Minnesota-Crookston Optimistic About One Sport, At Least

There's no question that the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference has a few weaker programs involved in it.

When you look at the football layout of the league, there are programs like UMD, Augustana, St. Cloud State, Minnesota State, and Winona State. These five are pretty consistently competitive in Division II, having shown the ability to hold their own -- or win -- in key non-conference games against top programs, as well as in the Division II playoffs.

Unfortunately, the NSIC isn't full of these types of programs for football. There are also programs like Minnesota State-Moorhead, Northern State, and Minnesota-Crookston, which struggle mightily to compete at a high level. Or a mediocre level.

For Minnesota-Crookston, it's not just football that struggles. Men's basketball went 3-19 in the NSIC. The women were a more respectable 10-12. Volleyball finished 0-28. Softball went 8-30 (2-22 in the NSIC). Soccer went 2-13-3 (2-11-1 in the NSIC).

Oh, and there's baseball.

The Eagles' baseball team finished 0-39.

Man, you thought the Twins sucked.

Crookston's baseball team featured nine true freshmen among just 15 players. Coach Chris Vito spoke to Michael Rand of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and he flashed a wonderfully positive attitude, considering what he and his players just went through.

"For starters, we had a pretty special group of kids. They were pretty tight-knit," he said when asked how the team was able to keep plugging away as the losses mounted. "The biggest thing we did is try to stay focused on what we're trying to accomplish.

... "To a 'T,' when I talked to the kids after the year, the recurring theme was, 'Now I know what to expect next year,'" Vito said.

Crookston's team batting average was .190. Opponents hit .402. UMC was outscored 495-79 on the season, an average score of 12.7-2.

Give Vito credit. He touts his young players' progress, knowing he has reinforcements -- a roster of at least 25 for next year -- on the way, and his upbeat attitude is certainly a positive.

For UMC, success in athletics comes in small doses, but hopefully the school can make more of a commitment to being competitive in the NSIC across the board. It might not come easily in football, but the ability of a program like Mary -- which has struggled in football since joining the NSIC -- to compete in other sports shows it can be done.

College Coaches Want to See Aluminum Bats Stay

A few weeks ago, I posted a ramble about the case being made in California against using aluminum bats in amateur baseball.

To me, the premise is still pretty simple. We can't allow emotions to take over in a case where science seems to disagree with our emotional findings.

Despite the perceived safety concerns, coaches of elite NCAA baseball programs seem to support the idea of keeping aluminum bats in the sport.

According to an Associated Press survey of 24 coaches whose programs have won 1,000 or more games since 1985, 17 said they preferred aluminum and that there was no need to study the possibility of going to wood bats.

"I just don't see the aluminum bat hindering our game in any way," Mississippi State's John Cohen said. "In an ideal world, wood would be cheap, very cost efficient and it would be totally equitable. That can never happen."

Five coaches said they like wood better, but all acknowledged that aluminum probably is here to stay. Florida coach Kevin O'Sullivan said he had no opinion on the question and Arizona State coach Tim Esmay declined to participate in the survey as both teams prepared for the College World Series, which begins Saturday with TCU, Florida St., UCLA, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Clemson also in the field.

Proponents of metal argue that all 301 Division I programs play with the same thing and there's no risk of having top programs playing with better wooden bats, potentially skewing the results. They also like the scoring boost and say a $300 aluminum bat can last an entire 56-game season, while $100 wooden bats can break at any time.

Obviously, no poll is totally scientific, but these are some respected names in college baseball. Their support of aluminum is somewhat telling, since most have been around the sport for a long time, have produced players who have gone on to play high-level professional baseball.

The possible move to wood bats in Division II has increased the talk about using them in Division I. Safety concerns aside, there is so much offense in big-time college baseball that using wooden bats would at least potentially shorten games.

