With Temple dropping the sport, there are 8 teams in the American.

Seven of them are Top 100 in the latest Massey Composite:

15 UCF
28 Houston
36 UConn
54 Memphis
59 South Florida
60 Tulane
93 East Carolina

As a league, the American is ranked 5th by Massey, well behind the ACC, SEC, Big 12 and Pac 12 but well ahead of every other league.

To quote "Pig Pen" from Charlie Brown ... "I didn't think we were that good".

"Well ahead of every other league?" The Big West says hello with six teams ranked in Massey's Top 100

13. UC Santa Barbara
37. Cal State Northridge
40. UC Davis
53. Cal State Fullerton
56. Long Beach State
75. UC Irvine

We're up there with ya

(04-01-2015 09:03 PM)jdgaucho Wrote:  "Well ahead of every other league?" The Big West says hello with six teams ranked in Massey's Top 100

13. UC Santa Barbara
37. Cal State Northridge
40. UC Davis
53. Cal State Fullerton
56. Long Beach State
75. UC Irvine

We're up there with ya

The Big West has 3 horrible teams (Cal Poly SLO, UC Riverside, Hawaii). The American only has 1 (Cincy).

6 of 9 is good. 7 of 8 is much tougher.

(04-01-2015 09:14 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  The Big West has 3 horrible teams (Cal Poly SLO, UC Riverside, Hawaii). The American only has 1 (Cincy).

6 of 9 is good. 7 of 8 is much tougher.

I'm not dismissing the American. It's impressive that they are ranked so high by Massey despite losing a Louisville team who played in the CWS last year. What I am saying is there isn't much separation between the 5th and 6th ranked conferences.

(04-01-2015 09:32 PM)jdgaucho Wrote:  What I am saying is there isn't much separation between the 5th and 6th ranked conferences.

Virtually no separation in the Top Six teams. LOTS of separation at the bottom.

In Massey, it works out to this: The average American team is ranked 80th. The average Big West team is ranked 96th. That's the same separation as the Big 12 (62) and ACC (64) to the American. You don't see me arguing that the American is as good as the Big 12 or ACC.

Put it another way, each top Big West team has five tough series and three easy series. Each top American team except Memphis has seven tough series and one easy series (because Houston-Tulane, UCF-USF, UConn-ECU and Memphis-Cincy play home and home). Memphis has six tough series and two easy series.

Seven hard and one easy is a lot more difficult than five hard and three easy.

AAC will be a two bid league, nothing great.

(04-01-2015 10:16 PM)leapinggazelle Wrote:  AAC will be a two bid league, nothing great.

How is that Villanova team doing?

(04-01-2015 10:20 PM)Pony94 Wrote:  

(04-01-2015 10:16 PM)leapinggazelle Wrote:  AAC will be a two bid league, nothing great.

How is that Villanova team doing?

LOL! Not too well.

(04-01-2015 09:32 PM)jdgaucho Wrote:  I'm not dismissing the American. It's impressive that they are ranked so high by Massey despite losing a Louisville team who played in the CWS last year. What I am saying is there isn't much separation between the 5th and 6th ranked conferences.

Actually, CougarRed is correct, there is a large amount of separation between the 5th and 6th ranked conferences. Here are the Massey conference scores, with a lower number being better:

1) SEC ... 53.37
2) PAC ... 58.16
3) Big 12 ... 62.43
4) ACC ...... 63.98
5) American ... 80.49
6) Big West .... 96.57

So we see that it is exactly as Cougar originally described it. The top 4 conferences are pretty tightly bunched, all four of them are within 10 positions of each other. Then, there's a big 16 position gap between #4 ACC and #5 AAC (and Cougar said the AAC was "well behind" the top 4), but then there's also a big 16 position gap between #5 American and #6 Big West, thus justifying Cougar's claim that the American is "well ahead" of everyone else.

He's exactly right: The American is well behind the top 4 conferences, but well ahead of everyone else.

(04-01-2015 09:14 PM)CougarRed Wrote:  

(04-01-2015 09:03 PM)jdgaucho Wrote:  "Well ahead of every other league?" The Big West says hello with six teams ranked in Massey's Top 100

13. UC Santa Barbara
37. Cal State Northridge
40. UC Davis
53. Cal State Fullerton
56. Long Beach State
75. UC Irvine

We're up there with ya

The Big West has 3 horrible teams (Cal Poly SLO, UC Riverside, Hawaii). The American only has 1 (Cincy).

6 of 9 is good. 7 of 8 is much tougher.

I don't understand why UC baseball is so bad. We currently have the #16 overall MLB draft prospect for this year (Ian Happ). And it's not like that's anything unusual - since 2005 we've averaged 2-3 draft picks every year and a former UC player (Josh Harrison) finished 9th in NL MVP voting last year. We also have 2 players in Cooperstown.

With that sort of talent at the top, and top-notch facilities (Schott Stadium is a really nice college stadium), you think you'd see more wins.

Glad they're good in baseball.

Come on back to CUSA so we can keep beating the hell out of all of y'all.