Tulane Comes Back To Win The WSU Series

[winwave]

New option at closer:

https://www.nola.com/tulane/2019/04/tul ... nance.html

[Wave755]

After winning this weekend series our Warren Nolan RPI is still only 106, 1-5 against top 50 teams (quadrant 1 for Nolan’s ranking system) has trapped us for where we are for now.

ECU is 13, UConn 30, UCF 36. Witchita St., a team we should have swept, is now 59. Needless to say, our scheduling “philosophy” is “suspect,”

The ECU, UConn & UCF series are now our only real chance to obtain a decent RPI for the remainder of this season.

[RobertM320]

After winning this weekend series our Warren Nolan RPI is still only 106, 1-5 against top 50 teams (quadrant 1 for Nolan’s ranking system) has trapped us for where we are for now.

ECU is 13, UConn 30, UCF 36. Witchita St., a team we should have swept, is now 59. Needless to say, our scheduling “philosophy” is “suspect,”

The ECU, UConn & UCF series are now our only real chance to obtain a decent RPI for the remainder of this season.

Don't forget, this is an always changing rating. For example, WSU is #59, They were #58 before they played us. They still have series against ECU (#14), UConn (#30), and UCF (#34), as well as single games against Okla State (#25) and Oklahoma (#36). That's 11 of their last 24, and only one game with a team below Cincy at #166 (Oral Robests #225). There's a good chance before the end of the season that our series against WSU ends up being Quadrant 1 games.

Which games on the schedule do you consider suspect? I don't have a problem starting with someone like George Washington. Houston Baptist was a matter of who was available on a bye conference week. (Wichita State played Bethune-Cookman on their week). Maybe you could say the tourney in NC. The Cal Riverside series could have been a return visit for us going out there in the past, like UCSB was. You can't control when a team is going to be good or bad. How do you think teams felt in 2017 when they played us? Coming off of two years of regionals, Tulane looked good on their schedule as far as RPI. Then we ended up sucking.

[Show Me]

After winning this weekend series our Warren Nolan RPI is still only 106, 1-5 against top 50 teams (quadrant 1 for Nolan’s ranking system) has trapped us for where we are for now.

ECU is 13, UConn 30, UCF 36. Witchita St., a team we should have swept, is now 59. Needless to say, our scheduling “philosophy” is “suspect,”

The ECU, UConn & UCF series are now our only real chance to obtain a decent RPI for the remainder of this season.

Dumping the two LSU games is a RPI killer. They up to #6 in RPI. That can’t be replaced with UNO or any other La team.

[Wave755]

After winning this weekend series our Warren Nolan RPI is still only 106, 1-5 against top 50 teams (quadrant 1 for Nolan’s ranking system) has trapped us for where we are for now.

ECU is 13, UConn 30, UCF 36. Witchita St., a team we should have swept, is now 59. Needless to say, our scheduling “philosophy” is “suspect,”

The ECU, UConn & UCF series are now our only real chance to obtain a decent RPI for the remainder of this season.

Don't forget, this is an always changing rating. For example, WSU is #59, They were #58 before they played us. They still have series against ECU (#14), UConn (#30), and UCF (#34), as well as single games against Okla State (#25) and Oklahoma (#36). That's 11 of their last 24, and only one game with a team below Cincy at #166 (Oral Robests #225). There's a good chance before the end of the season that our series against WSU ends up being Quadrant 1 games.

Which games on the schedule do you consider suspect? I don't have a problem starting with someone like George Washington. Houston Baptist was a matter of who was available on a bye conference week. (Wichita State played Bethune-Cookman on their week). Maybe you could say the tourney in NC. The Cal Riverside series could have been a return visit for us going out there in the past, like UCSB was. You can't control when a team is going to be good or bad. How do you think teams felt in 2017 when they played us? Coming off of two years of regionals, Tulane looked good on their schedule as far as RPI. Then we ended up sucking.

