NCAA Selections To Be Revealed Monday
5/27/2012 8:27:00 AM | Baseball
Just like in basketball, reaching the NCAA tournament in baseball is done by only a select few. Of the more than 300 schools that play NCAA Division I baseball, only 64 are either invited or earn their way to the postseason tournament.
Thirty teams get into the field by virtue of winning their conference. Twenty-eight of those leagues, including the Southland, decide which team gets the conference's automatic bid to the NCAA tournament by holding a tournament at the end of the regular season.
The automatic bids for the Ivy League and the West Coast Conference go to the regular-season championship.
That leaves 34 at-large spots to fill out the remainder of the bracket. Typically, the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12, the Pac-12 and Southeastern Conference grab a large number of those. Over the past three years, those four leagues have laid claim to an average of 23 of those spots per year.
In the 26 years that Sam Houston has played at the Division I level, only twice has it won 40 or more games over the course of a season. The Bearkats almost accomplished that with just three returning starters and 16 newcomers.
Coach David Pierce's young Sam Houston squad tied a conference record with 24 league wins and finished the season with an overall mark of 38-20.
Of those wins, the ones that jump off the page are a series victories over Southland tournament runner-up Southeastern Louisiana and San Diego (40-14), along with midweek wins over Dallas Baptist, a super regional finalist last year and an RPI of 21, and Rice, which is in the hunt for one of eight national seeds.
In Southland play the Bearkats won 10 of their 11 series including three conference weekend sweeps.
The Kats rolled off three straight weekend sweeps over defending regular-season and tournament champ Texas State, UTSA and Northwestern State inside of a 13-game winning streak, the program's longest in its NCAA Division I history.
With a No. 49 RPI, Sam Houston is one of the bubble teams Monday. Eleven conference tournament championships will be decided Sunday. The Bearkats are pulling for favored teams to win. Teams that pull upsets, which would not have even been considered for the NCAA tournament, are now automatically in and favorites in those leagues are now at-large teams.
Conference USA was one league that was essentially assured of only a pair of bids with fourth-ranked Rice (40-16) and Central Florida (42-15), but Memphis and Alabama-Birmingham clinched its brackets in pod play in the C-USA tournament and will face each other in the title game today.
Instead of Conference USA getting just two at-large bids, it will now get three with the Memphis-UAB winner, plus Rice and Central Florida.
Appalachian State of the Southern Conference, which appeared to be a one-bid league this year, is another team that looked to be comfortably in the NCAA tournament. The Mountaineers (39-16 with an RPI of 39) were eliminated from the SoCon tourney by Furman on Friday night, so now either Georgia Southern or Samford will earn the automatic spot to give the league two bids.
It's just a matter of waiting and seeing what the selection committee decides. The NCAA tournament selection show will air Monday at 11 a.m. on ESPNU.
Tournament Championships Determined
Big 10 - Purdue #15
Big South - Coastal Carolina #43
Colonial - UNC-Wilmington #41
Mountain West - New Mexico #62
Southland - UT-Arlington #63
Atlantic Sun - Belmont #71
Summit - Oral Roberts #89
Mid-American - Kent State - #90
American East - Stony Brook #98
Patriot - Army #120
Ivy - Cornell #129
MEAC - Bethune Cookman #188
Missouri Valley - Creighton #190
Atlantic 10 - Dayton #195
Northeast - Sacred Heart #212
SWACC - Prairie View A&M #249
Sunday Tournament Finals
ACC -- No. Carolina (#6) vs. Miami (#13)
Big 12 - Oklahoma (#39) vs. Missouri (#101)
Big East - St. Johns (#57) vs. South Florida (#81)
Conference USA - Memphis (#77) vs. Ala-Birmingham (#111)
Horizon - Valparaiso (#143) vs. Illinois-Chicago (#242)
MAAC - Manhattan (#147) vs. Canisius (#191)
OVC - Austin Peay (#135) vs. Eastern Illinois (#177)
SEC - Mississippi (#23) vs. Vanderbilt (#32)
Southern - Georgia Southern (#99) vs. Samford (#58)
Sun Belt - Arkansas State (#115) vs. La-Monroe (#121)
WAC - Fresno St (#108) vs. Sacramento St (#110)
Three Conferences without tournaments
Big West - Cal St Fullerton (#20) in 1st
West Coast - Pepperdine(#33) is 1st
Pac 12 - Oregon (#15) tied with Arizona (#17)