However, this might already happen without the wood. The standards for aluminum bats have changed, and by 2011 they will be even closer to behaving like wooden bats. As technology advances and the chasm between the two types of bat decreases, the need for using the more expensive wooden bats in college baseball will lessen dramatically.

It's a case of emotions unnecessarily stepping in the way of science and technology. No one wants to see another 21-14 game in the College World Series, but it appears we've moved far enough away from that.

College Baseball Still Facing Issues as Popularity Rises

Maybe it's just an opinion, but it seems college baseball has gained a bit in popularity.

Every year, more games are on national and regional sports networks, and the sport draws better crowds in more areas.

One major problem, however, is that the NCAA Tournament selection process is still stuck in the dark ages.

As technology improves, those who want to be are keenly aware of the strengths and weaknesses of each at-large candidate, along with each of the candidates to host one of the 16 regionals. This puts more pressure on the selection committee to be armed with easy-to-understand criteria and make sound decisions.

Every year, though, things happen that defy common sense. The committee continues to punish teams for their conference affiliation, as if a school can just snap its fingers and get into the Big 12. The committee continues to forget about the importance of road games, since only Creighton could ever win a national championship in its backyard (the College World Series is contested in Creighton's hometown of Omaha, Neb.).

For all they do right -- attempting to gain geographic diversity in the regional host process, setting a start date for the sport so southern-based teams don't have such an advantage, and allowing mid-major schools decent access to at-large bids -- there is still a major flaw in the selection process.

The ACC, SEC, and Big 12 all have 12 teams in their leagues for baseball. None of them invite all members to their league tournament, instead choosing to only send eight.

Every year, at least one team rises from the ashes of missing their league tournament to make the field of 64.

Why?

I get that not all leagues are equal. And if a "must make conference tournament to make NCAAs" rule was instituted, leagues would just invite all their members so they'd still have a crack at nine or ten teams in the national field.

This all makes sense.

But if a league is so easily going to change their league tournament format, why not make them do it? Don't let them pussyfoot around the lame rules that already exist. If a league wants to get around the rule, they can make the investment required to house four more teams at the site of the league tourney.

The NCAA should not be in the business of rewarding mediocrity.

Furthermore, they should not be in the business of rewarding a team guilty of fraidy-cat scheduling. Arizona is one of them.

The Wildcats played 55 games this season. Of those 55, an incomprehensible 40 of them were at home.

Only one of their 15 road games was played against a team outside their conference (Gonzaga).

Really?

So the Wildcats went 33-22 while playing 40 of 55 games at home, and the committee rewards them over, say, Florida Gulf Coast?

Stick your neck out and play some road games. Wow.

In the end, the committee largely did a good job selecting and seeding the field. They try to create at least some diversity in hosting sites, and did that this year by selecting Connecticut as a regional host.

There are still a few issues to clean up, but the sport is undeniably growing, and the Road to Omaha should be an enjoyable one.

NCAA BASEBALL UPDATE: TOP SEEDS RULE

Last year, the story of the NCAA Baseball Tournament was eventual champion Fresno State, a regional fourth seed who tore through everyone in their path on the way to Omaha and a title.

This year, the story appears to be the renaissance of the high seeds.

In 16 regionals this past weekend, only three top seeds (UC-Irvine, Oklahoma, and Georgia Tech) failed to advance to Super Regional play. Two of the three were national seeds, but Irvine was playing in an insanely tough regional (Virginia, San Diego State, and Fresno State), while Oklahoma probably shouldn't have been a national seed to begin with.

That leaves us with the eight Super Regionals, and a lot of well-established programs. The Cinderella this year is unquestionably Southern Mississippi. They are the third entry out of Conference USA in the Super Regionals (first time that league has placed three in the final 16). The Atlanta Regional's third seed beat Georgia Tech twice to win the championship, and they draw No. 8 national seed Florida in the Super Regionals.

