Wasn’t a coin flip. We were probably 2-3 spots down the pecking order. 25th best rpi that won no part of a conference championship… the resume wasn’t there
We were 2 spots down the 17ed up pecking order that had #31 RPI Arizona as the 13-seed and a mediocre ECU team as the final host site.
We were pretty definitively the 2nd highest rated 2-seed when considering all the factors….only behind Wake Forest.
Wake got sent only 186 miles to the #16 seed….pretty good draw for them.
UC Irvine got sent 939 miles to the #15 seed Oregon State….not great, but also not totally their fault. See below.
San Diego got sent only about 200 miles to #14 seed UCSB, which is good, but that was only because UC Irvine couldn’t get sent there as they are in the same conference as UCSB. Basically UCI got screwed by geography and the regional placement rules, with San Diego being the beneficiaries.
DBU got sent 954 miles to Tucson to face #13 Arizona. Not great, but about the best situation they could have hoped for except getting shipped to one of the Oklahoma schools, which would be not as bad travel-wise but a much better opponent. Really a wash there…not great either way.
We got sent 763 miles to #12 UVA. Not terrible compared to any of the above except the SD special situation and Wake-ECU.
Nebraska got sent 384 miles to face a really damn good Oklahoma State team. Tough draw.
South Carolina got sent fairly close to face a good NC State….another geographic beneficiary situation here. They could not send Duke or Wake here. I’d have honestly preferred MSU going to Raleigh with South Carolina getting sent to UVA or Clemson. Even though on paper that is a worse draw, I think UVA is the better team.
Duke got sent halfway across the country to #9 OU. Gross. Easily the biggest screw job of all the 2-seeds. And all because the NCAA was obsessed with getting GA Tech as the #3 seed in Athens, so they couldn’t send the higher seed Duke to the place that made the most sense. Another gem from that clownshow of a committee.
Everyone else got sent to a national seed, so its hard to say any of them got preferential treatment.
The fact we kept being told win this game, that turned into win Missouri series, that turned into win one in Hoover, that turned into beat Texas am…
I don’t remember it that way. Everyone said 5-2 down the stretch against Ark, UNA, Mizz would get us there. Only got 4-3 there.
So then it was that we needed to show out in Hoover and win probably 3 games. Only won 2.
Came up just short, and still probably deserved it.
we were never in and were never a coin flip. We needed more. Unfortunately we couldn’t get it. One of the main reasons why we needed more was our poor non conference SOS.
You’re certainly a coin flip when 2 teams that make it in ahead of you are the #24 and #31 RPI teams, when you are at #25. We had a host worthy resume and the committee took at least one team with a body of work that was far worse. End of the day, there were 3 spots for 6 teams: Arizona, ECU, Oregon State, Duke, MSU, and Wake Forest. Not a lot of separation in that group, except for….laughably….the other 5 teams from Arizona (who got the highest seed of all of them). In my opinion they literally selected the 3 worst teams in that group.