Myrtle Beach ACC Tournament Open Discussion

In an interesting twist on Monday, the ACC recalled its decision to stage the next couple of ACC baseball tournaments in Myrtle Beach. The decision came down not necessarily from the ACC's head Swofford but from the national NAACP.

The national chapter of the NAACP isn't happy with the flying of the Stars and Bars in Columbia. The NCAA has an official ban of SC hosting post-season events due to the presence of the flag but the ACC initially did not adhere to this rule citing it as unfair to SC.

It kinda sucks though to punish a struggling Myrtle Beach for the ways of Columbia and the Midlands. I'm not saying this is totally analagous but it's similar to ATL being punished for the idiocy that occurs in the town 75 miles east of Atlanta. I personally think Myrtle Beach should've retained the host status of the games with some stipulations but so goes life. The backwards logic of "pride > revenue" never surprises me in South Carolina -- hence unemployment, refusal of stimulus money, and now the ACC tourney...

I'm kinda pissed 'cause I only get to see the Jackets maybe once or twice during baseball season. Myrtle Beach is literally 45 minutes away. So now, after teasing me, the ACC goes and rips out my heart. Damn them.

Seeing as this is a pretty uncensored blog, any political/economic/social thoughts are welcome...

The Director's Cup: ACC-ANALyzed

The National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics of American Athletics of America releases a rating system every year ranking every athletic program by the number of bullshit sports by the quality of the athletic teams competing in NCAA sanctioned sports.

This year the NACDA announced the winner as Stanford (again) and runnerup UNC. However, upon further investigation I have found that the system for crowning a champion is designed strictly for big ass athletic programs like Stanford to win rather than smaller more efficient programs such as FSU or Wake (small as in # of teams small).

First, let me explain the scoring system. The NACDA uses an exponential function to assign points. The input is final standing in the NCAA tournament (or CFB polls) and the function is based on the total number of postseason teams. The output ranges from 100 points (Champion) to 25 points (making the tournament). Certain sports with odd numbers of teams or non-tournament systems have special scoring systems.

The scoring system only accounts for the 20 best teams fielded (10M/10W), which automatically puts 50% of the ACC at a disadvantage as only UNC, Maryland, UVA, Duke, BC, and NC State have 20 or more teams.

The final overall tally:
2. UNC - 1184.25
8. UVA - 1059.00
15. FSU - 945.00
17. Duke - 891.80
28. MD - 668.80
37. Wake - 580.25
43. Miami - 491.00
46. VT - 459.25
48. GT - 452.38
53. CU - 397.00
74. NCSU - 265.30
75. BC - 262.00

This is merely a total of the 20 best teams so schools like Stanford and UNC with 30 or so teams can dominate especially in sports with smaller postseasons where Final 4 or Elite 8 status is almost guaranteed. For example, you have to beat 6 teams to win March Madness but you only have to beat 4 teams to win the Frozen Four. So schools in less-popular sports are automatically racking up big time points.

A breakdown of actual efficiencies shows a slightly different ranking of the ACC teams. If the teams were ranked by actual teams earning points in the NACDA system, FSU would win as 100% of their teams earned points (earned postseason births). UNC was second with 82% of their teams. The worst was BC with only 26% of their teams earning postseason births. The ACC received points by 59% of their competing teams for comparison's sake.

This BC fact is particularly disturbing in that they've also got the most NCAA teams of the ACC with 31, placed the lowest percentage of teams into postseason play, and got the least amount of NACDA points out of the entire ACC (despite their voluminous team advantage). I know their hockey team normally kicks ass but they've gotta do something with the rest of their dead weight programs, in my opinion.

Another interesting way to look at the system is actual team efficiency or "How many points did each school earn per competing team?" Once again FSU won with 55.59 points/team wth UNC and UVA close behind with 44.97 and 42.36 points/team, respectively. BC had 8.45 points/team.

1. FSU - 55.59 p/t
2. UNC - 44.97 p/t
3. UVA - 42.36 p/t
4. Wake - 36.27 p/t
5. Duke - 34.20 p/t
6. Miami - 32.73 p/t
7. GT - 30.16 p/t
8. VT - 27.01 p/t
9. MD - 24.77 p/t
10. CU - 20.89 p/t
11. NCSU - 11.05 p/t
12. BC - 8.45 p/t

I like the idea of awarding points based on postseason appearances but my main problem is the over-valuation of smaller tournaments. It is much more difficult to earn a bid for the Men's/Women's Basketball tournament then it would be to the fencing tournament as there are a lot less teams competing in fencing. The system should account for tournament size and regular season competition field size (more teams = more points).

Otherwise, I find the system intriguing because it is good to have a uniform "objective" metric to evaluate athletic departments. I think it's also good because it adds "weight" to sports that normally get very little (if any) coverage.

