NCAA Regional Host Candidate Comparison

Nothing that I include here should be taken as my prediction of how the committee will decide hosts. It’s simply a comparison of key metrics that I think should go into the decision making process. Some of it may reflect what the committee considers. Much of it probably doesn’t.

First, I’m going to go ahead and lay aside the 6 teams at the top who are clearly hosting (though an argument can be made that Maryland’s resume is pretty thin.) The others (Tennessee, Oregon St, Virginia Tech, Miami and Stanford) are all in the top 2 of Big 4 conferences and in the top 7 of the RPI.

Next, I’m going to look at teams with winning conference records in the Big 4 conferences (SEC, ACC, Big 12, PAC-12) and in the Top 5 in the conference standings. That leaves out teams in the RPI Top 20 like Vanderbilt, Wake Forest, Georgia, UNC, and Florida. For the teams meeting those criteria, I am going to look at weekend record against Big 4 conference teams (plus any other series they lost) and number of weekend series won against the Big 4 vs weekend series lost. (I have updated these numbers to include conference tournament games completed through May 25.)

Weekend W-L vs Big 4 (plus series lost):
UCLA 24-13 (.649)
7) Texas 23-14 (.622)
8) Notre Dame 18-12 (.600)
9) TA&M 23-16 (.590)
9) UNC 23-16 (.590)
11) Okla St 20-15 (.571)
11) Okla 20-15 (.571)
13) Lvlle 19-15 (.559)
Tx Tech 16-13 (.552)
14) TCU 18-15 (.545)
Arkansas 18-15 (.545)
15) Florida 22-19 (.537)
Virginia 17-15 (.531)
16) LSU 19-17 (.528)
16) Auburn 19-17 (.528)
Oregon 21-19 (.525)

Weekend Series W-L vs Big 4 (plus other L):
UCLA 8-3
7) Okla St 7-3
8) TA&M 8-4
Tx Tech 6-3
9) Texas 7-4
Oregon 7-4
Arkansas 6-4
Virginia 6-4
10) Notre Dame 6-4
11) Oklahoma 6-4
12) UNC 7-5
12) Florida 7-5
14) Lville 5-4-1
15) LSU 6-5
16) Auburn 6-6
TCU 5-5

vs RPI Quad 1 (Excluding Midweek):
7) UCLA 11-4 (.733)
8) ND 14-7 (.667)
9) Texas 15-10 (.600)
10) TA&M 14-10 (.583)
10) Lvlle 14-10 (.583)
12) Auburn 12-10 (.545)
12) UNC 18-15 (.545)
14) Okla 11-11 (.500)
15) Okla St 12-13 (.480)
Virginia 11-12 (.478)
Arkansas 11-13(.458)
16) Florida 13-16 (.448)
17) LSU 12-15 (.444)
Tx Tech 8-10 (.444)
TCU 8-12 (.400)
Oregon 5-8 (.385)

Other Weekend vs Big 4 (+series lost):
7) UNC 5-1 (.833)
8) Okla St 8-2 (.800)
9) LSU 7-2 (.778)
Arkansas 7-2 (.778)
10) TCU 10-3 (.769)
11) Florida 9-3 (.750)
Tx Tech 8-3 (.727)
12) Okla 9-4 (.692)
13) Texas 8-4 (.667)
Virginia 6-3 (.667)
14) TA&M 9-6 (.600)
Oregon 16-11 (.593)
UCLA 13-9 (.591)
15) Lvlle 5-5 (.500)
15) Auburn 7-7 (.500)
17) Notre Dame 4-5 (.444)

This next number is a little more difficult to explain/follow. The idea is to give a consistent weight to games vs Q1 vs the games in the other category. The idea is keep teams from padding the WPct with more non-Q1 games. On average, these teams played 63% of games in the above two categories against Q1, so I gave 63% weight to WPct against Q1 and 37% weight to the WPct against the Other category.

Weighted WPct:
UCLA (.649)
7) UNC (.645)
8) Texas (.623)
9) Okla St (.591)
10) ND (.590)
11) TA&M (.589)
Arkansas (.569)
12) Okla (.567)
13) LSU (.560)
14) Lvlle (.554)
15) Florida (.553)
Virginia (.544)
Tx Tech (.543)
16) Auburn (.530)
17) TCU (.528)
Oregon (.462)

What’s very interesting about this is UCLA at the top of those lists but #49 in the RPI. That is driven by 6 midweek losses. Texas Tech is near the top but #34 RPI due to also having 6 midweek losses. TCU has 5 midweek losses but won the Big 12. How much weight you give midweek influences how you feel about those teams. Overall, you can see these teams are very tightly bunched with most having 17-19 wins and 13-15 losses. I think that has a lot to do with the odd ordering of teams in the RPI (especially when compared against conference standings) and how much fluctuation there is from week-to-week.

Finally, I’m going to look at the minor conference teams likely under consideration to host. It’s hard to draw a direct comparison with the major conference teams because their resumes are so different. Most of the major conference host contenders had 3-5 weekend series losses. To be a legitimate contender against far weaker schedules, these teams should have no more than 3 lost weekend series. Dallas Baptist did well in series against Maryland and USM (5-1) and went 5-5 midweek against the Big 12, but they lost a whopping 6 weekend series and finished 3rd in their conference. Georgia Southern lost 4 weekend series (including getting swept by Tennessee), lost their conference and went 2-4 midweek against Big 4 conferences. RPI #18 East Carolina went 2-2 on the weekend against major conferences and has 4 weekend series losses. That leaves USM with 3 series losses, Gonzaga with 2, Texas St with 1, and UC-Santa Barbara with only a tied series.

USM- #9 RPI, 0-3 vs DBU, 2-1 midweek vs SEC, 3 series losses

Gonzaga- #26, 4-2 vs Big 4 in weekend series, 4-4 midweek vs Big 4, 2 series losses

Texas St- #25, 2-1 vs Arizona, 2-2 midweek vs Big 4, 1 series loss

UCSB- #42, 2-2 vs Oregon, 0-4 midweek vs PAC-12, 1 series tie.

At the end of the day, I think LSU is in the running due to conference rank, but their resume is really in the lower half of the pack at the moment. I don’t think they are a lock.

ETA: Changed rankings to start at 7 and added UCLA loss.

ETA 5/26: Updated thru games of 5/26 (pending LSU-UK)

ETA 5/27 AM: Added Q1 and other categories. Updated LSU.

ETA 5/28: updated thru games of 5/27. Added UNC. Did not number teams likely out of running due to RPI.

ETA 5/29 AM: Updated thru games of 5/28 (pending UCLA). Added Florida.