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NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCEMay 27, 2013Dennis FarrellJ.D. HAMILTON: Thank you very much, everyone, we appreciate you joining us this afternoon after three days' of deliberation and finally a selection, we have a bracket. And I'm going to turn it over now to Dennis Farrell, Chair of the Division I Baseball Committee and also the Commissioner of the Big West Conference. Dennis? DENNIS FARRELL: Thank you, J.D. Good afternoon, everyone. The NCAA Baseball Committee concluded its deliberations this morning somewhere around 9:00 Eastern time. We've got the brackets out. You've seen them now. The purpose ever this call is to answer any questions or concerns that you may have. I should point out that the committee sat down on Saturday morning to begin our deliberations, that there were a total of 113 teams that were under consideration for the 34 at‑large spots that needed to be filled into the bracket. So a good deal of our time was spent whittling that number down to the 34 that were selected as at‑large teams. The other important tasks of the committee, obviously, is to seed the top eight national seeds as well as to identify the 16 No. 1 seeds that were going to be designated as hosts for the first round. So I guess with that brief introduction, I would open it up for any questions. Q. Looking at Oregon and N.C. State, kind of comparing those two teams, I was curious kind of the thinking process behind Oregon as a national seed over N.C. State. You look at their resumes, Oregon 6 and 10 against RPI top 50, N.C. State, 18‑10 against RPI top 50, and the list goes on in terms of the metrics that favor N.C. State. I'm curious what the thinking was there and perhaps going Oregon the national seed over N.C. State? DENNIS FARRELL: Thank you. We spent a considerable amount of time discussing the last two national seeds. The top six were identified rather quickly in the process, and we had four teams that were actually under consideration for those last two national seeds, Oregon, Florida State, N.C. State, as well as Indiana. The committee really dissected all four of those schools' schedules and found that we were really splitting hairs in a lot of cases. I think that there were some committee members who were impressed with Oregon's non‑conference schedule and that they went on the road particularly late in the season and played at Ohio State. They had the non‑conference series with Vanderbilt as well this year. So I think that the committee probably was impressed with their effort to step up their non‑conference schedule. At the end of the day, after all of the debate and back and forth, and I would probably characterize that we spent a good 45 minutes to maybe an hour discussing this one topic, it came down to a vote of the committee members, and the vote came out the way it was. That Oregon and Florida State would be those final two seeds. Q. Yeah, just to follow‑up on that, you talked about the impressive nature of Oregon going to Ohio State and sweeping them, which I found impressive too. What about Ohio State and the selection process? If you're impressed with the series win over Ohio State, I'm curious to how close Ohio State was to getting in the field? DENNIS FARRELL: Again, they were under consideration right up until the very end. I think at the end of the day the fact that I think their record against top 25, top 50 was maybe not as strong as some people thought it could have been. Their non‑conference strength of schedule was okay. But I think that it was just a matter of trying to split hairs between a number of teams, and unfortunately, Ohio State didn't make the cut at that point. Q. Curious about kind of the contrasting resumes of Campbell and Texas A&M or Florida? What was the discussion process with Campbell close despite its non‑conference strength of schedule and how poor that was to getting in? And how difficult is it to measure a 29‑28 team versus a 49‑10 team? DENNIS FARRELL: Well, I think in the committee's eyes, Campbell's record certainly was impressive, but we really zeroed in on their strength of schedule, particularly their non‑conference strength of schedule. When you're looking at teams for maybe not one of the "power conferences", we really look at did a team challenge itself in non‑conference go out and play people? Did they have success against that schedule? And, I think in fairness, Campbell's non‑conference schedule was somewhat lacking. Conversely when you're talking about a team from one of the power conferences that maybe didn't perform as well as you would expect a Florida to perform in any season, particularly in conference play, that you look at what they did in non‑conference and that they did play a very strong non‑conference schedule. So their non‑conference strength of schedule was one of the Top 10 in the country. So I think that the committee was certainly