Life in the Valley

One of the major questions leading into Sunday night’s announcement of the 16 Regional hosts for the upcoming NCAA Baseball Tournament was whether or not Indiana State would be among them. It turned out the Sycamores were, meaning Terre Haute would host a Regional for the first time. What was projected and perhaps assumed was that the Sycamores would be the #16 overall seed, likely because from the start, the Missouri Valley Conference was viewed as weak this season (I don’t agree, but they don’t ask me) and such perceptions are hard to change when the SEC and ACC run the show.

There were some raised eyebrows, then, on Monday, as the whole 64-team field was announced and Indiana State was in fact the #14 national seed, besting two SEC schools – South Carolina and Alabama, who landed at 15 and 16, respectively. Other teams thought to be in contention to host ended up as 2 seeds, with Boston College just missing, having been sent to Alabama’s regional, while Campbell, who was projected to host, is headed to South Carolina’s regional. North Carolina, who I thought might have had an argument had it won the ACC Tournament, in fact apparently had no case at all, as they are a 3-seed. More on North Carolina later this week, as they are in the Terre Haute Regional, along with Iowa and Wright State.

Indiana State’s presence as a host drew some consternation from ESPN analyst and former Stanford standout Kyle Peterson, who dished out the famous, “they’re a great team, but …” argument, which is somewhere on the same level as dropping, “It’s not you, it’s me.” Indiana State being 2-9 against the Top-50 was given as the reasoning why the Sycamores perhaps shouldn’t be hosting, while those on the Selection Show then spent significant time trashing the RPI system itself (they’re not wrong there, it’s woefully flawed, and Peterson has forgotten more about college baseball than I’ll ever know. Plus he played. I watch. It’s nothing at all personal. I’d buy the guy a beverage. I’m just saying).

Not mentioned was in Indiana State’s 2-8 start, 8 of those 10 opponents are in the NCAA field, 2 are regional hosts (Miami and Kentucky), and 1 is in Indiana State’s regional (more on Iowa later this week). From there, the Sycamores went 40-7, including wins over Ball State, Indiana, and at Vanderbilt, who are all in the NCAA field. Vandy is the #6 overall seed. I the argument is that the MVC wasn’t great this year, then Indiana State should dominate it. They did. The Sycamores went 28-4 against Valley competition this season. Evansville is the only Valley team to beat the Sycamores twice, and UE had 6 chances, double that of most conference teams. ISU went 4-2 against Evansville this season, and UE currently sits at 72 in the RPI (all RPI numbers per D1Baseball.com). So those aren’t bad wins.

Indiana State enters the tournament at 9 in the RPI. Whether you use RPI or some other system, if the 9th-ranked team in said system you’re working from doesn’t host in the first round in a 64-team tournament, I’m not sure what we’re doing. And if we’re going to talk scheduling, let’s see some SEC teams come north in the first few weekends of the season. Of course they won’t, they have no incentive to do so.

You can’t drag Indiana State for early struggles against top-50 RPI teams then say, 1) the system is flawed, and 2) not admit that the scheduling system is flawed, too. South Carolina, for example, can look within 200 miles of its campus and find a myriad of challenging midweek games. Indiana State mostly has to play Big 10 and MAC opponents. No disrespect to the Big 10 and MAC, but it’s not an equitable situation – yet it’s only really used to put down teams outside the Power 5.

Anyway, Indiana State is a host (and rightfully so) and Iowa, North Carolina, and Wright State are headed to Terre Haute this weekend for the regional. The Sycamores will take on 4-seed Wright State (39-21, 22-8 Horizon) in their opener, while the Tar Heels (35-22, 14-14 ACC) and Hawkeyes (42-14, 15-8 Big 10) will matchup in the other opening game. The regional is double-elimination, with the winner facing off against the winner of the Fayetteville Regional (Arkansas-host, Santa Clara, Arizona, and TCU) in a best-of-3 Super Regional. The winner of that advances to the College World Series. Indiana State has been to Omaha once, in 1986, where it went 0-2. Iowa has also been once (1972), having also gone 0-2. Wright State has never been to the College World Series. North Carolina has been to Omaha 11 times, most recently in 2018. The Tar Heels were runners-up in both 2006 and 2007, losing to the Oregon State Beavers both years.

Later today, we’ll have a Wright State preview. Wednesday, we’ll take a look at Iowa, and Thursday, it’s North Carolina. On Friday, we have baseball!

Happy baseball!