Thoughts are welcome.

SI's 50 Richest Athletes - GT Represented...

Sports Illustrated released an article with the 50 highest paid American athletes of 2009. GT had Starbury and Teixeira represented on the the list at #17 and #14, respectively. I went through the list and broke down the players by college/conference. It's pretty interesting seeing the way sports pay their players as well. No surprise to me is that 22 of the 50 athletes are NBA guys, 14 are from the MLB, 9 from the NFL, 3 from the PGA, and Dale Jr. and Jeff Gordon finish the list off. The highest paid is obviously Tiger by almost double.

8 of the top 50 are from the ACC, which ain't too shabby. Especially considering it's three different sports. The Pac 10 has 6 of the top 50, the Big East has 5 all from the NBA, the SEC has 4, and the Big 12 and Big 10 both have 2 represented. This means that 20 of the top 50 highest paid American athletes didn't attend a four year university before going pro. Pretty interesting.

The most represented university on the list of athletes was UNC with 3. GT's 2 were tied with Tennessee, Syracuse, and Arizona. There were 19 Division I universities with only one representative in the top 50. No one from uga made the list...

I thought the article was interesting. Any thoughts?

Baseball type things

MLB
Matt Wieters, since being called out on June 7th for starting out with a 0.167, has batted 0.315 with 6 hits in his last 5 games. That's not too bad. Hopefully, he can start belting some homers like I remember back in the good ol' days.

CWS
The ACC is currently 1-2 in the CWS... Dadgummit. Come on UVA/UNC. Kick some ass. Don't get eliminated. Current conference roundup is below:

1. Pac 10: 9-4 (69.2%)
2. SEC: 25-13 (65.8%)
3. ACC: 23-14 (62.2%)
4. Big 12: 17-15 (53.1%)
5. Big East: 3-3 (50.0%)
6. Big 10: 4-6 (40.0%)
7. Other: 42-66 (38.9%)

Tracking the NCAA baseball field

I play a lot of Risk. One of my favorite graphs from post-game stats on the computer versions of Risk was the Percent of World Population vs. Time Graph at the end of the game. It showed the eb and flow of the game's momentum, big battles, and major defeats. Here's my Risk World Population Graph for the NCAA baseball tourney:

I think it's an interesting graph because you see the major dropoff in Non-BCS teams following regional play. However, later in the tourney the elite Non-BCS schools have stuck in there and remain strong as Hell up to CWS play. This graph still has the Texas/TCU game as unplayed so take that into account. Note the pop and fizzles that are the Big East and Big 10. Also, note the ACC's consistent 22-25% since 6/1. Pretty impressive. It's clearly been an ACC-SEC conference showdown this post-season so why not dwell on the comparisons.

Teixeira, Wieters, and Other Baseball Updates

After struggling to start the season, Mark Teixeira has taken off for the Yankees. He's leading the team with 17 homers and 50 RBI's. That's 1/6th of the Yankees' total RBI's and 1/5th of the Yankees' total homers. Not bad.

Matt Wieters came into the Baltimore organization as a super heralded college star... Currently, he's batting a lowly 0.167 and only has 4 hits in 7 game appearances. He's only a rookie but he'll need a helluva lot more improvement to stay in the bigs. I've been told by Orioles fans that his defense is superb, however.

Now here's a quick NCAA baseball tourney conference update:
1. SEC: 23-11 (67.6%)
2. ACC: 21-11 (65.6%)
3. PAC 10: 7-4 (63.6%)
4. Big 12: 15-14 (51.7%)
5. Big East: 3-3 (50.0%)
6. Big 10: 4-6 (40.0%)
7. Other: 41-65 (38.5%)

The Big East's lone team, Louisville, was eliminated. The SEC has two teams out of eight already in the CWS alongside Cal State-Fullerton. Good luck to UVA, Clemson, and UNC. You're the ACC's only hope.

No Sports for 93 Days SUXOR

So...we lost. We were the only ACC #1 seed to drop the ball. In fact, our regional allowed the only #3 seed to survive to Super Regionals out of 16 regionals. Woo-freakin'-hoo. I'm glad some people are happy (2). Damnit.

The team batted 0.280 (down from 0.315 on the season) for the NCAA tournament run and averaged 8.4 runs per game (down from 10.5 on the season). I think a huge issue was our defense. We had a billion errors. Our starting pitchers were struggling. It was tough for our offense to really get into a groove when they were chasing 5 and 6 runs every game after the third inning.

So goes life. I'm proud of the baseball team. Wish we could've done better. Now, the wait...93 days 'til college football or 68 days until the first NFL Preseason game...

