NCAA Selection Show: WSU Bust or Boom?

[ShockerFever]

WSU got SCREWED! No two ways about it, when I saw effin' Michigan State in the field, I knew WSU wasn't getting in, AWFUL selection, you guys deserved to be in this. Royal screw job. Someone is right though, no way the MVC was getting 4 teams in (5 if you count pseudo member Dallas Baptist).

There were questionable picks but WSU screwed themselves. You won't see much argument here. At least the Valley got 3. When's the last time that happened?

Good luck in Eugene.

[LuskingforGuttin]

WSU got SCREWED! No two ways about it, when I saw effin' Michigan State in the field, I knew WSU wasn't getting in, AWFUL selection, you guys deserved to be in this. Royal screw job. Someone is right though, no way the MVC was getting 4 teams in (5 if you count pseudo member Dallas Baptist).

Meh. They didn't earn it this time. In carefully reviwing the resumes of Shsu, Michigan State, and the College of Charleston they were all more deserving. Then when the committee chair head was speaking on ESPNU he rattled off a list of schools that were the last few out. He spoke of Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, Maryland, something called a Utah Valley State, and I think a few others that sounded like they might be community colleges. Maybe next year for Wichita, they return some quality ballplayers.

Congrats to ISUblue getting in. Richly deserved for the boys from Terre Haute.

[LuskingforGuttin]

SWMO first trip to the NCAA since their CWS trip. Boy that was a game changer for them.

I respect your program's history. Gene is a legend.

However we have been to a Regional more recently than you now and a CWS as well. Maybe we aren't an elite program but we measure up pretty well at this moment.

[shox1989]

Still blown away at CoC, Sam Houston, and Michigan State

I guess it only pays to play in a top 5 league if you also happen to play in a BCS league, otherwise it hurts you because they will only allow so many from your league.

I am blown away by those 3 too. WSU blew their chances by not taking care of business in the Valley tourney but those 3 should NOT have gotten in over WSU.

The TV guys did mention that the Valley was the #5 conference, so that is how we must of finished in the official ncaa rpi as well (not just warren nolan).

[ShockerFever]

Meh. They didn't earn it this time. In carefully reviwing the resumes of Shsu, Michigan State, and the College of Charleston they were all more deserving. Then when the committee chair head was speaking on ESPNU he rattled off a list of schools that were the last few out. He spoke of Wake Forest, Virginia Tech, Maryland, something called a Utah Valley State, and I think a few others that sounded like they might be community colleges. Maybe next year for Wichita, they return some quality ballplayers.

Congrats to ISUblue getting in. Richly deserved for the boys from Terre Haute.

I don't think we need your explanations on why we didn't get in. Although being a MSU fan, you are an expert in that department. It really cheapens your status when you only come on here during MSU's good times and WSU's bad.

Grats on your first bid in 9 years. Way to dominate after that CWS.

[shox1989]

Kyle Peterson picks MoST as his "sleeper" team.

[ShockerFever]

I respect your program's history. Gene is a legend.

However we have been to a Regional more recently than you now and a CWS as well. Maybe we aren't an elite program but we measure up pretty well at this moment.

Yes, WSU has fallen so far that we're now about on par with MSU. I can play this game too. Whose been to the most Super Regionals over the last 5 years?

I think you better exit before you get punched outta here.

[LuskingforGuttin]

Yes, WSU has fallen so far that we're now about on par with MSU. I can play this game too. Whose been to the most Super Regionals over the last 5 years?

I think you better exit before you get punched outta here.

Fair enough. I was just really upset by some of the attacks on the MVC Baseball Tournament and some other things that were hurtful that were said about our program. Maybe now isn't the time to dissect the selection committee's verdict and the reasons why but I am a big college baseball fan and had devoted a lot of time to bracketing the field and seeding teams so I had some insight. Best of luck moving forward into the 2012-2013 school year.

[SB Shock]

Fair enough. I was just really upset by some of the attacks on the MVC Baseball Tournament and some other things that were hurtful that were said about our program.

Your program sucks. Your program abuses pitchers arm and you have no community support - Does that hurt your feelings?

Maybe now isn't the time to dissect the selection committee's verdict and the reasons why but I am a big college baseball fan and had devoted a lot of time to bracketing the field and seeding teams so I had some insight.

Nobody but the delusional pumpers really even though WSU had a chance. Furthermore, I think it is safe to say that really nobody really cares about your insight, and I can guarantee you WSU fans have forgotten more than you will ever know.

[SB Shock]

Kyle Peterson picks MoST as his "sleeper" team.

Just shows how un-knowledgeable he is.

[shockfan89_]

Fair enough. I was just really upset by some of the attacks on the MVC Baseball Tournament and some other things that were hurtful that were said about our program. Maybe now isn't the time to dissect the selection committee's verdict and the reasons why but I am a big college baseball fan and had devoted a lot of time to bracketing the field and seeding teams so I had some insight. Best of luck moving forward into the 2012-2013 school year.