impressed. Not only did they have the number one overall strength of schedule, which obviously comes along with being in the Southeastern Conference, but they also challenged themselves in non‑conference, so I think that that impressed the conference. Then Texas A&M was somewhere along the same lines that they had the No. 22 non‑conference strength of schedule in the country, so I think that made an impression on the committee members. Q. On that same vein, Seton Hall versus SEC teams. Obviously, it's easy to have a good non‑conference strength of schedule in the southeast than it is in the northeast. Was Seton Hall on that bubble considering on the road Texas A&M was 6‑13, and on the road Seton Hall was 8‑13? DENNIS FARRELL: Yes, we looked at Seton Hall and recognized that at one point in time they had a 13‑game winning streak. We looked at their finish in the Big East conference, which we certainly were impressed with the strength of the Big East this year. But they also in conference play did not have to play Louisville or Pittsburgh this year which were the other top two teams in that conference. Then we looked at how they performed against top 50, Top 100 teams against top 50 teams they were 1‑6 and against Top 100 they were 10‑16, so they were swept by East Tennessee State, San Diego State, and they were 2‑10 against teams that were in the tournament. So I think that's probably what played against Seton Hall. Q. So that wasn't the fact that the 21 losses for A&M against top 50 teams, that didn't matter as much for A&M, I would suppose? DENNIS FARRELL: I would say that's probably correct. Q. If you could just‑‑ you've already discussed Florida and Texas A&M from the SEC, but Auburn is a team that was left out. I'm sure they were a team in consideration. Can you just talk a little bit about why they were left out and what were some of the factors that went into that decision? DENNIS FARRELL: Well, I can say that Auburn was certainly on the board up until the very, very end. And I think that we've looked at their non‑conference strength of schedule, which was 55 for non‑conference; it was 36 overall. We looked at their last ten games; they had a sub .500 record in the conference, so I think that was some of the thing that's we looked at. I probably should say that the committee, we were operating with a new RPI formula this year, and the committee really did a good job, I think, of looking at what created schools' RPIs. So we looked at their strength of schedule, we looked at their conference finish, we looked at the strength of their conference and tried to weigh all those factors. We looked at regional advisory committee rankings, which is kind of the objective view. We have a lot of subjective information and all, and we looked at the finish, how they did in the last 10, 15 games. We looked at common opponents. So we looked at a lot of those things and compared not just one team against another team, but there were often times three, four, five teams that were up on the board that we were looking at. And in Auburn's case, I think there were just some of the concerns about their non‑conference strength of schedule. Q. Given Auburn's‑‑ they won their final three SEC series. They did fairly well against the SEC teams who made the tournament. I'm sure they were quite close until the end, as you said. Were you able to say were they the last team out, second to last? How close was it? DENNIS FARRELL: They weren't the last team out, but I would say that they were certainly one of the last two or three teams. Q. Arkansas were hoping to get a regional host, and they finished third in the SEC; they swept SouthCarolina on the road; they beat Mississippi State 2 out of 3. Could you talk about your thought process on those teams getting regionals over Arkansas, and was it all about the RPI? If you could talk about the thought process there with Arkansas? DENNIS FARRELL: I think in Arkansas's case it really came down to the non‑conference strength of schedule. They had a non‑conference strength of schedule of 291 out of 296 teams, and they were just 1‑6 in the non‑conference away from home. I think that that's probably what played against Arkansas the most from that standpoint. Q. Were they close to the regional or did they not have a realistic shot? DENNIS FARRELL: I think we had four of the 16 No. 1 seeds, we had 8 of those 16 were unanimous choices in our first vote, So I think that there was half of those No. 1 seeds were slam dunks. By the time we got down to the final two No. 1 seeds, we had six teams that were left up on the board for consideration for that, and I believe that they were under that‑‑ in that group of final six teams. Q. Going 5‑1 against SouthCarolina and Mississippi State in the regionals, was there a lot of discussion about that or was that not a big enough factor to overcome the non‑conference issues? DENNIS FARRELL: Well, I think everything ‑‑ I mean, we go back and