Life in the Valley

Indiana State swept Bradley over the weekend to maintain its stranglehold on the Missouri Valley Conference baseball lead. The Sycamores (32-13) are now 19-2 in conference play. Their .905 conference winning percentage is tied with Campbell (Big South) for second-best in the country, behind only Oral Roberts (20-1, .952, Summit League). Last week, D1Baseball projected Indiana State to be a regional host as the #16 national seed. And as of this morning, the same site lists the Sycamores at #10 in RPI.

Yet, all of that wasn’t good enough to land Indiana State in this week’s Top 25, and the site doesn’t offer any clues as to teams that just missed out, like the Others Receiving Votes category you get in the AP basketball and football polls. So it’s a matter of conjecture as to why the Sycamores still aren’t nationally ranked.

Let’s take a look at some arguments on both sides about why that might be.

RPI: The aforementioned 10 in RPI would make one think ISU should be ranked, though the amount of confidence people put in the accuracy of the RPI rankings seems to have waned over the years.

ISR: So let’s consider another source – the Iterative Strength Ratings from Boyd’s World. There, the Sycamores are 22nd today. While there’s a difference between this and RPI, both suggest Indiana State is a top-25 team.

Home/Away: No team in the RPI’s top 75 has played as few home games as Indiana State, with just 14 (the Sycamores are 12-2 in Terre Haute). In fact, 3 teams ahead of Indiana State in the RPI – LSU, Arkansas, and Vanderbilt – have played as few or fewer road games this season than Indiana State has had home games. LSU is 10-4 in true road games, while Vandy is 7-6, and Arkansas is 6-7. Indiana State is 18-7 in true road games and 20-11 overall away from home. Indiana State has played 68.9% of its games this season away from Terre Haute.

SOS: Not a call for help but strength of schedule. Indiana State’s non-conference SOS is 3, behind only Liberty and Gonzaga. This was helped by games against Miami, Northeastern, Iowa, Florida Gulf Coast, Kentucky, and Vanderbilt. Notably, Indiana State went just 2-8 in those games, beating FGCU and pounding Vandy in Nashville. Most of the rest of Indiana State’s non-conference slate has been against neighborly Big 10 opponents such as Illinois and Purdue. ISU’s overall SOS of 43 is 2nd-worst among the RPI top 15 (Virginia’s is 47), but it’s not awful.

Where this begins to maybe hurt Indiana State, however, is when you break down how the Sycamores have done against different tiers of opponents. ISU is 2-9 against the top 50, 7-12 against the top 100. Indiana State has feasted on teams ranked 101-200, posting a 21-1 record. ISU is also 4-0 against teams ranked 201 or worse, meaning that when Indiana State isn’t playing an opponent considered among the top third of teams in the nation, the Sycamores are 25-1. The record in itself probably doesn’t hurt ISU, but the 26 games total might. Campbell, with an RPI of 20, is 24-2 against the bottom 2/3s, and the Camels are the only other team among the RPI top 20 to play at least 26 such games. By comparison, RPI #1 Kentucky has only played 9 (9-0).

Indiana State has 1 more notable non-conference game, May 16 at Missouri. The Tigers are currently 49 in RPI with a 27-20 record, but a 1-15 mark against the RPI top 25. Missouri is 20-3 in non-conference games, but that came against a non-SEC SOS of 160. Indiana State’s other lone remaining non-MVC opponent is Ball State, tomorrow in Terre Haute. The Cardinals will be little help to the Sycamores even if ISU wins, as Ball State’s RPI is hovering at 103.

In the conference, Indiana State still has series at home vs. Murray State and away to Missouri State. The Racers are #210 in today’s RPI, while the Bears – who took 2 of 3 over the weekend against Murray State, are ranked 75th and 3 games behind Indiana State in the Valley standings. If that margin increases at all this weekend (the Bears are at SIU this weekend), Indiana State will have already clinched The Valley’s regular-season title before the final weekend even begins.

In the end, all the Sycamores can do is keep winning. Even if the top-25 constructors aren’t yet impressed, what Indiana State has accomplished in winning 6 games in a row and 20 of their last 21 is worth nothing and something every college baseball fan should know about. Whether ISU is a #1 seed and a regional host, or they get shipped somewhere as a #2, the Sycamores won’t be an easy out come the NCAA Tournament.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Weekend: Quickly, because you’ve read a lot here already and probably have things to do … Evansville won 2 of 3 at Illinois State to move to 11-10 in the conference. The Redbirds slipped to 7-14 and sit 8th. SIU dropped the weekend opener at Valpo then won the final 2 games to take the series and improve to 13-8 in The Valley, good for 3rd place. UIC swept Belmont over the weekend. The Flames are now 9-12 and alone in 6th in the standings. Belmont, after a 5-1 conference start to their debut season in The Valley, have dropped 14 of 15 conference games and sit 6-15 on the season and in 9th place, 1 game ahead of Bradley.