(05-17-2015 03:41 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 03:31 PM)ESE84 Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 02:11 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Not even in the conversation, and we have a far superior resume than FAU, despite their still lofty #16 RPI. Too many teams ahead of us with vastly superior overall resumes. Conference championships certainly help, but they're used by the Committee more as a tie-breaking factor vs. key determining criteria. FAU finished the regular season in 3rd place in the 8th ranked RPI conference, is just 17 - 13 vs. Top 100, and are just .500 in their last 10 games. We won the regular season championship, BUT our RPI sits at #26 (and is unlikely to improve much even if we run the table in the conference tourney), and our record is just 13 - 11 vs. Top 100. Neither cuts it, especially when there are numerous other better options for the Committee to select to host. FAU is going to be perceived as one of the highest #2 seeds, but I can guarantee that any of the host schools would greatly prefer to have FAU as their #2 vs. Rice or USM.

Maybe we get sent over to Cullen Boulevard as the Number 2 seed at the Houston (Cougars) Regional.

It's possible, but I doubt it, given that we did play UH three times already this year. If think it's much, much more likely we'll be sent to TCU, Oklahoma State, DBU, A&M or LSU if the Committee decides to keep us relatively local....and if that's the case, the Aggies are the far preferable opponent (with OSU a close second); especially since they haven't won a weekend series in 4 weeks. DBU would be more convenient for out-of-staters, however. Don't they have a sparkling new stadium, just opened up last year? I want nothing to do with either TCU or LSU.

Anyone know where you fly into for Oklahoma State?

Oklahoma City is the nearest major airport. Just allow sufficient time to get your travel visa and make sure you've had your shots!

(05-17-2015 03:41 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Anyone know where you fly into for Oklahoma State?

Tulsa or OKC. Tulsa is slightly closer and has the advantage that OKC is way on the far side of Oklahoma City, almost in Norman, so you probably have to fight more traffic to get through the city. If you get a much better fare or schedule to one or the other, take it because otherwise the difference isn't much.

(05-17-2015 03:41 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Anyone know where you fly into for Oklahoma State?

OKC shouldn't be bad.

Just looked at the Nitty Gritty Report...

http://warrennolan.com/baseball/2015/nitty-clear

...and it would appear the Committee is going to have to dismiss the goal of geographic balance this year, as there are simply not enough Western teams that will earn post season births. UCLA will be a national seed, but they are the only Western team likely to host, unless UCSB (#14 RPI) can overtake CSF (currently with a one-game lead, with no conference tourney) in the Big West. The only other Western teams locked to make the post-season at all are: #32 Arizona State, likely WAC champion #43 Nevada, and whomever wins the West Coast Conference tourney. I don't see any other at large teams (#47 Cal being the closest, and they're currently outside the bubble, IMO).

(05-17-2015 03:38 PM)13thOwl Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 03:22 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 02:50 PM)13thOwl Wrote:  In my opinion the athletic department let baseball down by not even preselling a regional. Again in my opinion, that was pure laziness. You win your conference and your administration doesn't even got through the motions of setting up a possible regional. Fail.

I'll have to differ with you on that point, even though I've been right with you all season clinging to the hope of earning a host spot. We've clearly been outside looking in for the past couple months - and presale interest would be lower simply because most fans don't expect us to host.
Also, with Aggies and Horns both out of the running for 2 & 3 seeds, there's less urgency of locking up those seats for Owl faithful.

Nice rationalization. I get it. But if the administration won't put forth the effort, why should an NCAA representative. BTW, I think your opinion might have been different if Rice had won the two weekday games last week.
...

You are correct.
If we'd won Tuesday I would have liked to have had regional pre-sale tickets ramped up and available before Thursday's game.
We didn't, and most or all of us figured our last hope to host was gone.

(05-17-2015 04:12 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 03:38 PM)13thOwl Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 03:22 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 02:50 PM)13thOwl Wrote:  In my opinion the athletic department let baseball down by not even preselling a regional. Again in my opinion, that was pure laziness. You win your conference and your administration doesn't even got through the motions of setting up a possible regional. Fail.

I'll have to differ with you on that point, even though I've been right with you all season clinging to the hope of earning a host spot. We've clearly been outside looking in for the past couple months - and presale interest would be lower simply because most fans don't expect us to host.
Also, with Aggies and Horns both out of the running for 2 & 3 seeds, there's less urgency of locking up those seats for Owl faithful.