forth. We debated a lot of things. We tried to be consistent, but I think at the same time I've used this statement a number of times recently that this entire selection process. I've come to appreciate over the last two years that it really is kind of a marriage of art and science. And that we get a lot of data put in front of us, a lot of numbers, win‑loss records, RPIs, strength of schedules, things of that nature, but then we also get a lot of information from regional advisory committees, a lot of discussion about teams that people may have seen, for instance. I think that all of that is taken into account and at the end of the day it comes down to a vote of ten committee members. In most instances the prevailing vote to put someone into the field has to pass with 70% of the vote. Q. Could you differentiate between NorthCarolina and Vanderbilt as the 1 and 2 seeds? DENNIS FARRELL: That's a good question because we spent a great deal of time discussing those. The way we seeded the national seeds, we took recommendations. We have the top six, as I said. They were easy to identify. So what we did was we took the teams from each of the three regions that were under consideration. We had the ACC teams from the Atlantic region, and we had the SEC teams from the south region, and we had the Pac‑12 schools, Oregon, Oregon State, as well as Cal State Fullerton from the west. So we took who were the top teams from each of those regions first. So we had three number ones from the regions, and we tried to do a comparison between those three seeds or three teams. When it came right down to it, it was really a close call on that one between NorthCarolina and Vanderbilt. I'm not so sure I can really articulate what the determining factor was. Again, it came down to a vote of the group. Q. How close was the vote? DENNIS FARRELL: I don't recall. But it must have been at least 7‑3. Q. Who was the last team out? DENNIS FARRELL: Last team out was Michigan State. Last team in was Mercer. Q. I wonder if you could discuss the role of geography and some of the pairings with potential super regional match‑ups, and of course you have Clemson and SouthCarolina, UCLA and Fullerton and some of these match‑ups that we've seen before. How much are you required to emphasize geography in this process? DENNIS FARRELL: Well, unfortunately, it is something that we're told to take under consideration and stick to as a result of directives from the NCAA Championships cabinet. So we tried to spread it around as much as possible. We obviously looked at that South Carolina‑Clemson situation. But as we looked historically back over the course of the last decade or more since the tournament expanded to 64 teams, we found that SouthCarolina and Clemson has only been paired up one time in a regional and that was last year, unfortunately. But over that same amount of time, we've had other regional match‑ups occur much more often, Arizona State and Fullerton, for one thing, has happened a number of times. UCLA and Cal State Fullerton being tied together. So I think that this last summer the committee did discuss expanding the national seeds to 16, elected not to do so at that time. But I think that that will probably be something that we continue to look at in the future. Q. I know softball does that. Is there a reason it works for softball and not for baseball? Why did the committee decided to that? DENNIS FARRELL: I think there was more of a certain if we went to strict national seeding would that create more conference match‑ups in the super regional rounds, and there was real concern about that happening. And that could have easily have happened this year. And that might even be more of a negative if you had No. 1 seeds from the same conferences. For instance, Oregon‑Oregon State could potentially have been matched‑up together or UCLA with Oregon or whatever. And so I think that that was the primary concern of the committee at the time that it elected not to make that move. Q. Wanted to talk a little about the role that the new RPIs had. With Arkansas the last weekend it rose almost 20 points in two games. How does that play into the committee? When you have a system that sol till and you're watching these games go down how do you act for that? You talked about the factors that go into the RPI, but what is going through the committee's discussions as those numbers are changing so much? DENNIS FARRELL: We really tried to look‑‑ I think that the committee, and maybe more so this year than any time that I've been on the committee for the last three years now, really tried to look at what was driving team's RPIs. The west was down a little bit more this year than it's been in the past, so we looked at that. So we didn't just go strictly by RPIs. We really tried to look at strength of schedules, how team's built their RPI, and I think that that's healthy. If we were going to go just by RPI, we wouldn't need a committee at