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Wednesday, September 21, 2005

The 2006 NCAA Division I Conference Shuffle

College Baseball News and Notes blog has a nice summation of the Division I baseball conference changes. Of the top 6 conferences in baseball RPI for 2005 (according to Boyd's World, in order: SEC, Big XII, ACC, Pac10, Big West and Conf. USA), only 2 will have changes.

The Atlantic Coast Conference will expand to its full (until they decide to change it again) complement of 12 teams with the addition of Boston College. BC was 71st in RPI for 2005, which would have put them 8th in the conference (ACC RPIs for 2005: Georgia Tech 6, Clemson 7, Miami 8, North Carolina 16, NC State 18, Florida State 26, Virginia 34, Wake Forest 75, Virginia Tech 124, Maryland 135 and Duke 195). The addition of Boston College marginally improves the ACC, but not as much as losing the 3 bottom dwellers would have. I know, football, basketball, $$$.

The really big changes are coming to Conference USA. CBN&N lays out the C-USA ins and outs: "Conference USA (9) -- OUT: Charlotte, Cincinnati, Louisville, St. Louis, South Florida, TCU; IN: Central Florida, Marshall, Rice." The average 2005 RPI for the exiting schools was 138.8. TCU (33), South Florida (65) and Louisville (73) were good to decent, but NC-Charlotte (138), Cincinnati (171) and St. Louis (214) were real anchors. Marshall (201) isn't going to help, but Central Florida (41) and especially Rice (14) are great additions. The 12 teams in the 2005 C-USA had an average RPI of 95.25, even with Tulane at #2, and the top 5 teams at 56th or better. The 9 teams for 2006 had an average 2005 RPI of 78.33. And if you toss out the 2 worst teams (Marshall at 201, and Memphis at 222) the average 2005 RPI is 40.29. For comparison, the average in 2005 in the Big West was 77.25, and tossing out the 2 worst (CS Northridge at 177 and Pacific at 113) yields an average of 54.66.

Bottom line: Conference USA is going to be a much better, and unless the Big West improves we may find C-USA ahead in conference RPI in 2006. That may not bode well for the BWC to secure 3rd and 4th Regional bids.

posted on 9/21/2005 by Jeff Agnew

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