You are a big college baseball fan and have devoted a lot of time to bracketing the field and seeding teams and you make this comment? "In carefully reviwing the resumes of Shsu, Michigan State, and the College of Charleston they were all more deserving." Hmm... I am not saying WSU deserved to get in but I will say they deserved to get in over ALL of these teams. I am not even sure you can make any logical argument against it...

Just to help you out a little I added some details. Please feel free to point out where your careful review led you to believe they were all more deserving.

RPI:
WSU 43
MiSU 45
CoC 49
SHSU 52

SOS:
WSU 40
MiSU 76
CoC 96
SHSU 116

Last 10:
WSU 7-3
SHSU 6-4
CoC 5-5
MiSU 5-5

Games Played against Top 100 / 101 and over
WSU 35 / 25
CoC 26 / 31
MiSU 25 / 33
SHSU 19 / 39

Winning Pct
SHSU .655
CoC .649
MiSU .638
WSU .583

Record against Top 50
WSU 6-8
CoC 6-9
SHSU 4-5
MiSU 3-6

Conference Ranking / Games out of 1st place
WSU 5th / 2 (3rd)
CoC 7th / - (tie 1st)
MiSU 10th / 4 (5th)
SHSU 14th / - (1st)

[shox1989]

This reminds me of basketball last year (2011 season). WSU didn't seem like they really deserved to get in, but there were certainly some other teams that got in that year that shouldn't have been picked over WSU.

[shox1989]

The real question is Kemnitz stupid or just delusional?

Maybe both would be my take.

There is no question that WSU had a chance. Look at the 2006 Shockers. They finished 3rd in the MVC, went 1-2 in the Valley tourney, had a rpi of 45 and a SOS of 91 and a similar record against the top 50. And they got an at large bid. Tim Weiser who was on that committee said WSU made it easily without debate.

The Shox certainly had the computer numbers to make it in, but selection committees are human and vary from year to year. I don't think it was unreasonable at all to think that WSU should have been in over Charleston, Sam Houston St. and Michigan St. It is certainly not stupid or delusional to think that.

[ShockerFever]

Fair enough. I was just really upset by some of the attacks on the MVC Baseball Tournament and some other things that were hurtful that were said about our program. Maybe now isn't the time to dissect the selection committee's verdict and the reasons why but I am a big college baseball fan and had devoted a lot of time to bracketing the field and seeding teams so I had some insight. Best of luck moving forward into the 2012-2013 school year.

And were those "attacks" true or false? Did big numbers invade Springfield and prove us wrong? NOOOOOPE. Remember, this is Shockernet, not BareNation. I'm sure the WSU bombs are dropped pretty often on your message board too but do you see WSU fans over there getting butthurt about it?

The thing is you show up not even 35 seconds after the field is announced and WSU is excluded and you start dropping program comparisons to WSU because for the first time EVER, MSU makes the field and WSU does not. Where were you in 2004 - WSU 1st MVC, Regional Championship Game, MSU 3rd MVC, NO NCAA, 2005 - WSU 2nd MVC, Regional Championship Game, MSU 7th, NO NCAA, 2006 - WSU 3rd MVC, Regional Championship Game, MSU 2nd MVC, NO NCAA, 2007 - WSU 1st MVC, Super Regional, MSU 8th MVC, Booted Illinois State out of Valley Tournament because of hosting, NO NCAA, 2008 - WSU 1st MVC, Super Regional, MSU 2nd MVC, NO NCAA, 2009 - WSU 3rd MVC, NCAA Regional, MSU 1st MVC, NO NCAA, 2010 - WSU 1st MVC, NO NCAA, MSU 8th MVC, NO NCAA, 2011 - WSU 2nd MVC, NO NCAA, MSU 4th MVC, NO NCAA?? Where were you? And that's just going into WSU's "leaner" years since MSU's coveted CWS appearance in 2003. That doesn't even count the scoreboard before that time. And here were in 2003, being told that MSU was going to be the new WSU; that Hammons Field was gonna host regionals, that MSU's day in the sun had begun and WSU's was over. Well, I'd have your fans temper their arrogance display this time. Last time, it costed you 9 straight years of no NCAA's. So don't EVEN go there with the program comparison talk.

And people complain that WSU fans are mean, arrogant a-holes. Well, gee. I wonder why when you have outside fans who make their first NCAA's in a decade come in here right after the field is announced and begin parading on how MSU has passed WSU, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Not your brightest moment.

[WSUwatcher]

I don't object to Sam Houston over WSU -- if I had been selecting, and those had tured out to be my final two teams, I'd have gone with SHS myseld, because of the way they dominated their league. Sure, it wasn't a great league by any means, but it wasn't awful, and they won it by FOUR games. That should count for something, and the other aspects of the teams' profiles weren't enough different to offset it. WSU won the RPI battle, but not by a huge amount -- .007 according to Warren Nolan (43rd vs. 52nd), .005 according to Boyd Nation (44th vs. 51st). And how many times have we been told that RPI is important but not the only factor?

