Of Polls And Schedules

We are now a month into the college baseball season, and teams' personalities and tournament resumes are starting to take shape. A few random thoughts while looking through the national polls and the schedules various teams are playing...

1. Doesn't any team from the midwest or northeast want to go to Southern California in February and March? UCLA (#1 preseason SOS) and USC (#10 preseason SOS) are a combined 12-20 after the first month of the season. The Bruins won their first two games of the season, but then lost 10 straight to UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside, Rice, Baylor, UC Irvine, Pepperdine and Oklahoma (3). The Rice, Baylor and Irvine games were in Houston. USC welcomed Western Carolina and Winthrop to LA, and lost two of three games on a trip to Tulane.

Each team still has mid-week games this season with the likes of Pepperdine, Cal State Fullerton, UC Irvine, and Long Beach State. The tough strength of schedules will help, but both now face tough uphill battles to be in the NCAA tournament picture at the end of the season as they begin their 27 game Pac 10 Conference slate against each other this weekend.

2. Speaking of tough schedules, Washington State (5-12, #7 SOS) completely over-scheduled this season. The Cougars lost three at Arkansas to start 2009, split four games with Oklahoma in Pullman, WA, lost three games to Rice, Oral Roberts and Notre Dame in Houston, took two of three at Long Beach State, and lost two at Pepperdine. All that before Pac 10 play began for a team that finished in last place in the conference standings last year. If they had played a considerably softer non-conference slate (see #3 below) and then had a .500 record in Pac 10 play the Cougars could have at least been in tournament consideration at season's end.

3. The opposite of Washington State: Virginia. The Cavaliers were unbeaten coming into the week, and some might chuckle at their wins over the likes of Bucknell, Fordham and William and Mary. But Virginia also beat Wake Forest by a combined 47-13 in their ACC opening series, and also beat Florida State 15-2 in the only game of that series (the other two were rained-out). But why should Virginia kill itself in non-conference play when it has to play North Carolina, Miami, Florida State (all CWS teams in 2008), Georgia Tech, NC State, etc. in the ACC?

4. While Virginia was not ranked in the preseason polls, Texas A & M was a top ten team according to most publications, and it's still in the top ten in all the polls. The Aggies are a good team, but why do their losses to Centenary and Utah (and now two to New Mexico) count less than Virginia's no losses going into this weekend? The highest ranking the Cavs have is #15 in the Coaches poll.

5. Why is Illinois (11-2) not ranked in every poll? The Illini could lose every game the rest of this season, but for right now they deserve to be in the top 25 in every poll there is. They took two of three AT LSU, and their only other loss was to Notre Dame in Florida. Illinois' quality wins in Baton Rouge will help the RPI of every Big 10 team they play this year.