W-L-T Record is from the NCAA, and covers all games before regional play. Similarly, the standings in the polls are from Monday 18 May 1998 when the regional pairings and seedings were announced. (CB denotes Collegiate Baseball, BA denotes Baseball America.) The notation under "NCAA Result" shows the sequence of Wins and Losses for each team. PI denotes a PlayIn conference automatic bid, while "champ" denotes the automatic qualifier from a conference and "runner up" is the loser in the conference tournament final.
[The SEC awards its championship to the top team in the regular season but its automatic bid goes to the tournament winner. The regular season champ, and hence official SEC champion, is noted in the parenthetical remarks.]
A new feature this year is a set of rankings produced by Boyd Nation from the comprehensive season results kept by Rick Rollins. New readers should consult a separate page that gives some general background information on the records, polls, and the new RPI, ISR, and PP information included in the table below. Again, many thanks to Rick Rollins for the conference standings that make my "etc..." column and a separate analysis of performance grouped by conference possible, and to Boyd Nation for the pseudo-RPI and ISR information generated from Rick's database.
The average ISR for the field is 114.2, plus or minus a standard
deviation of 8.0.
The median ISR is 115.7.
The highest pseudo-RPI ranking without a bid was number 26 Notre Dame (110 ISR), who lost out to number 40 Illinois (111 ISR). See below for further information related to the teams that were on the cusp for tournament selection.
I also have an analysis of performance grouped by conference.
Final results:
NCAA Record Polls Boyd Nation
Seed Team Result W L T CB BA RPI ISR PP etc....
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East - Clemson (5/21)
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1 * Southern Cal WLWWW 40-15 6 6 10 125 +5 Pac-10 (S #2)
4 South Ala. WWLWL 39-17 26 22 25 116 0 Sun Belt (#1)
3 Va Cmmnwealth LWWL 44-13 . . 19 112 +4 Colonial (#1)
5 The Citadel LWL 36-22 . . 61 105 -3 Southern champ
2 Clemson WLL 42-14 18 18 4 120 +1 ACC (#3)
6 Fordham LL 27-18 . . 98 95 +1 Atl 10 champ [PI]
Atlantic I - Miami (5/21)
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1 * Miami (FL) WLWWW 46-9 1 1 1 124 +2 still top independent
3 N Carolina LWWWL 39-21 29 - 13 115 +2 ACC (#6)
2 So Carolina WWLL 42-16 9 13 15 118 +3 SEC (#3, E2)
5 Florida Int'l LWL 40-22 . . 50 107 -1 Trans Am champ
4 Texas Tech WLL 43-18 25 17 34 117 0 Big-12 champ (#3)
6 Bowling Green LL 34-19 . . 89 103 0 MAC champ
Atlantic II - Florida State (5/21)
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1 * Florida State WWWW 49-18 10 11 2 124 -1 ACC runner-up (#1)
2 Auburn LWWWL 43-16 11 8 9 120 -2 SEC champ (#5, W3)
4 Oklahoma WWLL 40-18 14 20 27 118 +2 Big-12 (#4)
5 Rutgers WLL 32-14 . . 32 107 +1 Big East champ
3 Delaware LL 43-8 24 - 22 106 +4 Am East champ
6 Liberty LL 32-27 . . 125 99 -2 Big South champ
South I - Florida (5/21)
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1 * Florida WLWWW 42-15 4 4 3 123 +2 SEC (#1, E1, champ)
5 Illinois LWWWL 39-19 30 - 40 111 0 Big Ten runner-up (#1)
2 Wake Forest WWLL 41-21 27 23 18 114 +2 ACC champ (#5)
3 Baylor LWL 40-18-1 21 19 28 119 +1 Big-12 (#2)
4 Richmond WLL 40-15-1 . . 17 113 +6 Colonial champ (#2)
6 Monmouth (NJ) LL 30-19 . . 105 94 -2 Northeast champ [PI]
South II - Louisiana State (5/21)
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1 * Louisiana St WWWW 42-17 5 5 8 123 +1 SEC (#2, W1)
2 CS Fullerton WWLWL 44-15 8 12 23 122 +2 Big West (#1)
5 Harvard LWWL 34-10 . . 31 105 +4 Ivy champ [PI]
3 Tulane WLL 47-13 16 16 16 118 +1 Conf USA champ (#1)
4 SW Louisiana LL 39-20 . . 41 114 +4 Sun Belt champ (#2)
6 Nicholls St LL 28-32 . . 121 105 -2 Southland champ
Central - Texas A&M (5/21)
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4 * Miss. St. WLWWW 37-20 . . 14 118 -2 SEC (#6, W4)
2 Texas A&M WWLWL 43-18 12 9 24 119 +1 Big-12 runner-up (#1)
3 Washington LWWL 39-15 15 14 36 118 +1 Pac-10 champ (N #1)
6 Oral Roberts LWL 44-18 23 - 59 105 +1 Mid-Cont champ [PI]
1 Rice WLL 45-15 7 7 12 122 +2 WAC champ
5 UNC Charlotte LL 43-17 . . 35 112 +2 Conf USA runner-up (#3)
Midwest - Wichita State (5/21)
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3 * Arizona St. WLWWW 34-21 17 15 30 119 -2 Pac-10 (S #3)
2 Georgia Tech LWWWL 38-20 19 - 20 116 -1 ACC (#2)
5 Okla State WWLL 38-19 . . 33 115 -1 Big-12 (#6)
4 Arkansas LWL 37-19 28 24 11 120 +2 SEC (#7, W5)
1 Wichita St. WLL 55-5 3 2 6 122 +5 Mo Valley champ (#1)
6 SE Mo State LL 32-22 . . 127 102 -2 Ohio Valley champ [PI]
West - Stanford (5/21)
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3 * Long Beach St LWWWW 37-20-1 20 25 42 116 -3 Big West champ (#3)
2 Alabama WLWWL 43-16 13 10 5 123 +1 SEC (#4, W2)
4 NC State WWLL 39-21 . . 21 113 +1 ACC (#4)
1 Stanford LWL 41-12-1 2 3 7 127 +3 Pac-10 runner-up (S #1)
6 Loy.Marymount WLL 33-21-1 . . 110 109 0 West Coast champ
5 Minnesota LL 45-13 22 21 29 115 +2 Big Ten champ (#2)
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Related information:
In addition, I include an ever expanding list of "bridesmaid" teams. Several of these were obvious and proposed by many newsgroup readers, others stood out in Boyd's ratings, and some were picked just to placate or annoy regular newsgroup readers. There are quite a few others above an ISR of 107 that were not listed.
