Sooners Receive At Large Bid in Baseball

I was REALLY suprised to see the Sooners get picked for the NCAA tourney, so I decided to do a little research on the topic. I found the handy sight WarrenNolan.com, which made my research so much easier.

• There are 30 teams to receive automatic bids, and 34 at large bids.
• The Sooners RPI ranking was 42; there were six other teams with a lower RPI ranking than OU to receive an at large bid - UCLA (43); Alabama (46); Tulane (48); New Orleans (53); St. John's (54); and UC Davis (58). That made me feel better that we weren't the only stragglers let in.
• Based solely on RPI, here are the teams with the biggest beef: a) Clemson- played the toughest schedule in the land, and had a RPI of 25. They were the highest rated in terms of RPI to be omitted. Other teams with RPI above UC Davis that were left outside were Baylor, Wazzu, K State, College of Charleston, Missouri State, Wake Forest, and defending champion Oregon State.
• The ACC got 6 teams in, and those all had RPIs of 16 or above. The Big 12 had 6 teams as well.
• Teams with fewer losses against weaker competition (less than 20 losses for New Orleans and St. John's against a SOS in the 100s) meant more than a breakeven record against top notch competition, which means weeping and gnashing of teeth for Clemson, Baylor, Washington State and Kansas State.

That concludes today's baseball analysis. And if the Sooners drop out in Tempe over the weekend while I'm on vacation, it'll probably be this year's college baseball analysis.