Let’s hope the Shockers “go on a tear” and we will then control our own destiny against UConn, ECU & UCF.

[Wave755]

After winning this weekend series our Warren Nolan RPI is still only 106, 1-5 against top 50 teams (quadrant 1 for Nolan’s ranking system) has trapped us for where we are for now.

ECU is 13, UConn 30, UCF 36. Witchita St., a team we should have swept, is now 59. Needless to say, our scheduling “philosophy” is “suspect,”

The ECU, UConn & UCF series are now our only real chance to obtain a decent RPI for the remainder of this season.

Dumping the two LSU games is a RPI killer. They up to #6 in RPI. That can’t be replaced with UNO or any other La team.

+1, and, we now realize an additional cost of Dannen “screwing the pooch” on the LSU rivalry.
A local like Arnie Fielkow never would have made the mistake Dannen did giving Alleva any excuse he had been looking for to dump us.

[RobertM320]

I absolutely agree, we can't replace LSU with anyone else around the state. But there have been better years for the in-state schools than this year. Unfortunately, we're not close enough to too many P5 type programs like WSU has. They scheduled mid-week games against Kansas, K-State, Oklahoma, and Okla State this year, and a home and home with Missouri State, who's RPI is 78 right now. That could just as easily have been 178,

Its a bigger issue that we lost 3 straight games in the last AB (Cin, UNO, WSU), along with the prev weeks loss to ULL and at least one of the UCSB games. 26-6 compared to 21-11, and our RPI would be higher than #106.

[DfromCT]

If we need midweek games against higher profile programs, there's no shortage in the neighborhood. USM, Ole Miss, Miss State, UT, OU, Baylor, TCU, just to name a few. They're all short drives or short plane rides away, (and there's plenty of others) we need to get on the schedule and screw LSU.

But if we don't win, it doesn't matter.

[RobertM320]

D,
We don't have the budget of a P5. We're not going to fly to TCU or Baylor or Oklahoma for a midweek game. I'd love to see us do a weekend series against these schools, though.

[RobertM320]

Talk about conf bye week series, Memphis is playing three games against Southern of Baton Rouge this weekend. USF is to play The Citadel, and UCF just decided to schedule two mid week games and take their weekend off.

[Wave755]

USM has a Warren Nolan rpi of 40, La. Tech 42. http://warrennolan.com/baseball/2019/rpi-live

[DfromCT]

D,
We don't have the budget of a P5. We're not going to fly to TCU or Baylor or Oklahoma for a midweek game. I'd love to see us do a weekend series against these schools, though.

We cannot play a game in Dallas mid-week? Ok, then book home and home weekend pre-conference series against these teams. Book midweek games against every D1 team in the state and nearby. That will keep our competition level up. The point is that there's no shortage of good teams nearby.

Either way, we can't simply say "our scheduling is kaput because we no longer play LSU 2x/year." Move on. We already over-emphasize baseball. Lets do what we can with the resources available and control what we can control. I know a few folks, mostly those that still lament not hiring Andy C, blame Dannen for everything that's wrong with Tulane Athletics. Make lemonade out of the lemons, rather than bitch and moan about RPI (not in our control) and the schedule (which we do control, but 12-36 months in advance.)

[RobertM320]

I agree we have alternatives to LSU. Personally I'd rather play La Tech or USM than McNeese or Northwestern or Nicholls. My only point was our mid-week options are limited. I didn't mean to imply we can't do a better job of selecting opponents for them. Example, 2 games against USM and only one against UNO.

[winwave]

We absolutely should play USM twice every year. La. Tech should be in the mix too. In baseball most of the scheduling is year to year. We can and must do a better job with our OOC scheduling. There is no doubt the schedule was dumbed down this season That's never worked and it should never happen at Tulane again.

[DfromCT]

We absolutely should play USM twice every year. La. Tech should be in the mix too. In baseball most of the scheduling is year to year. We can and must do a better job with our OOC scheduling. There is no doubt the schedule was dumbed down this season That's never worked and it should never happen at Tulane again.