Nice rationalization. I get it. But if the administration won't put forth the effort, why should an NCAA representative. BTW, I think your opinion might have been different if Rice had won the two weekday games last week.
...

You are correct.
If we'd won Tuesday I would have liked to have had regional pre-sale tickets ramped up and available before Thursday's game.
We didn't, and most or all of us figured our last hope to host was gone.

The ticket presale should have started long before Tuesday.

(05-17-2015 07:13 AM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(05-16-2015 10:34 PM)Owl Is In Chains Wrote:  http://www.conferenceusa.com/sports/m-ba...15aad.html

On the C-USA site, there appears to be a conflict in the format. The text says there are two double elimination brackets with four teams each, but the game schedule below on Friday shows the winners of the two loser games playing each other, as well as the losers of the two winners games playing each other. This would result in teams crossing brackets.

It's probably a typo in the schedule. But if the schedule is accurate it would provide an interesting format not unlike the CWS double elimination brackets of the 80s.
I wouldn't mind going to this format in the future (8 team double elim) but I sure wouldn't want it this year when we've earned the right as the 1 seed to play a bracket against the 4,5, and 8 seed teams.

By the way, I'll go ahead and call the online game schedule a "typo" because the bracket from the official site corroborates the statement that it consists of two double-elimination brackets.
Note that, here, the winners of game 5 and game 6 advance to different games, just as we would expect in this format.

http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools/c-us...racket.pdf

(05-17-2015 04:14 PM)13thOwl Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 04:12 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 03:38 PM)13thOwl Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 03:22 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 02:50 PM)13thOwl Wrote:  In my opinion the athletic department let baseball down by not even preselling a regional. Again in my opinion, that was pure laziness. You win your conference and your administration doesn't even got through the motions of setting up a possible regional. Fail.

I'll have to differ with you on that point, even though I've been right with you all season clinging to the hope of earning a host spot. We've clearly been outside looking in for the past couple months - and presale interest would be lower simply because most fans don't expect us to host.
Also, with Aggies and Horns both out of the running for 2 & 3 seeds, there's less urgency of locking up those seats for Owl faithful.

Nice rationalization. I get it. But if the administration won't put forth the effort, why should an NCAA representative. BTW, I think your opinion might have been different if Rice had won the two weekday games last week.
...

You are correct.
If we'd won Tuesday I would have liked to have had regional pre-sale tickets ramped up and available before Thursday's game.
We didn't, and most or all of us figured our last hope to host was gone.

The ticket presale should have started long before Tuesday.

??? You do realize our RPI was in the 40s just 2 weeks ago, as we entered the Finals break, and at that time we were 3 games down in the loss column to MTSU in conference?

(05-17-2015 04:19 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 04:14 PM)13thOwl Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 04:12 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 03:38 PM)13thOwl Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 03:22 PM)owl at the moon Wrote:  I'll have to differ with you on that point, even though I've been right with you all season clinging to the hope of earning a host spot. We've clearly been outside looking in for the past couple months - and presale interest would be lower simply because most fans don't expect us to host.
Also, with Aggies and Horns both out of the running for 2 & 3 seeds, there's less urgency of locking up those seats for Owl faithful.

Nice rationalization. I get it. But if the administration won't put forth the effort, why should an NCAA representative. BTW, I think your opinion might have been different if Rice had won the two weekday games last week.
...

You are correct.
If we'd won Tuesday I would have liked to have had regional pre-sale tickets ramped up and available before Thursday's game.
We didn't, and most or all of us figured our last hope to host was gone.

The ticket presale should have started long before Tuesday.

??? You do realize our RPI was in the 40s just 2 weeks ago, as we entered the Finals break, and at that time we were 3 games down in the loss column to MTSU in conference?

Did you enter a bid? Was it just for practice? If a bid was entered, the process should have continued. Things change all the time. Why would you not be prepared?

How do you know that the athletic department didn't enter a bid?

(05-17-2015 04:34 PM)Frizzy Owl Wrote:  How do you know that the athletic department didn't enter a bid?

I would expect that they entered a bid. I never said they did not, I cannot confirm either way.

