Just Because I'm Annoyed.......

[spwood]

Re: Just Because I'm Annoyed.......

Which brings up another problem the NCAA has here, or at least the appearance of one. ESPN owns the SEC Network, and, as a consequence, easily 90% of the softball coverage at espn.com is of the SEC. (Baseball has the same issue, but has better alternative outlets.) If your concern is marketing, then you would go out of your way to make sure that as many SEC teams as possible make the tournament (and it's hard to select more than all of them, which is what the committee did), and you'd make sure that as many as possible host and move on to the super regionals. Double that if you're trying to please the entity that is paying you to broadcast the tournament. Mission accomplished.

I don't think that there's a conspiracy to do this, as incompetence and innumeracy go a long way towards explaining what happened. But I do suspect that there's a subconscious desire on the part of the committee to have SEC teams in for these reasons.

I am far from a conspiracy theorist, but I can't argue with your premise here. I think the Committee went out of its way, short of just giving them byes in the Regionals, to put SEC teams in the best position to advance. Sure, they still have to win on the field, but in the case of two evenly matched teams (Minnesota and Alabama), that home field advantage was probably the difference.

The NCAA ought to be (but isn't) ashamed of itself...

[brokentwig]

Re: Just Because I'm Annoyed.......

I am far from a conspiracy theorist, but I can't argue with your premise here. I think the Committee went out of its way, short of just giving them byes in the Regionals, to put SEC teams in the best position to advance. Sure, they still have to win on the field, but in the case of two evenly matched teams (Minnesota and Alabama), that home field advantage was probably the difference.

The NCAA ought to be (but isn't) ashamed of itself...

Home Field advantage?? If the Gophers were really that good they should have been able to beat Alabama anywhere. I really feel sorry for a student athlete who boards a plane, stays at the finest hotels, and is treated like a rock star on the big stage playing a game that they all love. They were in short sleeve uniforms instead of layers of underarmor. This is the way softball is meant to be played.

They had just as many fans in Alabama as they would have had at home.

[KTDC]

Re: Just Because I'm Annoyed.......

Home Field advantage?? If the Gophers were really that good they should have been able to beat Alabama anywhere. I really feel sorry for a student athlete who boards a plane, stays at the finest hotels, and is treated like a rock star on the big stage playing a game that they all love. They were in short sleeve uniforms instead of layers of underarmor. This is the way softball is meant to be played.

They had just as many fans in Alabama as they would have had at home.

So you're saying the seeding doesn't matter. All the people throughout the country that cared about who they were playing against and where were misguided and it's just much ado about nothing?

Most of us weren't claiming the Gophers were "really that good" to beat anybody, anywhere, anytime-but rather their body of work during the season earned them a seeding that they weren't given-(that opinion was virtually universal).

The Gophers had a goal at the start of the year to make it to the College World Series for the first time. After the Big Ten Tournament they had a very good chance to achieve that goal. After the Selection Show on Sunday night their chance to get to the world series was barely better than their chance to win the World Series would have been had they been seeded properly. They got royally screwed by the committee.

[Timothy A]

Re: Just Because I'm Annoyed.......

For any teams I follow, the goal I want for them to reach is post-season play. On the road, at home, it doesn't matter, just make it into the post season. Once in the post season, you control your own destiny. Just WIN.

[KTDC]

Re: Just Because I'm Annoyed.......

For any teams I follow, the goal I want for them to reach is post-season play. On the road, at home, it doesn't matter, just make it into the post season. Once in the post season, you control your own destiny. Just WIN.

Yes, that's the general rule, and that makes sense. I'm saying this isn't a general rule situation, this is an exceptional case

The players need to be defended and the committee needs to be blamed on this one until the bitter end.

The problem wasn't just that they had to go on the road in a tough matchup, it was that they were going to be in their own heads. After a national uproar over the committee's seeding, the stakes had risen to unnaturally high levels. They could sense they were in a situation where if they got beat, all sorts of people were going to come out and say "the committee was right" and "if they were as good as all that, they would have beaten Alabama" and all of that. Of course they could sense that they were in that kind of a situation.