Conference Roundup:
1. Big East: 3-1 (75.0%) ~ 1 of 1 teams remaining
2. ACC: 19-7 (73.1%) ~ 4 of 7 teams remaining
3. SEC: 18-9 (66.7%) ~ 4 of 8 teams remaining
4. Pac 10: 6-4 (60.0%) ~ 1 of 3 teams remaining
5. Big 12: 14-14 (50.0%) ~ 1 of 8 teams remaining
6. Big 10: 4-6 (40.0%) ~ 0 of 3 teams remaining
7. Other: 38-61 (38.4%) ~ 5 of 34 teams remaining

I have nothing to say

I'm very sad, I was looking forward to the super regionals.

However, in lieu of a preview of more baseball this weekend, I bring you this.


http://jalopnik.com/5275012/getting-hit-in-the-junk-by-an-exploding-airbag


Gotta remember to love the little things in life.

Day 4 Conference Roundup...Pre-Super Regionals Monday

Wow, the standings have changed as many-a-team were eliminated on Sunday:

1. ACC: 18-6 (75.0%)
2. SEC: 17-7 (70.8%)
3. Big East: 2-1 (66.7%)
4. Pac 10: 6-4 (60.0%)
5. Big 12: 14-12 (53.8%)
6. Big 10: 4-6 (40.0%)
7. Other: 35-60 (36.8%)

Also of note, here's the number of teams remaining from each conference as of Pre-Super Regionals Monday (this will change drastically by midnight or so tonight as there are 6 elimination games tonight):

1. Big East: 1 of 1 (100.0%)
2. SEC: 6 of 8 (75.0%)
3. ACC: 5 of 7 (71.4%)
4. Big 12: 3 of 8 (37.5%)
5. Pac 10: 1 of 3 (33.3%)
6. Other: 5 of 34 (14.7%)
7. Big 10: 0 of 3 (0.0%)

Yes, it's wrong to group CSF and Rice with all of the jobbers and I [do care about the little guy]. It's what they get for not [being in BCS football leagues and gaining the side effects of said affiliation]. Sadly, UF eliminated Miami thus giving Gainesville rights to host our Super Regional. Damnit.

ACC Tournament Format: Yes or No?

The wheels fell off our baseball team this week, getting beat by Miami and rolled by Boston College. FSU has clinched a berth in the title game already and there is still 2 days of baseball left. While we wait and hope that our team figures out what the hell is going on, here is a question:

Do you like the ACC Baseball Championship Format? What would you change about it? What would you keep?

ACC vs. SEC in 2009 baseball season

The ever constant debate in the Southeast revolves around tradition, national titles, and conference superiority. This season the ACC and SEC have met 16 times and will meet once more (with three rainouts). Currently, the ACC holds a 9 to 7 edge over the SEC with Tech playing the last SEC game against uga at Turner Field.

The proximity of the two conferences lends itself to constant interconference danceoffs and league comparisons. Here are the results thus far in 2009:

1. Miami swept UF in a 3 game series.
2. FSU took 2 of 3 from Auburn.
3. UF took 2 of 3 from FSU.
4. Georgia swept Clemson in a 2 game series.
5. GT beat Georgia in Athens.
6. South Carolina/Clemson won 2 games a-piece.
7. GT-Tennessee game rained out tonight, which ends any chance of the SEC tying the season series.
8. Tech-Georgia finale at Turner Field.

There's not much to draw from this season's small sample of games other than bragging rights across the cubicle but it's still important in the grand scheme of things to consistently beat your rival and your rival conference.

And in case you bought tickets to the Tech game, you can exchange them for Chattanooga Lookout tickets! Woohoo! What a deal! Anyone keeping a tally on rainouts would note this is the sixth rainout of the season. I'm sure there's a stat book out there somewhere proving this be a GT single season record.

Anyone out there hate the SEC more than me? I doubt it. Bring on the dogs!

Nature gives way to Clean, Old-Fashioned Hate

First, TO HELL WITH GEORGIA! 7:00PM tonight in Athens.

Second, let's look ahead to the Coastal Division's remaining ACC schedule to predict a division champ. The winner (because of rainouts) is chosen based on win %. Ties are half a win. The Coastal division teams are ranked below based on remaining schedule strength:

1. UNC 10-7 (0.588) : remaining ACC schedule is 31-39 (0.443)
2. UVA 9-6-1 (0.594) : remaining ACC schedule is 32-37 (0.464)
3. Miami 11-7 (0.611) : remaining ACC schedule is 30-34 (0.469)
4. Tech 10-5-1 (0.656) : remaining ACC schedule is 33-33 (0.500)
5. Duke 9-9 (0.500) : remaining ACC schedule is 32-32-2 (0.500)
6. VT 7-10 (0.412) : remaining ACC schedule is 40-28-1 (0.587)

So VT looks sunk but UNC, UVA, and Miami can brag a little about having Wake/MD on their schedules to end the season. Sweeps will be huge right now.