Personally, I think the case for CoC is a little weaker, because they didn't dominate their league. It was a better conference, but they were co-champs in a close race (with another team just a game behind). In my mind, if WSU and CoC were the 64th and 65th teams, it would be a close call, and I'd probably lean toward CoC myself, because WSU's only clear edge is schedule strength -- in fact, Boyd Nation even has CoC just ahead of WSU in RPI (43rd vs. 44th).

As far Michigan State, though, that's just a bad pick. I didn't watch the ESPN show, so I don't know if anyone told us whether WSU was the first team out -- but whoever was the first team out was clearly victimized by the choice of Michigan State, because even if it wasn't WSU, then it was someone else who was thought to have a better case still. And the Spartans were clearly inferior to WSU. Unless winning two games in a weak conference tournament is somehow a gigantic deal, their only edge was a better overall record achieved against a significantly weaker schedule in a much weaker league where, until their modest success in the tournament, they performed worse than WSU did in the Valley. I'd have no hesitancy at all telling anyone on the selection committee that they messed up by including Michigan State, and the Spartans owe a big time debt of gratitude to whoever advocated for them. The only possible excuse -- and that's what it is, not a rationale -- for favoring them over WSU is that somebody wanted the Big Ten+ to have an at-large team and couldn't handle the idea of four teams in from the surprisingly strong and underrated MVC.

By the way, SB, to say that nobody but delusional pumpers thought WSU had a chance just shows how blinded (delusional?) you are as a result of your frustration with the last few seasons and Stephenson and his regime. Obviously, they did have a chance and a very real one -- otherwise they wouldn't have been on all the pundits' lists of bubble team, with some of them thinking WSU would be in until just the past few days.

Personally, I have little doubt the reason WSU missed out was because of the brain-dead consensus, well stated a couple of days ago by Aaron Fitt, that they'd have been a fourth Valley team, and that simply could not be -- the Valley isn't a four-bid league, even though such things aren't supposed to matter. But given that consensus, which really did seem to exist however stupid and unjustified it may have been, the first place WSU needs to look to explain its omission is in the mirror, not at the selection committee. Because if it's close, and you lose enough winnable games, especially at crunch time, you just set yourself up to fall victim to such prejudice. And if Brent was griping, he should give it a rest, because he's known that lesson for longer than his players have been alive.

For me, this is actually the second time in the past few months that I've been down this mental path, from a fan's point of view. The first time involved bigger stakes, because I'm a lifelong Alabama football fan, and unless you were vacationing on Mars last Christmas, you know that back then the big question in college sports was, Alabama or Oklahoma State -- who should play LSU for the BCS football championship? I believed it should be Bama, because the whole theory behind the 1 vs. 2 championship game is that it's supposed to match the two best teams, period, and I thought Alabama and LSU stood out as the two best teams. That appeared to be a widespread consensus, but it was by no means universal, and the final decision was almost certainly going to be very close. And I knew that, to get their rematch, Alabama would have to overcome the fact that, as good as they were, they hadn't taken care of business during the season.

Fortunately for me, the Bama consensus was just enough, possibly because of the opposite prejudice WSU ran into today -- in football, they're the brand name, much more so than Oklahoma State is, and the SEC is the league of choice these days. And of course, as it turned out, they vindicated the pollsters' decision. So that nail-biter worked out for me. But I can still remember shocking the heck out of a restaurant server in Oklahoma City, where we were traveling at the time (a guy wearing Oklahoma State colors, so it was easy to guess his loyalty), by wishing him luck and telling him that although I wanted Bama to play LSU again and thought they should get the chance, I'd certainly understand if the voters picked OSU instead, because my guys had already had their chance, and they messed it up.

That was the bottom line for the Shocks today, too. I thought they should get the chance to play on, but prejudice or not, I can certainly understand why they didn't, because they had every chance to position themselves well and simply didn't get it done. Just as an example, winning either of the first two games against Indiana State, both there for the taking, would probably have been enough all by itself, because it would have given them a second place tie with ISU on the regular season and the #2 seed in a bracket that didn't contain Missouri State, which in that case would have won the conference championship by half a game. That one win would have almost surely made WSU the second MVC at-large and left Indiana State the odd man out. But they didn't do the job, in those two games or any number of others, and that's why they're finished for the year. Time and again, in any number of games, they didn't make the one or two key plays they needed, at the plate or on the bases or in the field or on the mound.

And, by the way, for all you Gene haters, coaches don't make plays -- players do. Or don't. What coaches do is try to pick the right guys, and WSU actually did a pretty good job this year of moving aside nonperforming older guys and giving younger ones a chance. There were just a few too many growing pains along the way.