So try as they might to get over it and get ready to play the games, when they run into something like a tough strike zone and a razor sharp pitcher they don't go "into the zone" of peak performance. They go "into their heads". The events of the past week and the high stakes are going to be there messing with their minds.

I think a lot of people are missing what a messed up situation they were really in emotionally and mentally.

[Eeyore]

Re: Just Because I'm Annoyed.......

For any teams I follow, the goal I want for them to reach is post-season play. On the road, at home, it doesn't matter, just make it into the post season. Once in the post season, you control your own destiny. Just WIN.

I'd find this more convincing if you weren't the guy who whines about having to play in Minneapolis the last series of the season two years in a row.

[Timothy A]

Re: Just Because I'm Annoyed.......

I'd find this more convincing if you weren't the guy who whines about having to play in Minneapolis the last series of the season two years in a row.

LOL, mind your own thread.....haha

[Russell Jaslow]

Re: Just Because I'm Annoyed.......

Speaking of home field advantage, this was posted on the Oswego threat a few weeks ago in the D3 board:

"Congrats to the SUNY Oswego Lakers who were given the greatest home-field advantage ever: inclement weather in Oswego has lead the cancellation of the 2017 SUNYAC Baseball Championships. The top-seeded Lakers will be crowned Champions by default, despite not playing a single game, and will receive the conference's AQ."

[spwood]

Re: Just Because I'm Annoyed.......

Speaking of home field advantage, this was posted on the Oswego threat a few weeks ago in the D3 board:

"Congrats to the SUNY Oswego Lakers who were given the greatest home-field advantage ever: inclement weather in Oswego has lead the cancellation of the 2017 SUNYAC Baseball Championships. The top-seeded Lakers will be crowned Champions by default, despite not playing a single game, and will receive the conference's AQ."

Let's remember they did "play a single game" - they won the regular season championship.

[Russell Jaslow]

Let's remember they did "play a single game" - they won the regular season championship.

Not playing a single "playoff" game. Come on, you know the point. This was a discussion on home field advantage, and in a very interesting and humorous way, Oswego owned the greatest home field advantage of all.

They deserved it because like you said, they won the regular season championship. But that's not the point. :-)

[KTDC]

Re: Just Because I'm Annoyed.......

Speaking of home field advantage, this was posted on the Oswego threat a few weeks ago in the D3 board:

"Congrats to the SUNY Oswego Lakers who were given the greatest home-field advantage ever: inclement weather in Oswego has lead the cancellation of the 2017 SUNYAC Baseball Championships. The top-seeded Lakers will be crowned Champions by default, despite not playing a single game, and will receive the conference's AQ."

Better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, right

[zoofer]

Re: Just Because I'm Annoyed.......

I didn't watch all of each game but maybe 3/4 of the softball so far....the same adage that keeps the Gophers and Badgers and Bulldogs, and used to for the Sioux, coming back year after year to the FF, applied in these games....all the Minnesota/A-la-Bama games, and most of the other SEC games came down to knowing how to bat and play against better competition! I'm no fan of the SEC but when they play against each other all year, the best pitchers in the country, year in and out the best recruits go there......they get tough come the big games! I've heard it for how many years when BC loses....."they just don't see the level of competition that the WCHA does".......same thing here.....after that first battle, The Tide knew they had to wake up! The Gophers didn't have the horses for 3 games at that level......unfortunately! That's my story and I'm sticking to it.......🤙🤙🤙

[pokechecker]

Re: Just Because I'm Annoyed.......

I don't recall the NCAA selection commitee ever sending the #1 ECAC or Hockey East champ to play the bottom WCHA team.
That's what the conversation was about, the seeding.
If you don't think home field is an advantage, then why do they even bother to seed teams giving them....
home field advantage?

[joecct]

Re: Just Because I'm Annoyed.......

Has anyone worked out the PWR implications of the Eastern Scheduling Alliance?