2 WCC Baseball Coaches Say Playoff Plan Wasn’t Thought Out

The NCAA’s decision last weekend to strip the West Coast and five other conferences of automatic berths in the Division I baseball tournament next season left Pepperdine Coach Andy Lopez bleary-eyed.

“The only thing clear to me right now is that there are many things that are very unclear on many fronts,” Lopez said.

In an attempt to provide access to all of the 30 conferences that compete at the Division I level, the NCAA Executive Committee adopted a format that offers conferences not previously granted automatic berths the opportunity to play qualifying series.

Last year, the NCAA awarded automatic berths to 24 conference champions or conference-tournament champions, including WCC champion Pepperdine. Twenty-four other teams received at-large berths based on their Ratings Power Index (RPI), which includes won-loss record against Division I opponents, strength of schedule and strength of opponents’ schedule.

The new format provides for 18 conferences to receive automatic berths in the 1994 tournament based on their RPI last season. Twelve others, including the WCC, will send their champion into a best-of-three series against another conference champion to determine the six automatic qualifiers. Twenty-four at-large teams will then be selected.

The WCC was ranked 19th based on last season’s RPI. The Southern, Transamerica Athletic, Atlantic 10, North Atlantic and Mid-Continent also lost automatic berths because of their RPI.

Dennis Poppe, the NCAA’s director of championships, said conferences will be re-evaluated yearly to determine which 18 will receive automatic berths.

The WCC champion will play host to the champion of the Southwestern Athletic Conference in 1994. The WCC features 1992 national champion Pepperdine, Loyola Marymount, San Diego, Santa Clara, St. Mary’s and San Francisco. The SWAC includes Alabama State, Alcorn State, Jackson State, Mississippi Valley State, Grambling State, Prairie View A&M;, Southern and Texas Southern.

Lopez and other WCC coaches, already irked by what they perceive as a lack of respect from the NCAA selection committee, are questioning a format that creates financial hardship for the participants and has several loopholes.

For example, the two conferences involved in a qualifying series--not the NCAA--are responsible for the travel, lodging and per diem costs of the visiting team. In the WCC and SWAC series, those costs would total tens of thousands of dollars. If the conferences raise the funds and the series is played, the winner earns the automatic berth and the loser will be considered for an at-large bid.

If the conferences are unable to raise the funds, the NCAA will select one of the teams as an automatic qualifier and the other will be considered for an at-large bid. The visiting school also could conceivably decline to play in the qualifying series and hope that it receives an at-large bid.

“It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense,” Loyola Coach Jody Robinson said. “I mean, if I had a team that had more than 40 wins and had to come up with thousands of dollars to travel across the country to play a series, I think I’d say, ‘Sorry, pal, I’ll take my chances with the 40 wins.’ ”

Said Lopez: “Anybody in their right mind who looked at this plan would have to say, ‘What’s going on?’ The intent of the plan, to give every conference a chance, is fine. But this just wasn’t thought out very well.”

Lopez had been concerned that should Pepperdine win the WCC, the Waves would have to cancel a nonconference home series against Texas A&M; so that the playoff could be staged May 20-22. But SWAC schools complete their conference schedule by May 1 and Poppe said the playoff could be held any time, as long as an automatic qualifier is determined by May 22.

Robinson said the impact of the new format will likely be felt long before the NCAA tournament begins in May.

“Come November, during the early-signing period for recruits, someone is probably going to use this as negative recruiting by telling kids that if they sign with a (WCC) school, there is no automatic berth in the playoffs,” Robinson said. “We’ll just have to wait and see what happens.”