The Louisiana schools should be in the rotation for a weekend series pre-conference (home and home across years) and the years we don't play them (including USM, do to proximity) for a three game set, we play them mid week. This should be a model we use for football as well. The D1 schools should rotate through our OOC schedule, and the FCS schools in state should be the ones we play regularly as our allowed FCS game.

[winwave]

I don't have a problem with playing a weekend series against an in-state school but the AD and coach would need to really be on top of who is going to be good the following season. Right now we only have two schools in state with RPI's less than 100. Tech is the best at 42 and ULL is at 97. The local baseball isn't quite as good as we like to believe. As to midweek we have been rotating the in state schools in. As for USM that would be a good weekend series and no one has said why we aren't playing them at all this year. They have kept their program in good shape while Rice has fallen off.

As for football for the most part recently we have played the Louisiana FCS teams for our one FCS game each season. As for the D-1 teams theres's not really a lot of interest and we need to beef it up there. The conference is ok but it's not a killer like the SEC. To draw interest and to get respect we need to do better than those teams.

[winwave]

This weekend ECU will play UCLA OOC on their bye weekend. That's another conference we can look to on our bye week.

[Show Me]

With UCONN losing its series to Cincy is it possible we drop to a two bid league? All the RPI’s but ECU and UCONN are weak. We can’t make up that much ground in our league with the low RPI’s outside of sweeping ECU and UCONN. The previous one game losses to Cincy, ULL, UNO and WS really killed our RPI.

[tpstulane]

With UCONN losing its series to Cincy is it possible we drop to a two bid league? All the RPI’s but ECU and UCONN are weak. We can’t make up that much ground in our league with the low RPI’s outside of sweeping ECU and UCONN. The previous one game losses to Cincy, ULL, UNO and WS really killed our RPI.

Yes. I said that a week ago. The two series we need to win/sweep are ECU and UCONN. At this time we don’t have the resume needed to get an at large bid. Lack of quality wins so far.
D1 baseball currently has the AAC as a two bid league.

[Wave755]

As of this morning Warren Nolan for rpi has ECU 16, UConn 30, UCF 39, WSU 56. Houston 70, & then Wave 105. http://warrennolan.com/baseball/2019/co ... n-Athletic

Looks to me like we will either have to win the tourney or go on an incredible tear for the rest of the schedule to make regionals?

[RobertM320]

With UCONN losing its series to Cincy is it possible we drop to a two bid league? All the RPI’s but ECU and UCONN are weak. We can’t make up that much ground in our league with the low RPI’s outside of sweeping ECU and UCONN. The previous one game losses to Cincy, ULL, UNO and WS really killed our RPI.

Yes. I said that a week ago. The two series we need to win/sweep are ECU and UCONN. At this time we don’t have the resume needed to get an at large bid. Lack of quality wins so far.
D1 baseball currently has the AAC as a two bid league.

So basically its all about RPI, not wins and losses. We're in the #5 conference both in ELO and RPI, but we only get two bids?

[tpstulane]

As of this morning Warren Nolan for rpi has ECU 16, UConn 30, UCF 39, WSU 56. Houston 70, & then Wave 105. http://warrennolan.com/baseball/2019/co ... n-Athletic

Looks to me like we will either have to win the tourney or go on an incredible tear for the rest of the schedule to make regionals?

Pretty much. We’ve dug ourselves a hole that’s tough to dig out from.

[rollwave11]

D,
We don't have the budget of a P5. We're not going to fly to TCU or Baylor or Oklahoma for a midweek game. I'd love to see us do a weekend series against these schools, though.

We cannot play a game in Dallas mid-week? Ok, then book home and home weekend pre-conference series against these teams. Book midweek games against every D1 team in the state and nearby. That will keep our competition level up. The point is that there's no shortage of good teams nearby.

