.

The one metric that jumped out in my mind yesterday was the percentage of times a team has bases loaded and zero outs and they score ZERO runs. Has to be less than 5%...

 

[AuroraHawk]

Of interest:
Former Iowa opponent UIC has a slight lead over former Iowa opponent Indiana State (#1 seed) in B3: 3-2.
Big 12 (#1 seed) Texas lost to (#8 seed) Kansas.
Bubble team Notre Dame (#8 seed) lost to Pittsburgh (#12 seed).
Former Iowa opponent KSU got run-ruled by TCU 16-3. KSU's dreams of dancing are all but extinguished.
Texas A&M (10 seed), recently characterized as team that is "in" and just off the bubble, is leading Arkansas (2 seed): 4-1 in B7.
Former Iowa opponent LSU (3 seed) manhandled South Carolina: 10-3
After beating bubble in-state rival ASU yesterday, Arizona (8 seed) takes down Oregon State (2 seed): 12-11. ASU v. Oregon State tomorrow. ASU likely playing for its "at-large" life.

 

[GolfHacker1]

I know it doesn’t matter that much to Iowa at this point, but surprised the RPI movement has been so insignificant so far.

 

[AuroraHawk]

#1 seed in Big 12 tournament (Texas) goes 0-2 and is out of the Big 12 tournament. Lost to former Iowa opponent KSU today by a 6-0 score.

D1 projected Texas as the 16th and final host team. Probably not happening at this point.

 

[AuroraHawk]

I know it doesn’t matter that much to Iowa at this point, but surprised the RPI movement has been so insignificant so far.

I didn't look real hard but I thought that there was a snippet somewhere on Warren Nolan's site that commented upon the fact that significant RPI moves are not expected during conference tournament week. And, FWIW, Iowa's had some nice results from what would be considered "indirect" games thus far.

 

[BeepBeepInMyJeep]

#1 seed in Big 12 tournament (Texas) goes 0-2 and is out of the Big 12 tournament. Lost to former Iowa opponent KSU today by a 6-0 score.

D1 projected Texas as the 16th and final host team. Probably not happening at this point.

I don’t think there was any possibility at hosting. It’s possible for a BT team to do it but I think we would have needed a much better conference record. I’d definitely take a 2 seed

 

[leiserom]

The way DBU is mowing thru CUSA field I dont see any bid stealers there. UTSA was 2 and out. I saw them play Rice and they looked impressive

 

[ssckelley]

I didn't look real hard but I thought that there was a snippet somewhere on Warren Nolan's site that commented upon the fact that significant RPI moves are not expected during conference tournament week. And, FWIW, Iowa's had some nice results from what would be considered "indirect" games thus far.

Makes sense, because good teams are playing other good teams, the Q4 teams are done.

 

[ssckelley]

I don’t think there was any possibility at hosting. It’s possible for a BT team to do it but I think we would have needed a much better conference record. I’d definitely take a 2 seed

I think Maryland hosted last year. But no way Iowa can host, the losses to Minnesota and Northwestern eliminated that possibility. Flip those 2 Q4 losses and I think Iowa would have been in the discussion.

 

[AuroraHawk]

D1 Baseball's latest projection projects these conferences to be multiple bid conferences:
SEC (10)
ACC (9)
Big 12 (7)
Pac 12 (6)
Sun Belt (3)
B1G (3)
Big West (2)
Colonial (2)

That means a few other conferences have a chance for a "bid stealer" if the clear #1 doesn't win. By my count, there appears to be a chance for up to 7 bid stealers this year.

Here's a short summary of which conferences will only get one bid so long as the clear favorite wins the tournament. Iowa fans should be watching and who Iowa fans should be rooting for.

Big East. UConn (RPI 25)
Big South. Campbell (22)
American Athletic. East Carolina (24)
Missouri Valley. Indiana State (10)
Colonial Athletic. Northeastern (31)
Conference USA. Dallas Baptist (17)

One other interesting conference:

Sun Belt. D1 has Coastal Carolina (13), Southern Miss (28) and Troy (35) in the tournament. Texas State (52) is one of the last 4 out. Iowa fans probably want to be rooting against Texas State winning the Sun Belt tournament or even making a deep run.

Warren Nolan has a conference tournament page to keep track of what is happening across all conferences: https://www.warrennolan.com/baseball/2023/conference-tournaments

In the Big East, UConn's backs are against the wall and there's a good chance that Xavier wins that tournament. Xavier was a bubble team for quite awhile but the general consensus was that it needed to win the conference tournament to get in. Longer look by committee now?

In Big South, Campbell (1 seed) is playing South Carolina Upstate (2 seed) today. Campbell remains in good shape going forward.

In American Athletic, it has been Armageddon. 8 seed USF and 7 seed Tulane are in the driver's seat. Like Iowa and Maryland, they sit today and wait to see who needs to beat them twice on Saturday to advance to championship game. I can't imagine that ECU wants to burn up its pitching staff simply to advance. I expect this will be a "bid stealing" conference.

In Missouri Valley, Indiana State (1 seed) keeps rolling. They are in good shape to win tournament.

In Conference USA, Dallas Baptist (1 seed) is scorching its opponents. They are in good shape to win tournament.

In Colonial Athletic, Northeastern took down a good Elon team 2-1. Northeasters remains in good shape to win tournament.

For those interested, former Iowa opponents LSU, Texas Tech and Indiana State could all win their respective conference tournaments. Eminently possible that the committee could look at Iowa's resume on Sunday and see they that they've beaten 3 conference tournament champions this year. If Iowa advances to Sunday and loses to Maryland, they could also claim to have a win over the B1G tournament champion as well.

 

[AuroraHawk]

Cal State Fullerton sneaks in the back door, wins Big West title (np tournament) and the Big West will likely be a 3 bid league. Neither BA nor D1 had CSF in its field in latest predictions.

That’s the first “confirmed” bid stealer. Xavier has two chances against UConn to be a bid stealer in Big East and ECU is holding on by its fingernails in AAC. They need to win twice today and again on Sunday or there will be a bid stealer in that conference.

Arizona plays Oregon tonight in Pac-12 championship. Arizona is an 8 seed. They may now be in the picture.