(05-20-2019 03:57 AM)BruceMcF Wrote: (05-19-2019 01:46 PM)JRsec Wrote: Gaucho picked on Georgia's home record. Well there is a reason Southern teams (including Texas and Oklahoma teams play more home games, early season weather up North. Most Northern teams tour the South until they can play outdoors with decent weather. The second reason for it is the gate. The top women's programs in the Southeast and Southwest operate in the black and it is a revenue sport which draws well enough to keep it in the black. Most of the rest of the country runs red ink on Softball.
Note that the argument to be made is that after a 2-11 away from home record, A&M should get the benefit of the doubt because that was mostly away games in conference and they are in the toughest conference. Not because they don't travel well and much of their winning record is due to taking full advantage of the opportunity to get home cooking against northern teams in the middle of a long road trip.
But neither of those points actually point toward the conclusion that they deserve the benefit of the doubt.
The fact that a school has a financial incentive to play a lot of home games does not mean that a team like A&M that was 2-11 away from home should get the benefit of the doubt when it comes time for an at-large pick.
And the fact that a southern school has an strong opportunity to play all or almost all OOC games at home also does not means that a team that struggles to win away from home should get the benefit of the doubt.
If they wanted to show that they could win on the road when not playing SEC level competition, they had a chance to set up more OOC games on the road ... and opted not to. There's no particular reason they should get the benefit of the doubt as to whether they are a team that travels poorly and only enjoyed a winning record due to the limited number of road games they played.
Let's bring this home shall we? Gaucho's original post was that the SEC didn't deserve to get "all" of its teams in. My initial post said that his best case was A&M. I pointed out the justifications but didn't say that I agreed with them.
I believe I went on to point out that `I thought the SEC would get 5 maybe 6 into the Super Regionals. Isn't that where we are. I said I thought we would get 2 to 3 into the final 8 and that the PAC would as well and that I expected to see Florida State and Oklahoma there as well. All of that still looks very likely.
10 possibly 11 (if Georgia finishes off Drake hopefully today due to weather) of the SEC's 13 entrants will have advanced to the Regional's final game.
I think that more than justifies 11 of the 13 picks. Arkansas finished near the middle of the PAC in the SEC so that justifies them.
A&M was and is the weakest link and if you guys want to make the argument that A&M didn't deserve to be there then I conceded that point in my first post.
So what are you arguing about if not butt hurt???
When the Big 10 sends one to the final 8 you'll start getting some kudos.
What I said about the Big 12 and ACC stands. Texas and Oklahoma are there with OSU getting as far as it did with a soft regional and Texas Tech getting a very tough one. The only regional softer was Michigan's. The ACC has only F.S.U. still standing. IMO Florida had a soft regional as well and the Gators have 2 strong pitchers and a sub average offensive team.
So I wasn't measuring anything with you just stating how things were. So get over your angst. It is what it is.
Now to CuBucks, statistics like winning %'s in tournaments are deceiving. The more schools you get in the less your % will be because ultimately there is only 1 winner and all of these pick up 2 losses each when eliminated. Tournaments need no stats because everyone but 1 loses.
Bowl season is a little bit different because mostly its just one game for each school with the exception of the CFP. But even then whether still have your coach, motivation to play, the NFL draftees that sit out, etc, all figure in.
College Baseball and College Softball look fair because like the NCAA tournament 64 schools (more in the case of basketball) get invited. But they have long been seeded to help the schools with the best draws host regionals and super regionals because it looks better on TV to have some people at the games.
For those of you who are Big 10 fans just go back and look at your school's OOC opponents and where they lost and you'll get a better idea why they were seeded where they were and who got gifted because of draw. Michigan got the gift. Northwestern earned it. Kentucky got the gift in the SEC along with Florida. Alabama earned it. There's nothing fair about these brackets and there won't be in baseball either. It's designed to put the schools with the best followings in position to go to Oklahoma City or Omaha. Every now and then a Fresno State or Oregon State is just simply good enough to crash the party in baseball, and a Louisiana Lafayette is in Softball. But it's an uphill climb no matter what.
So wrap your heads around that and take it for what it is. And then think about how and why the NCAA sets up these tournaments and why they like them. They make money off of them, particularly if the advertisers have strong draws near the finals.
Fair my azz! No SEC pud measuring contest here. We have the deepest conference in softball talent with the best attendance in the sport. Half of our teams earned their way in and the other half are window dressing for TV but then so too are some of the names that get in every year from other conferences (besides the PAC where all of those in earned it because their ratings are lousy) and host regionals so that local affiliates can carry the games in large demographic areas.
It's not about the SEC. It's about the NCAA staging yet another tournament so it can rake in a disproportionate share of the advertising revenue while the teams see little and then have to wait for a few years to earn their tourney creds in full.
There's a lot to like about our board, but this isn't one of them. If you want to get pissy then direct it where it belongs, the NCAA. And learn to read and to discern without your insecurities leading to the misdirection of your general irritation about all things unfair. Nothing in life is fair. It's subject to random misjudgments by good officials, subject to intentional miscalls by crooked officials, subject to the earning potential of the event sponsors, and that's before your players even take the field or court. Nothing in life is ultimately fair. Not grading if you get 1 teacher who simply hates you because you look just like the son in law that ditched his daughter with 3 kids, or hates your political affiliation, or with disease where one promising young person is cut down by cancer and a dumb dolt lives to be 105, or where tornadoes, hurricanes, earthquakes, forest fires, or tsunamis wipe out lives for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or where your pilot trusted the anti stall computer program on your 737X.
Sports is a pass time that most of us here enjoy watching. In the end it is simply entertainment and whether Alabama or Ohio State picks up their umpteenth championship or not will never impact your living or dying. It might make 1 day or even a month more enjoyable but ultimately it means nothing.
Save your ire for the Communist Chinese who are stealing our secrets and those of our allies and for the North Koreans who probably will never kill you with a missile but who are very much behind identity theft and ruining lives by internet hacking. The rest of this doesn't amount to a hill of beans.
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NCAA Softball tournament/world series
