On Monday, the NCAA made its selections for the 2021 College Baseball World Series. And of the 64 teams to make the tournament field, nine of them come from the SEC.
A few people have taken issue with the amount of teams from the SEC earning tournament bids — most notably CBS Sports analysts Danny Kanell.
After the selection show came to a close on Monday, Kanell
The SEC gets such favored treatment due to the Top 25 rankings. It’s unreal how well they market teams in ALL sports and it always gifts them chances for titles. The latest example??
Pitt baseball was 17-12 vs Top 50
Bama was 8-17
But Bama gets in. Unreal.
SEC y’all
— Danny Kanell (@dannykanell) May 31, 2021
“>ripped into the NCAA for its bias towards the SEC — particularly when it came to the admission of the 31-24 Crimson Tide.
Comparing records against top-50 opponents, the analyst showed the discrepancy between Alabama (8-17) and Pitt (17-12).
The Panthers failed to make the tournament.
The SEC gets such favored treatment due to the Top 25 rankings. It’s unreal how well they market teams in ALL sports and it always gifts them chances for titles. The latest example??
Pitt baseball was 17-12 vs Top 50
Bama was 8-17
But Bama gets in. Unreal.
SEC y’all
— Danny Kanell (@dannykanell) May 31, 2021
While the Tide certainly had a more heavily-weighted strength of schedule, they were unable to play up to their competition — going just 4-14 against top-25 opponents on the year. With a 3-9 record to close out the season (including an 11-0 mercy-rule loss in their final game against Tennessee), Alabama doesn’t exactly have recency bias in its favor either.
That being said, Pitts’ schedule featured some pretty disappointing losses. While they may have been able to convert in more games against strong competition, they also played down in losses against lesser opponents.
Finishing their year on a 1-8 run (23-20 overall), it’s hard to make a late-season case for this Pitt squad — regardless of perceived SEC bias.