SB: Eugene Regional (May 16-18)

[greenyellow]

Oregon gets absolutely hosed with seeding as they sneak in as the final regional host as the #16 seed. UCLA, who Oregon beat twice, ended up as the #9 seed.

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[StevensTechU]

Wow.

[UOducksTK1]

That makes no sense…

[bellsduck]

7 SEC teams in the top 8 seeds.
Ridiculous.
Granted 2 bad losses at end of season, but in season wins over Tennessee, UCLA, Florida State. I don't get the 16 seed.

[Greenblood]

It looks like the Selection Committee puts a very heavy focus on RPI (which maybe they do every year; I haven't paid attention). Crepea's article helps explain (I added some bold type): "Oregon entered Selection Sunday No. 17 in adjusted RPI and No. 18 in RPI. Two teams ahead of it in RPI did not receive national seeds while two teams behind it did and it came down to Oregon and Stanford for which got the last hosting opportunity . . . UO went 5-1 against RPI top 25 teams this season, tied for the fewest high-caliber wins among the 16 regional hosts, and 28-3 against teams outside the RPI top 100, tied for the most bad losses among those same teams. Oregon’s nonconference strength of schedule (157) was 15th among the 16 regional hosts."

Ducks can hopefully toughen up their schedule going forward.

Assuming they can prevail in this weekend's regional they're hosting, hopefully A&M can get knocked off in theirs, which I think would allow the Ducks to host a Super Regional.

[StevensTechU]

Ducks can hopefully toughen up their schedule going forward.

Unless they plan to change conferences, there isn't a lot to be done. They played Tennessee and Florida State in non-con, and regional series against teams like OSU are always going to be used to fill out the schedule. This is likely to be the situation every year unless Michigan gets back to being a respectable program and some other teams come out of the woodwork to become good.

[Greenblood]

Ducks can hopefully toughen up their schedule going forward.

Unless they plan to change conferences, there isn't a lot to be done. They played Tennessee and Florida State in non-con, and regional series against teams like OSU are always going to be used to fill out the schedule. This is likely to be the situation every year unless Michigan gets back to being a respectable program and some other teams come out of the woodwork to become good.

There's a part of Crepea's article that seems to address the schedule "issue," as if its relative weakness could have come up as a Q during the press conference:

Lombardi felt Oregon’s schedule was “great” and the best possible for a team that was reloading after a large senior class departed last season.

“The schedule that we put together was going to be the best schedule for this group to be able to bring them along throughout the year and test them all at the right time,” Lombardi said. “I liked what we did this year and I’m excited that we got the 16 seed and we’re looking forward to what’s next.”

So I don't know if she had any ability to make the schedule stronger or not. As I somewhat alluded to a few weeks ago in another thread, it does seem like the Ducks' are taking a real hit for moving into such a weak softball conference and only so much can be done to strengthen the overall schedule.

[Greenblood]

Further on the SOS issue that seems to have hurt the Ducks' seeding more than anything else, I took a look at UCLA and UW, two other teams in the B1G who came over from the Pac-12 . . .

UCLA, seeded at #9, has a nonconference SOS of #34, vastly better than Oregon's and presumably made all the difference when it came to seeding. Somehow the Bruins had a number of more games with SEC teams before the B1G Conference games got underway. Even UW's #61 nonconference SOS is much better than Oregon's. All to say that I think it is possible for Oregon to significantly upgrade its SOS going forward, despite being in the B1G.

[Greenblood]

With the prediction that it is supposed to be at least somewhat wet on Saturday, I hope it doesn't mess things up for the three games scheduled for that day.

[greenyellow]

Ducks get the run-rule 8-0 win over Weber State. Oregon will face Stanford at 1 PM tomorrow.

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[StevensTechU]

Hell yeah

[OregonFan4Life]

Bad game 2, got crushed by Stanford.


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[Zyme]

We’ll bring on the losers bracket. Down but not out

[Greenblood]

Ducks live to face Stanford again, as I figured they would. Must beat the Cardinal twice today to win the Regional.

[StevensTechU]

7 SEC teams in the top 8 seeds.
Ridiculous.
Granted 2 bad losses at end of season, but in season wins over Tennessee, UCLA, Florida State. I don't get the 16 seed.

So far, they're pretty much proving their worth (the Splendid Edu-ma-cation Conference). One major exception - #1 overall seed Texas A&M has to win two against Liberty today, and so far they're down 2-0 in the first matchup.