The Big Ten didn't get anyone into this round, but after a terrible start (Indiana, Ohio State, and Minnesota were all blown out Friday), did rebound to gain some respect. Ohio State was edged 37-6 by Florida State in the Tallahassee Regional final, but did blow out Georgia to eliminate the Bulldogs and advance. Minnesota got revenge on Baylor by knocking out the Bears before losing the regional final to host LSU.

Indiana did what their football team normally does, which is "Nothing". They were gone in 60 seconds, it seemed.

The Super Regionals start Friday.

Friday-Saturday-Sunday (if necessary)
Arkansas at Florida State
Virginia at Mississippi
Rice at LSU
Louisville at Cal State-Fullerton

Saturday-Sunday-Monday (if necessary)
TCU at Texas
Southern Mississippi at Florida
East Carolina at North Carolina
Clemson at Arizona State

WORST NCAA SELECTIONS EVER?

I'll admit a bit of ignorance when it comes to the inner workings of college baseball.

The basics seem pretty simple, but it's obvious that not a lot of depth goes into NCAA Tournament selections, especially when compared to a sport like men's basketball.

Since I am always willing to confront my faults, I did some reading. I read a lot of Baseball America, and I read a lot of ESPN, hoping to learn more about the process before the selections were announced.

It seemed clear to me that the committee was likely to pass over potentially deserving mid-major teams in favor of helping the power conferences get more teams in the tournament.

I didn't even know the half of it.

When the pairings came out Monday, I was mortified to see Oklahoma State, a team not even good enough to make the eight-team Big 12 Tournament (the Big 12 has just ten teams for baseball, as Colorado and Iowa State choose not to participate, making OSU's failure all the more embarrassing), make the field. That immediately screwed a team like Rhode Island, Missouri State, or Eastern Illinois, teams that may play in weaker leagues, but at least beat some teams in non-conference play.

Making matters worse, Baylor also made the field. The Bears were swept by last-place Nebraska late in the season (Nebraska is a shell of their former Alex Gordon and Joba Chamberlain selves), and the bottom line is that they didn't play very well down the stretch. Yeah, they have a couple of wins over TCU, a regional top seed. That's great, but there's the matter of a not-so-sterling 0-9 record over the Bears' final nine regular-season conference games.

It's very difficult to compare teams like Oklahoma State and Baylor to the likes of Rhode Island. Yes, the Rams have a good record and did well in their conference. However, their league -- the Atlantic 10 -- is undeniably weaker than the Big 12.

What Rhode Island did do was use their non-conference slate to play anyone, anywhere, anytime. The Rams played 27 straight games on the road to start the season, and they picked up wins over Miami (the one in Florida, not Ohio) and Oklahoma State (hmm ...). For a team in a weaker conference, it sounds like the blueprint of how to make the NCAA Tournament as an at-large.

Didn't work for Rhode Island. Also didn't work for Eastern Illinois or Missouri State, but their profiles are weaker than that of URI. The Rams simply should be in this field, and they would be if their name was, say, Texas Tech.

Aaron Fitt of Baseball America is much more scathing than I.

Indeed, the committee chairman is Big 12 deputy commissioner Tim Weiser struggled to explain the rationale for including Oklahoma State and Baylor in the field of 64.

"Oklahoma State, no doubt, had some losses there in conference play that was a factor," Weiser said in a conference call with media this afternoon. "But we looked at the RPI issue, we looked at strength of schedule. We were aware of their conference success or failures, and all of that was compared to information we still had available."

Weiser repeatedly cited nonconference strength of schedule as a key factor in the committee’s deliberations—he even used it to justify Cal State Fullerton as the No. 2 national seed, even though it finished five games behind UC Irvine in the Big West and lost the head-to-head series against the Anteaters, who earned the No. 6 national seed (more on Irvine shortly). But the committee apparently did not place the same weight on the challenging nonconference slates put together by Rhode Island or Missouri State (which won a series at Oregon State in Portland, won a home series against inexplicable No. 2 regional seed Oral Roberts, and opened the year with a quality series at Middle Tennessee State, though it was swept there). And the Rams and Bears actually finished at or near the top of their conferences. But bad losses cost those mid-majors.