that point. So there wasn't a whole lot of discussion about the volatility of it at the end of the season like you brought up, but I do think that the committee really tried to take a hard look at what was driving a school's RPI? Was it legitimate? Was there some extenuating circumstances that was overinflating or maybe under or deflating a team's RPI? And that we really tried to zero in on that as a committee. Q. A follow‑up to that is you obviously strength of schedule carried a lot of weight. But we've mostly talked about non‑conference strength of schedule. As conferences grow and you've got these 12 and 14 and 16 potential conferences, everyone doesn't play each other. You have to wait your conference finish based on who you played inside the conference. Is there a need to go to a conference strength of schedule? DENNIS FARRELL: Well, we do have a conference strength of schedule that we look at. The conferences are ranked, as you well know. ACC was No. 1 in the conference RPI this year. SEC No. 2, Pac‑12 was number No. 3. So that is kind of factors in. But you do raise a good point that conferences RPI's are really based on who you play outside a conference, and how you do against that competition. And as conferences expand, if there are fewer non‑conference games that are played, it's going to make the whole process even more challenging for the committee in the future. Q. What I really meant by that is inside the conference. If Arkansas played one set of teams and Mississippi State plays another set of teams, it may be more challenging for Mississippi State to finish higher in the conference. Do you account for that, especially with these unbalanced schedules, it's just going to get worse? DENNIS FARRELL: I think we do account for it. We did have some teams that finished lower in the conference standings than others but had higher RPIs, but we really tried to look at how those teams did within their conference. We recognize that there are power conferences. The SEC, ACC, Pac‑12, Big 12 in particular are certainly very strong conferences. But if someone finishes far down in the standings for that conference, and they didn't perform well in the conference, that's what then drives us to look at their non‑conference schedule to see if maybe their RPI is inflated simply by their conference membership? Q. How close was Indiana to getting one of the national seeds and what ended up keeping them from that? DENNIS FARRELL: They were one of the four schools that was being considered for the final two national seeds. They along with Oregon, Florida State, and NorthCarolina State. We had a very robust discussion about all four of those schools, and I think at the end of the day it came down to a vote of the committee because it really was very, very tight between those four for those final two spots. Q. This is a rematch Central Arkansas and Mississippi State. Did you do that on purpose, or was that happenstance because Little Rock was conveniently located to Starkville? DENNIS FARRELL: I think it's a matter of geography again that we have some bracketing parameters that we're required to adhere to by NCAA policy, so that was strictly put together by those parameters. A similar type of situation occurs in my part of the country in Southern California. You look at the match‑ups in Fullerton and UCLA, and there are a number of schools that have played each other this year but because of the travel they were assigned to those regionals as well. Q. Two teams from the same conference, Coastal Carolina and Campbell. I think Campbell finished ahead of the regular season. They didn't play but went further in the tournament. Can you discuss picking one over the other one? Campbell's RPI was higher even though its strength of schedule was so much lower. Campbell's defense might be that it has trouble scheduling some of the in‑state powers because of their reputation. How much do you factor those in? DENNIS FARRELL: We certainly discussed their scheduling abilities, but at the end of the day we have to rely on just what's happened on the field. So we looked at Campbell's non‑conference schedule strength and it was very weak. They only had one game against a top 50 opponent and that was a loss to NorthCarolina State. Then we also look at regional advisory rankings, which is kind of the objective view that we're looking for and the Atlantic Regional Advisory Committee ranked Coastal above Campbell. So that played very heavily on our minds as well. Q. You already mentioned that A&M's non‑conference strength of schedule was a key component in them making the field. I was curious though the SEC Tournament, the wins over Florida and especially Vanderbilt, how much did that work in solidifying A&M's place in the field, and how did you look at that? DENNIS FARRELL: I think that it played significant input on that. As I said earlier, while we don't rely solely on how team's do in their tournaments, if someone