SPY ANALYSIS OF NCAA
To assess the efficacy, representativeness, and quality of the 64 field team announced Sunday by NCAA, the first obligation is to consider what the field is meant to be, and how it is constructed.
There is no pretense that the 2008 field, like all others before it, is comprised of the 64 best teams in the country, at least not if you consider national polls, conference standings, and conference strengths and weaknesses.
Thirty of the 64 berths are awarded automatically to the 30 conference winners. NCAA’s committee has complete flexibility in awarding 34 at-large berths.
To facilitate SPY’s analysis, and so that readers can interpret our logic, we provide additional articles. First and most important, read NCAA RPI. You will also want to read NCAA Seedings, a wide-ranging article which lists NCAA Seedings, a side-by-side listing of automatic vs at-large berths, and the May 10 conference standings, published by Ultimate College Softball. Then, to show what others are thinking, there is an article Gist of Complaints. Finally, we provide a table showing TV coverage of the tournament from start to finish.
NCAA RPI
SPY is not privy to the committee’s deliberations, but the NCAA web site provides many clues to their thinking, especially NCAA’s RPI. While NCAA publishes the NFCA weekly poll, there is indication conference standings are more decisive than national poll. Moreover, final finishes at conference tournaments, while obviously taken into account because they convey automatic berths, are apparently not as influential as season standings. If the latter were of influence, North Carolina State should have been given a berth; but, NC State finished 5th in the ACC regular season, and, critically, had an RPI ranking of 66th.
Notice on SPY’s table, automatic berths are in blue, at-large berths in red. Note that the top 37 teams in the latest NCAA RPI won or were awarded berths. The fact is that 33 of the 34 at-large teams were ranked in the top 51 teams in the last NCAA RPI. Louisville was ranked 59th.
By contrast, of the 30 automatic berths (blue), only 14 are ranked in the top 64 RPI. Of the 16 other automatic berths, 10 are ranked 100th or lower in RPI. Indeed, Western Illinois is ranked 238th in RPI while Delaware State is ranked 254th. Undoubtedly, some will question whether any team ranked 100th or lower should be competing against the top 25 or so teams in the country. The answer is “yes” if you want to have a truly national tournament. And, remember, another Bethune-Cookman could emerge.
Given that RPI seems to be critical, can a case be made that some of the 14 teams who are in the Top 64 RPI but not given berths should have been considered (teams in black)? SPY will examine the case for each, noting at the outset that 11 of the 14 have higher RPI ratings than Louisville, which ranked 59th, lowest of all the at-large teams, and ranked 5th in the Big East below Connecticut which was in the RPI rear view mirror at 103rd.
Eliminate Mississippi, Illinois and South Carolina, who did not have winning seasons. Seemingly, an argument can be made for Florida Gulf Coast, which finished first in Atlantic Sun and has a 40 RPI, higher than nine teams with at-large bids. But, 19 of the 30 conferences were limited to just the winner of the automatic berth, in this instance Campbell which finished 9th during the regular season, RPI 74.
Similarly, Kansas has its advocates with its strong strength of schedule and a 40 RPI. But, Kansas finished 7th in the Big 12, and the top four teams in the conference won or awarded berths. Both Missouri and Texas had higher RPI.
Illinois State had a good season, but Drake won the automatic MVC berth and Creighton, which won an at-large berth, was the conference champion and had a better record. It would have been a surprise to see three berths from this conference.
One has to feel some empathy for Ohio State. Ranked in the Top 25 during the early part of the season, and finishing with an RPI of 53rd, the Buckeyes slipped to 7th in the Big Ten, where Northwestern and Michigan were obvious selections. Iowa had a better record than Ohio State and much higher RPI but it seems that deciding between Ohio State and Purdue is a 6-5 pick’em. More, if one moves away from strict comparisons within the Big Ten, and looks at the at-large berths awarded ahead of them in the RPI index, Ohio State compares very favorably with Georgia Tech, East Carolina, Oregon, Tulsa and especially Fullerton, just a hair above .500 and 5th in the Big West, which is not necessarily considered the toughest of conferences.
Along those lines, we were surprised to see three at-large berths to Conference USA. Houston was the regular season champion and frankly dominated the conference, but UCF won the tournament and automatic berth. Tulsa finished 3rd and East Carolina 5th.
Maryland finished 7th in ACC and was on the downward slope after losing two pitchers. Radford was in one of those one-team only conferences. Penn State finished 8th in the Big Ten. Baylor, also ranked in the Top 25 to start the season, fell to 9th in Big 12.
Kennesaw State is not yet eligible for post-season, and was 4th in another of those conferences which usually produce one team. Florida Atlantic and Stetson had very respectable seasons, but, if your rationale is that at-large teams should at least be in the top 64 on RPI, they are 61st and 62nd, and come from conferences which nominally only send the winner of the automatic berth.
OTHER INDICES
Should RPI have that much influence? Many disagree, but it’s NCAA’s guidebook. We suspect that NCAA also looks at its own statistical tables, especially team statistics. If so, a reader would find that the 34 at-large teams are quite competitive. We don’t know that NCAA, when considering standings, only compares teams within their own conference.
If conference barriers are not absolute, but teams can be considered against the mass of teams not winning automatic berths, Kansas and Ohio State could renew their pleas.
So too, as many readers have noted, could UC Santa Barbara and Texas State lay a claim to an at-large berth.
Texas State was the rage of the Southland for the whole season, and was the regular season champion. Moreover, it has an RPI of 65. But, the Southland again appears to be a conference destined to have one berth, the tournament winner, which in this case was 4th place Stephen F. Austin who proved very competitive. (A separate case is made for Texas State by an ESPN writer under Gist for Complaints.
Santa Barbara is an especially intriguing case for going beyond RPI. Finished second in the Big West, behind automatic winner Long Beach, but well ahead of 5th place Fullerton. UCSB had victories over Tulsa, Mississippi State, and Long Beach State, and took two of three games against Fullerton. Is 69th on the RPI scale the uber measurement?
National Polls
They may count for more than we realize, but there are no obvious indications that the three national polls had much influence.
Of the 34 at-large berths, 15 were awarded to teams regularly ranked in the Top 25. By comparison, 19 berths were awarded to teams which are not currently ranked in the Top 25 of any of the polls, and only three of whom have ever been ranked regularly in the Top 25 – Mississippi State, Georgia and Missouri. A listing is provided: NCAA Seedings.
Regions
We do not know who applied to host regional tournaments, so while there are some surprises, we can’t comment on the rationales underlying the selections. Some raised eyebrows: Stony Brook crosses country to play in Tempe, while Arizona crosses country to play in Long Island. Louisiana State hosts its toughest local opponent, Louisiana-Lafayette (LSU boss Yvette Girouard coached ULL). Arkansas and Tulsa are close to home in Norman; but both have victories over the Sooners. UCLA hosts Fullerton first game; the teams had a home-and-home Freeway series this year, which they split.