The NCAA has issued what’s becoming an annual appeal to Division I baseball coaches to not cancel nonconference midweek games to protect their teams’ positioning for the national tournament.
Scheduling hijinks allow teams to avoid no-win situations this time of year, so games against mid- or low-major opponents sometimes are called off because a win wouldn’t help the RPI and a loss would hurt it, perhaps badly.
In a memo sent to coaches last week, the Division I Baseball Oversight Subcommittee said it was concerned with the practice of canceling games for reasons other than inclement weather.
“It is not the intent or spirit of the game to adjust scheduled games in an attempt to strategically impact selection data or metrics,” the memo said.
The subcommittee warned it would track cancellations and that games called off to avoid the impact on metrics “will be discussed and could have a negative impact on the subcommittee’s evaluation of a team.”
Oregon, No. 19 in the RPI, canceled two games against No. 212 Grand Canyon last week with no reason given. No. 42 North Carolina State announced it canceled a game against No. 279 North Carolina A&T by mutual agreement. No. 34 Miami said it canceled a game against No. 219 Florida International “due to overnight conditions” that made its field unplayable, but no details were given about the nature of those conditions.
No. 12 Mississippi State went ahead with its midweek game against No. 141 Nicholls and won 21-6.
“A lot has been made of teams this time of year canceling games because it’s not in their best RPI interest,” MSU coach Brian O’Connor said. “I don’t believe in it. I believe in karma, and I’m not judging anybody that does. We control our own program and the right thing to do is play the games.”