(05-17-2015 02:11 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Not even in the conversation, and we have a far superior resume than FAU, despite their still lofty #16 RPI. Too many teams ahead of us with vastly superior overall resumes. Conference championships certainly help, but they're used by the Committee more as a tie-breaking factor vs. key determining criteria.

Last year there were two teams with RPIs in the top 16 that didn't host (UH was one, I forget the other). They failed to win their conferences and were replaced by the lower RPI teams that did win.

(05-17-2015 08:11 PM)Old Sammy Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 02:11 PM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  Not even in the conversation, and we have a far superior resume than FAU, despite their still lofty #16 RPI. Too many teams ahead of us with vastly superior overall resumes. Conference championships certainly help, but they're used by the Committee more as a tie-breaking factor vs. key determining criteria.

Last year there were two teams with RPIs in the top 16 that didn't host (UH was one, I forget the other). They failed to win their conferences and were replaced by the lower RPI teams that did win.

Yes, but....

We are too far down. Unless by a miracle a number of the teams ahead of us totally implode....

I'm not sure it would have made sense to market and pre-sell a baseball regional that we were quite unlikely to host. The clear likelihood is that the pre-sale tickets would have to be refunded. Granted, there are some buyers who would not ask for refunds, so that's a revenue gain, but I suspect that the number of people who (1) are committed enough fans to buy regional tickets on speculation several weeks ahead of time but (2) are not organized enough to ask for their money back is vanishingly small.

Under these circumstances, a good argument could be made that, from a revenue perspective, every man-hour of staff work that could have gone into pre-selling regional tickets this month is better spent selling football season tickets, or working on other revenue, branding, and fundraising needs.

Whether there are other considerations (regulatory or otherwise) that come into play, I don't know.

(05-17-2015 09:44 PM)georgewebb Wrote:  I'm not sure it would have made sense to market and pre-sell a baseball regional that we were quite unlikely to host. The clear likelihood is that the pre-sale tickets would have to be refunded. Granted, there are some buyers who would not ask for refunds, so that's a revenue gain, but I suspect that the number of people who (1) are committed enough fans to buy regional tickets on speculation several weeks ahead of time but (2) are not organized enough to ask for their money back is vanishingly small.

Under these circumstances, a good argument could be made that, from a revenue perspective, every man-hour of staff work that could have gone into pre-selling regional tickets this month is better spent selling football season tickets, or working on other revenue, branding, and fundraising needs.

Whether there are other considerations (regulatory or otherwise) that come into play, I don't know.

On any given day there are at least two guys sitting at the Tudor ticket windows playing Canasta until 5:00. There are more folks in the back offices.

I have to wonder how much money it would have cost to send the roughly 1,200 season ticket holders an email offering the Regional package for pre-sale. Compare that to the money earned in float prior to refunds if we do not host. Which amount is larger ? I don't know, I'm just asking. Seems like the investment for Rice would be absolutely minimal and the department could have made some money on the activity.

What a SLEAZY idea; to attempt to market something that is RIDICULOUS on the face; would have really disgusted me to see RICE try this George.

From what we have seen from JK and co thus far, I am willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on this one.

(05-17-2015 01:09 PM)JOwl Wrote:  

(05-16-2015 07:23 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Where is it being played?

It's at USM.

Yikes. Really bad time for this to happen. USM has to be the favorite with the way they've been playing. They'll be highly motivated too, because it is their ticket to the dance.

That said, we can win it as well. But we're probably the only team that has a realistic shot at taking down USM under these particular circumstances. I just hope we don't have a repeat of 2010, when our team had to face USM's entire starting rotation in the final (technically, it's not cheating, but it seems like it is).

And even if we take it, we're still probably going to get saddled with a trip to Fort Worthless or Baton Brun. Mega-ugly.

Since we finished with the No. 1 seed and USM is in the other bracket, it will come down to one game on Sunday with USM if we are both remaining at that time.

I see no problem with playing USM in a one game championship final. Having USM in the other bracket really eases the logistics for Rice fans. I like our position.

(05-18-2015 02:50 PM)Wiessman Wrote:  

(05-17-2015 01:09 PM)JOwl Wrote:  

(05-16-2015 07:23 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  Where is it being played?

It's at USM.

Yikes. Really bad time for this to happen. USM has to be the favorite with the way they've been playing. They'll be highly motivated too, because it is their ticket to the dance.

Is there ever a good time to be in Hattiesburg?