37
Louisiana teams: (out of 300)
lsu 9
la-laff 18
Tulane 27
TECH 37
Northwestern 40
Southeastern 46
UNO 81
McNeese 102
ulm 148
Nicholls 175
Grambling 285
Southern 296
CUSA teams (out of 300)
Southern Miss 21
FAU 22
Rice 33
TECH 37
Marshall 65
ODU 76
FIU 88
Western Kentucky 127
UAB 152
Charlotte 155
MTSU 159
UTSA 183
The NCAA tournament field consists of 64 teams, with 29 conference champions being joined by 35 at-large selections. Hopefully, only teams with a better RPI than ours will win the auto-bid in their conference.
We should hope that no teams with a worse RPI than us upset any team with a better RPI than us to win the tournament championships. That includes C-USA.
Further research indicates that there are now 31 conferences with auto-bids. That leaves 33 at-large selections for the field of 64.
28 of the 31 conferences award the tournament winner with an auto-bid. The 3 conferences that do not have a tournament are the Big West, Ivy League, and Pac12. In these 3 conferences, the regular season champion earns the auto-bid.
ULL didn't schedule any SWAC teams while we scheduled 5 SWAC teams. ULL played TCU (lost), Texas Tech (lost), and Rice (won) in Minute Maid Park tourney while we played in SWAC Urban Invitational. That's the difference. We'd have a Top 25 RPI right now if we didn't schedule 5 SWAC games.
Last edited by Dawg06; 05-22-2016 at 11:54 PM.
The two programs have been residing at different levels for the past couple of decades. We've needed some mid-week games we could win. No sense rehashing the whole Sim travesty....water under the bridge. But, now, going forward, we are ready to drop SWAC teams and schedule for RPI. For 2016, the schedule was what it was. Hopefully, we'll get in the Dance anyway. Just schedule better from now on.
''Don't be a bad dagh..."
Also, one thing for USL is that they got lucky that Louisiana baseball and the Southland is so good this year. They swept Sam Houston, beat SLU and UNO and Tulane.