"I think our committee certainly considered those teams," Weiser said. "Twelve of the losses Rhode Island had were to teams rated above 100 in the RPI. Those are significant issues. Talking about Rhode Island, Missouri State, Eastern Illinois or Duke, those are all things we consider."

Fitt knows more than I, and his case is strong.

It's maddening to me that the NCAA allows such things to happen. The criteria need to be more clearly laid out, because as it is set up right now, the message for teams is conflicting. You can't tell teams to schedule tougher, than only reward some teams for it. Things simply don't work that way in the real world.

If you have interest in college baseball, I'd highly recommend Fitt's piece. It's an eye-opener to a painfully flawed process.

THREE BIDS FOR BIG TEN BASEBALL

The NCAA Baseball Tournament begins with the regional round on Friday. 16 teams will get the opportunity to host four-team regionals, with the hopes of advancing to Super Regional play the following weekend, and then the College World Series in Omaha starting June 12 (CORRECTION: Aargh, June 13, that is).

The 64-team field will be announced Monday, but it is already starting to take shape, as conference tournaments are contested around the country.

Big Ten baseball is not highly regarded. It might not be as bad as dregs like the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, but it's not a power conference when it comes to baseball. Three years ago, the league picked up three bids to the NCAA Tournament, and most of the college baseball world reacted with chuckles and snorts.

Those chuckles and snorts were somewhat justified, as the league hasn't won a national championship since 1966 (Ohio State), and hasn't even sent a team to Omaha since 1984 (Michigan). The league has only six national championships in baseball, so it's just not as strong as others.

Lately, however, the Big Ten has set out to improve at the sport. It appears to be working.

With plenty to be decided before Selection Monday, the Big Ten appears set to place three teams in the tournament for the second time in three years (Ohio State, Michigan, and Minnesota all made it in 2007, with Michigan advancing to a Super Regional against eventual national champion Oregon State).

Heading into the Big Ten Baseball Tournament this weekend, regular-season champion Ohio State and runner-up Minnesota appeared to be locks for the tournament. Both played some tough non-conference games throughout the year. tOSU went 3-0 at the Big East-Big Ten Challenge in Florida, and they also beat NCAA invitee Xavier.

Minnesota won two of three at Texas Christian, a team in line to host a regional. The Gophers also swept three games from Dallas Baptist, who could earn an at-large bid.

Neither team could claim the league championship and automatic NCAA bid, however. That went to third-seeded Indiana, who whipped Minnesota Thursday in their tournament opener, and then spanked the Gophers again Saturday night for the championship. IU actually was under .500 in non-conference play, and had no chance of making the tournament without the autobid. It's likely they'll be a low regional seed, but they know they have at least 54 outs left in their season.

There are inherent disadvantages to playing baseball in the Big Ten. Weather is a huge problem in the first part of the season, and it forces teams to travel to get good games in. As a result, it's hard for the league to compete for top recruits against the likes of the ACC, SEC, and Pac-10. The NCAA put in a universal start date for baseball, and they put a cap on the number of games teams can play. This helps in scheduling for the little guys, but it hasn't totally leveled the playing field just yet.

When the regional hosts are announced Sunday, look for Louisville or Virginia to be the northernmost host, meaning the Big Ten's entries will have a lot of travel ahead of them for regional play.

Part of this is the slow process of changing the balance of power in the sport. The top teams are still based in the south and west, and the NCAA is (rightfully) trying to lean the regional hosting duties to top seeds. It's simply not fair for a lot of third- and fourth-seeded teams to be hosting when top seeds are more than capable. As teams in the Big Ten and Big East continue to gain more national footing, they'll stand a better chance of hosting these events in the future.