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SEC (again) Alters Baseball Tourney Format...

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Railin Jemmye

Redshirt
Oct 29, 2012
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That format is terrible. Typical, let's just keep messing with it until we royally screw it up. I hate all conference tournaments, even basketball. Should be one champion, every year.
 
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patdog

Heisman
May 28, 2007
56,393
25,602
113
If you're going to take 12, why not just go ahead and take all 14 and just make it a single elimination tournament? Or maybe have 4 pools with the top 2 seeds getting 3-team pools and play 2-3 games in pool play, then a 4-team single elimination. Railin Jemmye is right, all conference tournaments are meaningless and suck.
 
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SwingAway

Redshirt
Dec 9, 2012
266
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patdog said:
If you're going to take 12, why not just go ahead and take all 14 and just make it a single elimination tournament? Or maybe have 4 pools with the top 2 seeds getting 3-team pools and play 2-3 games in pool play, then a 4-team single elimination. Railin Jemmye is right, all conference tournaments are meaningless and suck.
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I think last year at tournament time I had an idea of either 10 or 12 teams be split into 2 pools. For the example we'll use 10 teams with two 5 team pools. Wed-Sat every team plays one game per day and on Sunday the winners of each pool play one game for the championship.

ETA this would only be feasible with 10 teams to get all the games in. Each team has 1 BYE day during the week.
 
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engie

Freshman
May 29, 2011
10,756
92
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patdog said:
If you're going to take 12, why not just go ahead and take all 14 and just make it a single elimination tournament? Or maybe have 4 pools with the top 2 seeds getting 3-team pools and play 2-3 games in pool play, then a 4-team single elimination. Railin Jemmye is right, all conference tournaments are meaningless and suck.
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I think taking 12 is based on what they perceive as teams with an "outside chance" to make Regionals. There have been quite a few SEC teams that missed the 8-team tournament over the years that still made regionals. After they screwed LSU in 2010 and used "not making conference tournament" as the excuse, a change obviously had to be made.

I like it because it gives borderline teams a chance to play themselves into the tournament...another chance to create their own destiny. I think there is 10 SEC teams that will deserve bids this year -- with Tenn, Mizzou, Bama, and Auburn on the outside looking in. Tenn is a wildcard with Serrano - and Bama/Auburn both recruited very well in their freshman class, so who knows. Mizzou also made a nice little post-season run last year before running into the Arizona buzzsaw...
 
QuaoarsKing

QuaoarsKing

All-Conference
Mar 11, 2008
5,820
2,442
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Single into double back into single? Convoluted mess.

I'd rather scrap the tournament and replace it with a best of 3 or 5 series between the division winners. Call it the SEC World Series.
 
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patdog

Heisman
May 28, 2007
56,393
25,602
113
Yeah. I don't think there's any doubt that's why they expanded to 10 last year and now to 12 with the addition of 2 new teams. I was OK with last year's format but I think this one puts too much strain on pitching staffs right before the regional. Last year the most games you could play was 5 in 5 days. Now you can play 6 in 6 days. I'd rather just see a format that maxes a team out at 4 or 5 games.
 
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engie

Freshman
May 29, 2011
10,756
92
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patdog said:
Yeah. I don't think there's any doubt that's why they expanded to 10 last year and now to 12 with the addition of 2 new teams. I was OK with last year's format but I think this one puts too much strain on pitching staffs right before the regional. Last year the most games you could play was 5 in 5 days. Now you can play 6 in 6 days. I'd rather just see a format
that maxes a team out at 4 or 5 games.
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I disagree. The tax on the teams is the same, hence the total number of games being identical. Actually slightly less taxing when you consider that you have 12 teams playing a maximum of 17 games instead of 10 teams playing a maximum of 17 games.

You need to relook at last year's bracket. We played 6 in 6 last year even though we won our first two. This year with the same W-W-L-win out scenario, we would have only had to play 5 to win the tournament.
 
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patdog

Heisman
May 28, 2007
56,393
25,602
113
You're right. I was looking at the 2012 bracket wrong. I'd still rather cut back to 5-game max, but this isn't any worse than last year, and both are better than the old format.
 
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engie

Freshman
May 29, 2011
10,756
92
48
Agreed...

Would suck to be the 5-seed in a tie-breaker and run into a buzzsaw in the first game, but that's all part of it. In recent years, it mostly seems like success in this tournament means failure in the NCAAs and viceversa. At least when it comes to us.
 
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EurekaDog

Redshirt
Nov 10, 2010
598
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SEC likes convoluted? Heck,take 14 & reseed after each round...

Really, is it any worse of an idea? Highest seed always plays the first game of the day, second-highest seed always plays the second game, etc.

Teams not making the NCAA due to not being in the conference tourney?

SEC should have taken a different option for the conference tourney: constriction rather than expansion. Make it a four-team, double elimination tourney. Bracket is filled with (1) each division winner (2) final two slots go to the teams with the 3rd & 4th best SEC records.

This next idea applies to any tourney setup that the SEC office dreams up...

It's "softballish", but I would be in favor of extra-innings beginning with a designated runner at 2B. (Just to help the pitchers' arms) I'd also wouldn't mind the designated runner (1) not being in the line-up and (2) being allowed to run in each successive extra-inning. It's not a fool-proof plan, but, man, get the games over-and-done with so the rest of the day's schedule isn't screwed to the point of the last game starting after 8PM--not to mention midnight.
 
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SwingAway

Redshirt
Dec 9, 2012
266
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What if the top 6 teams didn't participate in the tournament as they are certain to make a regional therefore it would be a waste and risk injury. Teams 7-14 would play a 8 team double elimination tournament with no guaranteed NCAA for the winner, but a bubble team could still influence the committee to be included with a deep run.
 
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patdog

Heisman
May 28, 2007
56,393
25,602
113
I'd rather play 3 or 4 games the week before a regional than go into it coming off a 2-week break.
 
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