Utah Valley Snubbed.

In spite of 47 wins, a 32-game winning streak and wins over ranked opponents, the Utah Valley University Wolverine baseball team has been snubbed by the NCAA tournament.  UVU belongs to the Great West Conference for almost all of their sports, and that conference does not have an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.

With all of the success playing baseball, the Wolverines were only ranked with a 72 RPI.  The RPI for baseball is similar to what is it for basketball and football.  You beat who you are supposed to beat, your ranking remains were it is.  If you beat someone you are not supposed to beat, your ranking will go up.  If you lose to someone you should beat, the ranking goes down.

Where the season and the NCAA bid was lost for the Wolverines was in the early season.  They had one game against Arizona, which they lost.  They lost 2 out of 3 to Nevada.  UVU was swept by CS Fullerton.  Those are the games that UVU needs to have back if they wanted to get into the NCAA tournament.  Shortly after this slow start to the season, they split a series at Arizona State.  Like many college baseball teams from northern climbs, UVU began with 17 games on the road.  A fact that college baseball must address.

Their streak included wins against BYU and Utah, who both were not as good this season as they have been in the past.  The only real impressive win in the streak was a game against Arizona.  The rest of the streak was conference games, neither school that UVU played in conference had an RPI above 200.  A team with an RPI of 72 is supposed to beat a team with an RPI of 200.  The streak itself was impressive, but only one game in that streak was against a team that would improve a team's RPI.  UVU's Strength of schedule was a not so impressive 262 in the country.

Hence the Wolverines are on the outside of the NCAA tournament looking in.  Those who are trying to keep the WAC together, at least as a non-football conference, should take note.  UVU has not only been successful in baseball in 2012, but also in men's basketball.  The WAC, which currently sits at 5 schools could maintain their automatic bid status with just 2 more schools.  Certainly UVU would accept if invited, as the WAC has something that the Wolverine program really wants and needs.  WAC Champion, New Mexico State where their RPI of 39 was good enough for a #2 seed in the Tuscon Sub Regional.  Evidence that this is not a perfect system.  But an automatic bid will fix what kept UVU out this year.

Utah Valley University Season Report
Strength of Schedule
RPI