NCAA Regional projections: Does Wichita State baseball have to win AAC tournament?
If the college baseball season ended today, Wichita State would be on the outside looking in for an NCAA Regional bid.
At least that’s how Baseball America’s Teddy Cahill sees things in his latest postseason projections with two weeks left in the regular season, as he has WSU as the sixth team from the cut line entering a weekend series at Eck Stadium against South Florida beginning with Friday’s doubleheader.
The good news is that Cahill doesn’t think the Shockers have reached the territory where the automatic bid from winning the American Athletic Conference tournament is their only path to an NCAA Regional. The bad news is that Cahill thinks that scenario isn’t far away.
“They’re not fully there yet, but they’re getting close and I would say they have very little margin for error in these final eight games,” Cahill told The Eagle. “If they play really well down the stretch, maybe go 7-1 and then go play well in Clearwater and fall short in the semifinals or the finals, at least make it to the weekend, then at that point they will have done their part. Then it will be a matter of how the rest of the bubble is shaking out.
“So right now I wouldn’t say they’re conference tournament or bust, but they don’t have much margin for error either.”
The reason why the Wichita State baseball team has little margin for error is because their current RPI of 53 doesn’t do much to persuade the selection committee to include the Shockers into postseason play.
And Cahill says the problem is that WSU’s final two series of the season — at home against South Florida (RPI of 147) and Memphis (RPI of 213) — present almost nothing but downside. Even if WSU is able to sweep both series, Cahill estimates WSU’s RPI wouldn’t climb higher than the mid-40s. Meanwhile, more than one combined loss would drop the Shockers to must-win mode for the conference tournament in Clearwater, Fla.
“I don’t like saying teams need to sweep, but Wichita State really probably does need to sweep,” Cahill said. “Losing at home to teams outside of the top-150 are not things that you want in May. And the issue for WSU is that they won’t have many opportunities to make it up.”
Much like this past season in men’s basketball, the American has one nationally-ranked team in baseball (ECU) and the rest of the conference is having a down year. After routinely challenging the Pac-12 for the fourth-best RPI conference in the country, the AAC has fallen well behind the Pac-12 this season and barely charts above Conference USA.
So while WSU currently sits third in the AAC standings, normally a position that would guarantee a postseason berth, that spot no longer holds the same value in Cahill’s estimation. Outside of ECU (RPI of 14), no other AAC team ranks in the top 50 of the RPI.
“I don’t think being third in the American is going to be good enough on itself,” Cahill said. “That’s a solid starting point because it is a solid league and they have a RPI that is generally in an OK range. But the problem for them is that this is probably the peak area for their RPI.”
The best part of WSU’s resume is that it owns three top-15 wins from its split at home against ECU (RPI of 14) and a road win at Arizona (RPI of 7) back in March. Having three marquee wins like that will make the Shockers stand out from their bubble competition if they make a compelling case the rest of May.
The problem is that there aren’t any other wins that support WSU’s case for inclusion. The Shockers are 3-6 in Quadrant 1 games, 4-7 in Quadrant 2 games and 3-3 in Quadrant 3 games. The Arizona win is the only top-100 win of WSU’s non-conference, while the Shockers are hurt by being swept by Tulane and losing three of four at Cincinnati during conference play.
If the Shockers are to return to an NCAA Regional for the first time since 2013 in the first full season under coach Eric Wedge, then they will need a strong finish to the regular season followed by a deep run at the conference tournament.
“The fact that they have three wins against teams that are pretty much locked into top-15 is a little unique (to other bubble teams),” Cahill said. “But when you start expanding it, then you’re going to start finding that more bubble teams have a lot more on their resume. You look at other teams just out from the ACC (like Clemson, Maryland and North Carolina) and it’s nothing but top-50 and top-100 games because they play in the ACC. So I think WSU’s top-line wins are nice to have in the bag, but I don’t know if they’re going to be enough to make up for the rest of their resume.”
This story was originally published May 14, 2021 at 6:00 AM.
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