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COLLEGE WORLD SERIES SELECTION SHOWMay 29, 2017Scott SidwellOmaha, Nebraska THE MODERATOR: We welcome you to the call. 64 teams have been revealed and we'll take questions now and I'll turn it over to Scott Sidwell, our Chair and also the director of athletics at the University of San Francisco. SCOTT SIDWELL: Thank you, everyone, for joining us. Looking at the tournament this year, want to start off by saying that each year has a unique set of circumstances, has different things play out along the way. And the committee's task is to analyze the data and information in front of us with a broad look at what's happening. And I certainly think throughout the weekend as we saw things unfold there were a certain number of AQs from leagues that wouldn't have been -- would have gotten an at-large consideration. So certainly the field narrowed, and with that made this a very, very difficult process. But here we are. And we feel great about the field. Looking forward to a great tournament. With that we'll open it up for questions. Q. I was just curious, with South Carolina's RPI, how strongly were they considered, especially with their run in the SEC Tournament? And were injuries that they sustained throughout the year taken into consideration at all? SCOTT SIDWELL: Yes, I would say that as we look at the body of work of any team, and as it ends up at the back end as all the games are completed and we take a look at their overall picture, one of the things that stood out to us for South Carolina was that they didn't win, I think they were 2-7 in their conference -- 2-8 in their conference series. And also looking at just their overall body of work. We just didn't feel like it was a team that was worthy of the selection of at-large. Q. A team like St. Johns, with their metrics, their lack of top 50, their strength-of-schedule numbers were not great. How do you go through that evaluation process, especially comparing them to teams in other regions that may have a much different schedule strength? SCOTT SIDWELL: Certainly as you take a look at, as I've mentioned this previously with South Carolina, you look at bodies of work and you looked at some opportunities that they had; they did go on the road and beat North Carolina in the top 50. They did go beat Coastal Carolina in the top 100. And certainly as you look down at some of the opportunities that they did have to go challenge themselves on the road, they did make some attempt to do that. They did win a significant number of games. And I think that that's something that the committee looked at as well. They were a 40-plus-win team. And this year we had every team that had won 40 games got into the tournament. Q. And was their lack of number of teams in their conference, so they had some byes in their conference schedule, do you look at that where they have to fill those gaps with limited options of opponents? SCOTT SIDWELL: I think what the conversation that happens in the process for us is that we have Regional Advisory Committees, and the East Region they were clearly the number one team in the East. And they felt very strongly, and the communication from the leagues that were represented on the RAC flowed through to the committee and the East Region representative. And that was clearly stated to us, that they did a lot to try to put themselves in a position, number one, being 42 wins. They are inherently, by region, have some challenges. But we didn't hold that against them. Q. My question is about Virginia, a team that won its last six ACC series, was not give a Regional host. Clemson, a team that went 1-11 in its last 12 ACC games, was rewarded with a Regional host. How close were those two, and what ended up being a deciding factor? SCOTT SIDWELL: Very, very razor thin and significant amount of discussion about this particular Regional host award. And I think that ultimately as we looked at all of it there were arguments on both sides. And so the one thing that stood out to us was the nonconference schedule of Virginia was significantly higher than it was for Clemson. Q. And if Virginia was that close, what went into the decision for putting them in a Regional with a national team like TCU? SCOTT SIDWELL: So, one of the things that is challenging in the process of how we see the teams is there are certain criteria that we're bound to by the bylaws that are determined by the association and of how we see that. And there's some restrictions on travel and different things that make it difficult to have it purely line up as you explained. Q. How much weight is placed solely on RPI when it comes to deciding those last few at-large spots? SCOTT SIDWELL: So my comment on the RPI is that there's a number of different things that we look at. The RPI is one metric that is consistent for all. Doesn't mean it's the most weight. Doesn't mean it's the least. It means it's the one that's most consistent that everybody plays by. And so it's one of the tools that we can look at that has the most consistency throughout. And so whether it had more emphasis than another thing, no, but it's one of many tools in our toolbox, and certainly that's what we take a look at is all that information. Q. I would just like to ask, really first off broadly, about the Conference USA and them only getting two teams in. Obviously Southern Miss gets one of the Regional berths there and Rice gets in with winning the conference tournament. Teams like Louisiana Tech and Old Dominion, how close were they to getting into the tournament? And did those teams have to have a lot to do in their conference tournament to get in? SCOTT SIDWELL: So I would say (indiscernible) with some very, very good teams, a big broad group of teams that included the teams that you mentioned that were all vetted very thoroughly, looked at, scrubbed, placed up against each other. What we try to do is do a great job of saying it's not necessarily the conference you're, but it's about your team and how do they stack up against others. We certainly took a look at those teams you mentioned right down to the very end. And it was very, very close based upon our discussions. Q. Looking at Tech specifically, the way they ended the year, did that just kill their entire momentum there? SCOTT SIDWELL: Well, what I would say is not much different than when I mentioned this before is there's a number of different factors that we look at. One of our principles that we have in front of us is the last 10 games, the last 10 to 15 games. And we end up taking a look at all that. Those are all part of the discussion. To say that that's the deciding factor is very hard to say in any of those scenarios. Q. Two quick questions about the teams just outside the bubble. One is Gonzaga, which is actually a surprise, wasn't lifted as one of your first four teams out of the field after a co-championship in the West Coast Conference and 17 wins out of the top 100, which if you compare with St. Johns, for instance, or Maryland at 10 and 11. And you mentioned you took in the scheduling difficulties for St. Johns, but I'm curious for Gonzaga, which is even more geographically isolated up there in Spokane, what kept them out and kept them from being in the top four? SCOTT SIDWELL: Let me answer your first question about the top four. So as we go and we vote those to say that this was a group -- they were in the last group. And as we put them up on the board and vote them in, collectively, it's not a one by one process all the time. There could be scenarios