This list of possible teams is of more interest with the proposal to expand the tournament to 64 teams. One can compare the automatic and playin teams that made the tournament, conference champs that lost in their playin game, and these teams when thinking about the format for choosing a 64-team field.
Note that the lowest pseudo-RPI of an at large team was 0.572 for Illinois (40, 111 ISR), one of three number 5 seeds that were at large teams. Notre Dame (26, 110 ISR), with a pseudo-RPI of 0.581, was overlooked. In addition, Tennessee (38) and Ohio State (39) on the list below, and Duke (37), stayed home with pseudo-RPIs of about 0.575, while the other 5-seed at-large teams were UNC Charlotte (35, 112 ISR) and Oklahoma State (33, 115 ISR).
Clearly Boyd's pseudo-RPI formula agrees that the three at-large teams given 5-seeds by the NCAA were the lowest ranked teams selected and that, apart from Notre Dame (0.581), there was not much of a difference in the RPI (a spread from 0.572 to 0.576) between the ones selected and the ones left sitting at home complaining. What one also notices is that the teams below Notre Dame that were selected all had higher ISRs than Notre Dame, although one team left home (Tennessee) had a higher ISR and pseudo-RPI than Illinois. My observation is that the overall picture one gets from these rankings cannot be too far from what the NCAA uses, particularly when the final call might include subjective evaluations of the teams identified to be on the cusp (e.g. Illinois was the regular season Big Ten champion while Tennessee was 10th in the SEC).
Also note that the teams many thought should have been in the tournament rather than Illinois both had high ISRs and a low pseudo-RPI -- and were from the west coast. This is a long-known and much discussed problem on the college baseball newsgroup and one reason the ISR was developed by Boyd to look at alternative ratings methods.
Overlooked ? (ordered by ISR, records may not be accurate)
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Record Polls Boyd Nation
Seed Team W L T CB BA RPI ISR PP etc....
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X Oregon St 35-14-1 . . 52 118 +3 Pac-10 (N #2)
X Arizona 33-23 . . 51 117 -3 Pac-10 (S #4)
TCU 31-19 . . 54 114 +1 WAC (S2)
Missouri 28-15 . . 49 114 +1 Big-12 (#5)
Tennessee 27-21 . . 38 114 0 SEC (#10, E4)
Mississippi 29-23 . . 43 113 -2 SEC (#9, W6)
Nevada Reno 31-22 . . 65 112 -4 Big West (#2)
Hawaii 32-21 . . 57 112 +2 WAC (W4)
Ohio St 32-13 . . 39 111 -2 Big Ten (#3)
CSU Northridge 24-19 . . 73 111 +3 independent
Fresno State 29-27 . . 64 110 -1 WAC (W1)
* Notre Dame 40-12 . . 26 110 +5 Big East
UCLA 24-33 . . 95 110 +2 Pac-10 (S #5)
Pepperdine 30-20 . . 90 110 -2 West Coast
Texas 23-30 . . 78 109 -1 Big-12, ROBBED again
Kentucky 21-27 . . 82 107 +3 SEC (#8, E3)
Play In losers (automatic bid in a 64-team playoff)
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Butler 23-19 . . 142 96 -1 Midwestern champ
Southern 27-16 . . 96 95 +2 SWAC champ
Navy 27-16 . . 103 94 -4 Patriot champ
LeMoyne 23-15 . . 123 92 -1 Metro Atl champ
Howard 27-31 . . 180 90 +3 MEAC champ
X - denotes team with Boyd's computer rating above the 115.7
median for regional tournament teams. I did not figure out
the winning percentages this year. A ranking of 110 would
be better than half of the #5 seeds, by the way, but the
lowest at large team had a 111 ISR.
* - denotes team with a higher pseudo-RPI than the natural cutoff
for a 64-team tournament after automatic bids are used up.
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