Tubili's Scintillating Super Regional Analysis

by Tubilidentata on Jun 4, 2009 10:03 AM CDT

Greeting. I've adjusted my blended baseball poll to make the analysis that follows. Several polls appear to have given up since we are in post season play. PGCrosschecker, USA Today and Rivals have gone dormant. I've replaced them by doubling up on the RPI and ISR polls which are strictly by the numbers and passionless. Needless to say, some of us might believe that some of the polls are a wee bit skewed. Based on my polling I will analyze three aspects of the Super Reigionals as follows:

1. Toughest Super Regional. Hands down, as you would expect, the toughest bracket is the LSU v. Rice tilt. There combined ranking scores total 12.88. Second closest is UT v. TCU where the combined ranking totals are 16.63.

2. Most Competitive Super Regional. This goes to the teams that are closest in terms of my adjusted rankings. Yes, obviously, the winner here is once again the Rice v. LSU match-up (difference between them is 3.88). However, by the numbers, there are two other match-ups that are pretty darn close. FSU v. Arkansas is very close with a ranking difference between the teams of 4.0. Mississippi and Virginia are not far behind with a delta of 5.13.

3. Least Competitive Super Regional. Any bracket that has Southern Miss in it would be the hands down winner. The difference between them and Florida in rankings is 25.12. If we throw that out then the next easiest way forward to Omaha is for Fullerton that has an edge of 15.25 over Louisville.

Tubili's fearless predictions for Omaha based on the numbers alone, and eliminating any required "thinking":

Texas, Florida, Arizona State, North Carolina, Fullerton, Florida State, Virginia & LSU. That would be a great final eigth!

Adj. Rank	Team	Avg. Rank	Poll Total	Coll. Bball	NCB WA	Base. Amer.	Ping	NCAA RPI	NCAA RPI	ISR Rank	ISR Rank	NCAA Seeds
1	Cal St. Fullerton	2.88	23	3	3	3	8	1	1	1	1	2
2	Arizona State	3.25	26	1	2	2	2	5	5	2	2	5
3	Texas	3.75	30	4	4	4	5	3	3	3	3	1
4	LSU	4.50	36	2	1	1	1	9	9	5	5	3
5	North Carolina	6.13	49	6	5	7	3	2	2	10	10	4
6	Rice	8.38	67	7	6	6	6	8	8	6	6	14
7	Virginia	8.50	68	10	8	5	4	4	4	8	8	17
8	Florida	9.38	75	9	9	10	9	6	6	9	9	8
9	Florida State	11.88	95	5	7	8	7	14	14	15	15	10
10	TCU	12.88	103	15	10	12	16	10	10	7	7	16
11	Mississippi	13.63	109	8	12	11	11	15	15	13	13	11
12	Clemson	15.00	120	13	13	14	14	11	11	16	16	12
13	Arkansas	15.88	127	16	16	16	13	12	12	12	12	18
14	Louisville	18.13	145	12	15	13	10	16	16	24	24	15
15	East Carolina	18.88	151	14	14	15	15	21	21	19	19	13
16	Southern Miss	34.50	276	17	20	19	19	42	42	49	49	19