does pick up some significant wins coming down the stretch, we look at how they finish and all, that that does come into play quite significantly. I think the overriding thing for A&M though was probably their non‑conference schedule strength as well as their overall schedule strength. Q. Wanted to double check with you. Michigan State was the first team that was left out, correct? DENNIS FARRELL: Correct. Q. If Vanderbilt had beaten LSU yesterday, do you think that would have been enough to get them the No. 1 seed? DENNIS FARRELL: I don't think so. You know, because we were going through that whole process around the time that that game was going on, and I think that we were just looking at they were already the No. 1 seed, and I think that the tournament had very little impact on either of those teams. I think we were basically looking at their overall bodies of work. That was, as I said earlier, that was an extremely difficult decision separating those two teams. Pretty much all six of those teams that are in the top six, you could have made a case for any one of the six for any spot in the top six, I think. Q. You talked about last team out, last team in; did it just came down to the guys at the end of this, having Mercer and Michigan State up on a board? And what was that process like of a last team in and last team out or how that goes or how that was discussed? Was it really just one‑on‑one at the end of these two teams or had you discussed them enough in a large group that everybody knew about them? DENNIS FARRELL: We had actually a number of teams that were under consideration, and then it came down to those last two and trying to compare their bodies of work. You know, we have computer screens that are in front of us. It's a little more high tech than it probably was a few years ago, and we're able to call up a lot of data on any team we want to at the click of a mouse. Q. Does a team like Michigan State not making its conference tournament, is that ultimately kind of a thing that affects them or is that not necessarily a factor? DENNIS FARRELL: I think it was discussed but we also recognized that only six teams from the Big 12 made it in the tournament, so it wasn't a totally overriding factor there. But there were a number of teams ahead of them in their own conference that were not moving forward to the tournament as well. So I think that as we looked at Mercer and Michigan State, again, we zeroed in on non‑conference strength of schedule, and non‑conference RPIs, and Mercer had just a little bit of an advantage over Michigan State in those. Q. A follow‑up on Auburn since you mentioned the non‑conference strength of schedule. There was a feeling heading into the SEC Tournament that they obviously needed a win and that was clear by the committee's decision to leave them out. Would a win against Alabama have been enough in the SEC Tournament to get Auburn in, or would they have needed more help than that? DENNIS FARRELL: Boy, I'm not sure I can speculate on that, to be quite honest. Again, it's a matter of comparing people but certainly teams that do well in a tournament, while we don't necessarily allow tournaments to play someone out, I think that when someone finishes well in their tournament and finishes strong, we do look at the last ten 15 games whatever, so those are taken into account. Q. And Auburn did go 8‑4 in their final 12 games. You mentioned that they obviously started conference play very poorly and I'm sure that you knew they played better down the stretch. You mentioned they were close there in that final consideration, just to follow up again on how close was it when you're comparing Mercers and Michigan State and Auburn and some of the other teams? Was non‑conference strength of schedule really what took Auburn out of it? DENNIS FARRELL: Yeah, I would say probably because their non‑conference. Also their regional advisory ranking, they were ranked rather low in their own region, and Mercer's in the same region and Mercer was ranked higher than Auburn. Q. I was curious to just kind of get a feel for what the momentum was behind Virginia Tech, and what started the ACC Tournament so hot? Was Virginia Tech a serious consideration as a host before their role in the ACC Tournament, or was that something that quickly elevated them getting off to a hot start in the tournament? DENNIS FARRELL: I'm not sure we used their tournament start, but they were not one of the first eight to be designated as a top seed, but they certainly became one of‑‑ I believe, probably, one of the next six. And we did look at their record against playing in the championship game, certainly that did assist them in that effort. They had series wins over Virginia, Florida State, Miami, UNC Wilmington. They were third in their division, but they were in a tough division, so... FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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