Monday, June 4, 2007 The Michigan Daily - michigandaily.com BASEBALL Big Ten baseball proves its worth By COURTNEY RATKOWIAK On Baseball The Big Ten's baseball coaches agreed that on the national stage, their teams are underestimated and often overlooked. After their performance in this weekend's NCAA Regional play, Michigan, Minnesota and Ohio State showed they clearly belonged in the spotlight. Last Monday, the NCAA chose the 34 teams that received at- large invitations by analyzing each school's strength of schedule and its rating percentage index, which is composed of the team's winning percentage, opponents' records and opponents' strength of schedule. After winning the Big Ten Tour- nament, Ohio State received the Big Ten's automatic bid. Michigan and Minnesota earned at-large bids to give the Big Ten three teams in the NCAA Tournament. With a regional opponent like host No. 1 Vanderbilt (53-12), which lost just two games at home before its Saturday night loss, many assumed Michigan would have no chance of advancing this weekend. I Many national media outlets saw Michigan's No. 2 seed in the Nash- ville regional as too high. Rivals. com gave Nashville the title of the "easiest regional," said the Wol- verines were "definitely one of the lower two seeds in the field" and named the Wolverines' seeding as one of the biggest surprises in the selection process. And just in case the Wolverines needed further proof the Big Ten is lightly regarded in baseball, CSTV. com also criticized Michigan's seed- ing before this weekend's play. "CSTV said that they didn't send a real No. 2 (seed) to the Vander- bilt Regional," Michigan coach Rich Maloney said. "All the guys knew. We did read it to the team and we did talk about it, but in the actual playing of the game, it's all about making pitches and getting the timely hits. If you play the No. 1 team, you're always going to have a tighter focus, especially in front of a hostile crowd." While playing for an audience which was largely unfamiliar with Northern teams, the Wolverines defied expectations by winning against Memphis and Vanderbilt, third annual ONteS Congratulations to Daniella Huggins, our Fake Ad Contest winner for May! Try to find the fake advertisement in this week's paper and throughout the month. If you think you've found it, e-mail your name, the page number of the ad and the ad caption to display@michigandaily.com (subect: fake ad contest). Contest sponsored by Papa John's Pizza. Winner will receive 2 Free Large Pizzas! One winner will be chosen at the end of each month and will be contacted by e-mail. earning a spot in the regional cham- pionship game. All three Big Ten teams won at least one game this weekend. Minnesota, which reached 40 victories but earned just one of the last at-large bids, eliminated regional host and No. 8 overall seed San Diego Saturday. And Ohio State, which wouldn't have made the NCAA Tournament if not for its surprise Big Ten Tournament vic- tory, eliminated Le Moyne from the NCAA Tournament. "I honestly thought that we were a better team than San Diego when we played them earlier this year (in a 7-6 loss March 9, after leading 6- 4 going into the ninth inning), and for Minnesota to go there, take care of business and knock them out says a lot about the strength of our con- ference," Maloney said. "With Ohio State winning a game and certainly our big win (over Vanderbilt), at least people can't say that we didn't deserve to be in the Tournament." The strong showing from the three Big Ten teams in this week- end's Regionals justifies the selec- tion of the two at-large bids, though it will probably have little immedi- ate impact on the Southern per- ception of Midwestern baseball as largely inferior - a fact Ohio State coach Bob Todd said effected the number of Big Ten teams that make the NCAA Tournament. "There is too much negativism PERFECT ANN ARBOR LOCATIONS! BEAUTIFUL SETTINGS! LOTS OF AMENITIES! Spacious 1 & 2 Bedroom Apart- ments, with Balconies/Patios, Walk-in Closets, Free Storage, On-Site Laundry, Swimming Pool, Outdoor Recreation areas & much more! PET FRIENDLY! TRAVER KNOLL APTS 1984oTraver Rd IN. Campus-Near U/M Hospital SHOREVIEWAPTS 420 Kellogg (N. Campus-Near U/M Hospital) CHARITON APTS 2047 Charlton (West Sidel Flexible Leases Please call for current prices & specials! 734.663.8463 ' from the warm-weather schools," Todd said. "They still believe, which I do not, thatthe sixth-placeteamin some of the warm-weather confer- ences is better than the third- or fourth-place team in the Big Ten. AndItruly disagree withthat, espe- cially when you look at how success- ful some of our programs have been when we play those people in May (in the NCAA Tournament)." Having three teams in the Tour- nament this year is a significant achievement for the Big Ten. Last year, the Wolverines were the only Big Ten team in the 64-team field, and in 2005, they received the con- ference's only at-large bid. But the ACC received seven tour- nament bids, the Big 12 earned six and the SEC received five, which many considered too few. The Big Ten coaches said the smaller number of NCAA Tourna- ment teams in the conference is partly because of the Midwest's less-than-ideal baseball climate, which forces teams like the Wolver- ines to travel south and play difficult games on the road for the first part of the season. Cold temperatures and snow can make it impossible to play, as with Michigan's cancelled four-game series against Minne- sota in April. With fewer games, Big Ten teams lose the opportunity to improve their RPIs and records, which makes it harder to compete with Southern schools. Minnesota coach John Anderson said Big Ten coaches had discussed a "baseball improvement plan" that couldhelptominimizethedisadvan- tages of Midwestern cold weather by starting the season three or four weeks later. They also favored the idea of a geographical RPI system to determine NCAA Tournamentbids, and their plan called for each team to be rated in relation to others in its region instead against the entire nation. The 64-team NCAA Tour- nament field would be determined by the teams with the top eight RPIs from each of the eight regions. "We'd like to see the RPI system not used as a determining factor," Anderson said. "I think they use it against you when they don't choose you, and they say they don't use it all the time, but it's ammunition to say that's why you didn't getin ... We lost five games (in the regular sea- son) because of weather and travel restrictions, but we can't change where we're located geographically. I think the RPI system is not a good system for college baseball." By qualifying a team that was on the bubble on Selection Monday, a team that was mediocre at best in the regular season and a team which suffered from a disappoint- ing, late-season slump, the Big Ten earned a little respect. And with each of those teams notching wins, they showed they could compete with the warm-weather elite. 4 I .! BLOG ARTICLE Live commentary on Go online after tonight's tonight's baseball game baseball game for full cover- (michigandairy.com/thegame) age at michigandailycom. 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