With Kentucky Left Out In June, Ole Miss Knows The Feeling

OXFORD, Miss. (WCBI) — The 2018 Kentucky Wildcats will be watching the NCAA Tournament from home.

Even with an RPI of 30 and an overall record of 34-22, the Wildcats have one category that ultimately left them out of the postseason: Conference record.

The selection committee stated Monday that the Wildcats’ 13-17 conference record was the major factor, and that the committee felt a team with an under-.500 record didn’t earn its way to the postseason, regardless of RPI.

If one team can relate, it’s the Ole Miss Rebels.

In 2017, Ole Miss finished the regular season with a 32-25 overall record, and an RPI of 37. The Rebels also finished with a conference record of 14-16, and head coach Mike Bianco said Monday, he was told last year that the conference record was what kept them out of the postseason.

“People say, well, you have that RPI because you play in [the SEC], and that RPI is built in. Well, part of that means you’re playing really good teams week in and week out,” Bianco said, “and so therefore, we beat up on each other. So you could have a really good team with a sub-.500 record, and when that’s going to be the stigma and the criteria, that’s really unfair.”

Ole Miss is coming off an SEC Tournament championship after completing one of the best regular seasons in school history.

Players like Nick Fortes and Will Golsan experienced the heartbreak from a year ago, but that same feeling has been the driving force all season long.

“We definitely feel their pain, the disappointment they must have knowing that they feel they’re a team that should be in it,” junior catcher Fortes said, “but, I mean, that’s where the persistency comes with us, and trying to get better each and every day, and that’s what has led us to this point this year.”

“It’s just something the committee has to choose between one or two teams,” senior outfielder Golsan said, “if it’s the conference schedule that they’re looking at, then that’s what it is. That’s what it was last year.

“You feel for them, but at the end of the day, you have to do something to get there.”

Bianco had strong words of the selection committee’s process of using RPI as a key factor in deciding playoff teams, and believes SEC teams get the short end of the stick in that process.

“The logic doesn’t make sense that, you get penalized almost double. You get penalized…we’re not going to count your RPI. You start looking at teams in the Southeastern Conference with RPI’s in the forties, and say ‘That’s a little high.’ But if you’re in another conference, and your RPI is forty, that’s supposed to be a positive. But it’s the same metric, and you say, well, it’s built in because you’re in the SEC, but then you get penalized because you have more losses. To me, that makes no sense.”

Ole Miss begins the Road to Omaha, Friday, at 6:30 PM CT against St. Louis in Oxford.