FULLERTON, Calif. - The general idea of the College World Series is to match the top eight baseball teams in the country against each other.
Somebody needs to tell the NCAA that the current method of bracketing will never allow that to happen.
In 1999, the NCAA changed the playoff format from a 48-team field to a 64-team field. Rather than have eight six-team regionals with winners advancing to Omaha, they thought it would be better to have 16 four-team regionals, with the winners advancing into eight two-team super regionals to decide the Omaha-bound teams.
The intent of this change was to allow more schools the opportunity to compete for a trip to the College World Series while shortening the travel distance. With 16 sites, there would surely be a regional within reasonable distance of each school.
The problem with this system is it penalizes great teams who play in close proximity to other great teams. For instance: ASU and Cal State Fullerton.
The weekend's matchup in Southern California paired the No. 3 (Cal State Fullerton) and No. 5 (ASU) ranked teams against each other for a right to play in Omaha. On top of that, Stanford (No. 4) and Long Beach State (No. 7) had to face off while Florida State (No. 1) and Texas (No. 6) also clashed (all rankings are from Baseball America).
This assures that three of the top eight teams in the country won't make it to the College World Series.
This seems completely unfair if the goal of the College World Series is to put the best eight teams against each other. That is where ASU got hosed this past weekend.
"When Stanford has that happen and Miami beats Florida State, maybe the powers that be will take a look at these situations," ASU head coach Pat Murphy said after Sunday's 7-1 loss that eliminated the Sun Devils.
Thank you coach.
Somebody had to speak the truth, and it's even better that it came from one of the smartest coaches around the game. ASU does not receive the same amount of respect a Stanford or a Florida State baseball program does, and when those schools get knocked out of a super regional because they have to play somebody that's ranked just as high, maybe a change will occur.
The old system made more sense because it gave the top eight teams in the country a chance to earn a spot in Omaha by winning a single regional tournament.
Keeping the new system with 64 teams would be fine if the NCAA modifies the super regionals. The NCAA should re-seed the 16 teams that advance from the regional and match up No. 1 vs. No. 16, No. 2 vs. No. 15 and so on.
That way, one of the top-10 teams in the country is not penalized for winning a regional close to another great program's school.
Just take a look at the super regional between Ohio State and Southwest Missouri State, teams that are ranked 20th and 21st, respectively. When the NCAA allows two of the lowest remaining seeded teams to face each other for one of the eight spots, the system is obviously flawed.
Reach the reporter at casey.pritchard@asu.edu.