Either way, we can't simply say "our scheduling is kaput because we no longer play LSU 2x/year." Move on. We already over-emphasize baseball. Lets do what we can with the resources available and control what we can control. I know a few folks, mostly those that still lament not hiring Andy C, blame Dannen for everything that's wrong with Tulane Athletics. Make lemonade out of the lemons, rather than bitch and moan about RPI (not in our control) and the schedule (which we do control, but 12-36 months in advance.)

The only major sport where Tulane can realistically compete to win a national championship is baseball so I do not agree when you say there is an over-emphasis on baseball. I do understand that football runs the show, which it should, but Tulane will never compete for a championship with the current conference alignment. As far as the scheduling goes, it is not an easy thing to do. While I would like to add Southern Miss back on the midweek schedule, the in state schools that we play midweek usually will not have a negative impact on our RPI. The OOC weekend series are scheduled so far in advance that you will not know how they will impact your RPI at the time of scheduling. We are at a disadvantage with an odd number of teams in our league. That off weekend will usually be against a team that will negatively impact the RPI. There is nothing we can do about that. We scheduled 2 OOC series against top 25 caliber teams but we went 1-5. If we would have gone 3-3 our RPI would look better. Our conference schedule is backloaded, so I still believe if we finish in the top 3 in the conference, we will be in the mix for a regional bid.

[rollwave11]

Just a little comparison to a few teams with similar schedules and results....

53 Illinois St 17-14 Home 4-2 Road 13-12 Q1 1-8 Q2 1-0 Q3 3-2 Q4 12-4

58 Bryant 20-10 Home 6-1 Road 13-8 Neutral 1-1 Q1 0-3 Q2 3-1 Q3 5-2 Q4 12-4

62 Campbell 20-11 Home 12-3 Road 7-7 Neutral 1-1 Q1 1-4 Q2 2-3 Q3 2-1 Q4 15-3

63 Michigan 22-8 Home 11-1 Road 7-6 Neuatral 3-0 Q1 1-4 Q2 2-2 Q3 2-0 Q4 17-2

66 FAU 23-9 Home 17-5 Road 6-4 Q1 1-5 Q2 0-0 Q3 6-2 Q4 16-2

105 Tulane 21-11 Home 16-7 Road 3-3 Neutral 2-1 Q1 1-5 Q2 3-2 Q3 4-1 Q4 13-3


Only real difference I can see the amount of road games we have compared to those teams. We have 11 road games left plus the conference tournament.

[Pepper]

The only major sport where Tulane can realistically compete to win a national championship is baseball so I do not agree when you say there is an over-emphasis on baseball. I do understand that football runs the show, which it should, but Tulane will never compete for a championship with the current conference alignment. As far as the scheduling goes, it is not an easy thing to do. While I would like to add Southern Miss back on the midweek schedule, the in state schools that we play midweek usually will not have a negative impact on our RPI. The OOC weekend series are scheduled so far in advance that you will not know how they will impact your RPI at the time of scheduling. We are at a disadvantage with an odd number of teams in our league. That off weekend will usually be against a team that will negatively impact the RPI. There is nothing we can do about that. We scheduled 2 OOC series against top 25 caliber teams but we went 1-5. If we would have gone 3-3 our RPI would look better. Our conference schedule is backloaded, so I still believe if we finish in the top 3 in the conference, we will be in the mix for a regional bid.
[/quote]

If we would schedule 2 3 game SEC''s series on the road every year it would not matter. They so inflate their RPI's with the initial rankings, it would only help us in the long run. USM traditionally plays good ball, I see no reason why we could not play 3 mid week games (a home & home and 3rd at the Biloxi ballpark). Add the 3 game series against UCSB & our rpi would be in the 50-60 range before conference play started. I would rather play 3 at Alex Box than 3 at home against some of the trash scheduled. I also think this year our schedule is back loaded and we could get 3 teams in depending on how the domino's fall.