when teams are voted in that only one gets put on and then we put two on the next round of voting. So with that being said, Gonzaga was considered right to the very end with a number of different teams. So they were in the last group that was heavily vetted and discussed right down to the very end. On the second phase of that, as we looked at the nonconference schedule and the different things that they did, we just didn't feel like they were worthy versus some others that we had up on the board. Q. My follow-up question is about UConn, a team that is in the No. 4 RPI conference, finished 14-10. RPI in the 30s, just like St. Johns and Maryland, two teams that have fewer top 100 wins than they had, and they were the stronger conference. What was the argument against those guys? SCOTT SIDWELL: I would say based upon the criteria we have in front of us, looking at what the RPI conference is not something that's part of our established criteria. And so what we do is we try to look at their individual resumés and then stack them up against other teams. As we did that and we went through the process I would tell you that they just didn't have a strong enough resumé based upon some others that we considered. Q. Conference records and losing records in conference was kind of a big thing last year. How much did that play in a part of this year's selection, especially when it came down to the last few teams? SCOTT SIDWELL: I think it clearly shows that the conference records was something that we discussed, one of many things we discussed. And we don't have a team in the field with -- one team in the field that had a regular season nonconference record that was below .500, conference record, that was that significant. Q. I wondered if you could comment a little bit on Miami and their resumé. I understand that they were the first team out? SCOTT SIDWELL: Yes, certainly Miami and looking at their resumé, they had some metrics that were very good. At the end of the day, for our group, they had 30 Division I wins. So one of those wins was against a non-Division I team and some of those wins came in the postseason. So for us it was about the number of wins that they had and ultimately just didn't stack up at the end of the day to be a team that was selected for an at-large. Q. Certainly from the outside looking in, it looked like a challenging field to put together with all the conference tournament upsets. As you guys met through the weekend, can you walk us through the process of what that was like as you saw these potential upsets shaping up and then they didn't materialized, how you make adjustments to complete the field? SCOTT SIDWELL: So, if I can use your word of challenging as a quote, I would like to do that, if I can steal that from you. Yeah, it was quite a challenging process. It always is. I had the opportunity to be on the (indiscernible) committee. I know that there's been many, many a committee that's had a lot of challenges. So I don't want to say this was the most challenging. It was certainly a challenging process for us. And so as you look at that and you start to see the AQs and you start looking at all the different at-large pool that's available and you start seeing those things unfold, you're continuing those conversations in a very fluid situation as you see teams that are coming off the board in an AQ situation or you're adding to that. So for us, it was really about trying to stay focused on the metrics that we're governed by and making sure that we're following those and we're doing that in a way that's consistent and very broad, so that we can really scrub the teams down to the point that we feel like we have the best field and we think that we do. Q. In regard to what happened this past weekend, did you guys have a field already set going in, or just kind of take us through that part of it. How close were you and then once you see these teams sort of secure the auto bids, how did that tweak what you had to do? SCOTT SIDWELL: So the process starts very broad and then you start to narrow. One of the things that we were consistent in our approach was that we were going to let things play out. So we actually paused for a while to see what was happening in some of these conference tournaments. We were fortunate that there wasn't too much rain and pushed to the back and pushed it back. But we were able to analyze all that as we were going, and we felt we did a very thorough job of vetting the teams that were in the pool. And as the pool changed with the number of AQs, I think we had six AQs of teams that were not in the at-large pool. That changed it significantly. And so that was something as those were happening that were a part of the discussions that we had. Q. You mentioned the Regional Advisory Committees and I'm sorry for those on the call who are pretty familiar with this process of it. How often do you meet with these guys? And I know there's eight committees and you rely heavily on their feedback. How often do you meet with them? How involved are they down the stretch in this process? SCOTT SIDWELL: Yeah, so the process is set up in that there are three Regional Advisory Committee calls and they're in advance of this weekend here in Indianapolis to select the field. There are three National Committee calls and part of the discussion on the National Committee calls is a report of the Regional Advisory Committee calls. And inside of each of those Regional Advisory Committees are represented in that region by the conferences. The conferences are the ones that select the representative to the RAC. And so you can see, it's a good flow, good process, and has good structure around it so that we can get good communication right up until we get here and then we can disseminate that information to the more broad committee and then have the discussions and really get into it. Q. I know in the past, the committee has decided momentum, the way the team finished at the end of the season, is one of the criteria. I'm curious how that played out this year where you had (indiscernible) Clemson losing 11 of its last 12 (indiscernible) hosting. You had A&M losing eight of its last 10 games of the season. You had Maryland losing its last four series and still getting a nod with 10 top 100 wins over teams like UConn that had similar resumés. I'm just curious how the momentum factor was raised? SCOTT SIDWELL: When you take a look at the body of work, you take a look at the schedules inside of that and who those teams played, what made up that momentum or lack of momentum. I think certainly in some cases you don't have a choice on how your conference schedule lays out at the end of a year. So ultimately you play who you play. If you end up playing a team that is a national seed late in the year and you lose two out of three or you get swept, why is that weighed more than that for someone who played that team and had the very same outcome earlier in the year? So for us, yes, it does have a factor. We point to Stanford and winning 21-of-23, really, really hot team in a league that has the No. 1 seed and No. 1 overall RPI. So in that case it did and some others it didn't. It's one of many factors that we take. To say that it was a factor in any particular case, I think, is hard because, as I've mentioned a couple times on this call, there are many things that we evaluate and then we weigh all those. Pretty hard to pinpoint in any scenario it was this or that. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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