MSU was eliminated from the Big Ten Tournament on Friday by Minnesota, and the team’s woes continued Monday when it was not selected to go to the NCAA Division I Baseball Championship.
The lone Big Ten representative at the NCAA tourney will be Ohio State, which earned an automatic berth by beating Minnesota 6-3 in Saturday’s Big Ten championship game.
Controversy was imminent.
“I’m baffled by why the Big Ten only got one (bid),” Southern Cal baseball manager Mike Gillespie said.
Gillespie, who coached the Trojans to the 1998 College World Series title, said the selection of the 64-team field “was all about the RPI.”
The Ratings Percentage Index is a mathematically calculated number that factors in a team’s strength of schedule in conjunction with its records. It is used by NCAA Tournament selection committee members to help pick and seed teams.
“Everyone’s (Big Ten) strength of schedule is bad,” Spartan junior outfielder Bob Malek said. “You shouldn’t get penalized for it.”
Malek said finding good teams in the northern United States is difficult because so many of the good teams are from the South.
Of the 64-team tourney field, 52 are in the South or West Coast. Twenty-six teams had more losses than MSU. Big Ten regular-season conference champ Minnesota was snubbed by the committee as well.
“I would’ve thought the winner of the Big Ten regular season would be a slam dunk,” Gillespie said.
Malek said the Big Ten usually gets three teams into the tournament every year. He also said politics could have had a lot to do with the committee’s selections.
Scott Chipman, Big Ten associate director of communications, said later starting dates in the North put the conference’s teams at a disadvantage. He said because the different climates, southern teams are well into their seasons while northern teams are just beginning spring training.
Southern teams often play 20 more games than northern teams, he said.
Spartan manager Ted Mahan said an absolute national starting date could benefit northern teams and level the playing field.
But Jim Wright, NCAA director of statistics, offered other explanations for the lack of northern teams in the tournament.
“There has to be something on a team’s record that you can hang your hat on,” said Wright, adding MSU had no such mark.
He said after the 30 automatic bids for winning conference tournaments - 14 of which went to teams with more losses than MSU - committee members have 34 at-large spaces to fill.
MSU went 38-19 during the regular season and 2-2 in the postseason.
The Spartans also only played eight games against teams in the top 100, and their strength of schedule was 232 of the 283 Division I schools.
Wright said college coaches met five years ago to discuss penalizing teams that play the most road games in an attempt to level the playing field. But that plan never materialized, and the current RPI index system was instated at that time.
“It’s a dilemma that I don’t think will change very soon,” Wright said.
Meanwhile, Malek and the MSU baseball team will have to sit at home until next season.
“Ending your season on the couch is tough,” Malek said.
Kristofer Karol can be reached at karolkri@msu.edu.
