At the rate they’re going, they may have a longer win streak than Gonzaga basketball did.
Swept a doubleheader today versus Manhattan to go to 23-0. The Jaspers took a 2-0 lead in the first inning of the first game, but that didn’t last long. Fairfield won by 16-4 and 12-4.
And yes, Fairfield is still #1 in RPI at Warren Nolan, and probably when the NCAA updates tomorrow.
Wouldn’t it be ironic if the NCAA put them as the #2 seed in the Fayetteville regional?
At one point, Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer was undefeated…
Let them play our schedule and see how undefeated the are.
Which kind of makes the RPI look silly.
Fairfield University is a couple of towns over from me here in Connecticut. A nice, Jesuit university with a good, low midmajor athletic program. It is similar to Iona.
Agree completely, but winning 23 in a row is still impressive no matter what level of competition. We’ve had slipups against lesser opposition (Bama, Auburn and TAM); they haven’t.
D1B has them as a 4 seed in the Louisville regional this week, by the way.
The reason they’re #1 in RPI, of course, is that 0 after the hyphen. Your record is only 25% of RPI, but their portion of that is 17.9-0 (20 home wins at the multiplier of 0.7, plus 3 road wins at the multiplier of 1.3).
Our RPI record is 14-5.2 at home (home losses, like road wins, count 1.3) plus 11.7-2.1 (road losses also count 0.7) for 25.7-7.3.
When they lose, we’ll pass them, I’m sure, but right now our obviously superior strength of schedule (we have the #1 SOS according to Warren Nolan) doesn’t overcome 7 losses to their 0.
All the projections I have seen have them as a 3 or 4 seed
I haven’t seen anything yet that didn’t have them as a 4.
D1B did a column on them yesterday, but since I don’t subscribe I can’t read it.
Playing another DH with Manhattan today. First game is 15-0 in the third inning.
Noticed in the NCAA stats that they’re fifth in the nation in team BA at .322. The last four games they’ve scored 20, 12, 16 and 15+ runs, and they’re averaging 8+ runs a game. Team ERA is 2.21. Yes, all of that is against bad competition. But they can hit and they can pitch. Coastal Carolina played bad Sun Belt competition in 2016 and wound up dogpiling in Omaha.
As my late friend and Arkansas super fan Ed “Waterhead” Jones used to say - “Custer said they looked like friendly Indians.”
They sound like a 4 seed that no one would want to take a chance. Team like that can be very dangerous.
Meanwhile, the ELO has them ranked about where they belong…
Fairfield swept Manhattan again today, by scores of 19-9 and 8-4. Now 25-0. They have 12 games remaining before the MAAC tournament.
They’re ranked above OU and Auburn, both of which beat us in Baum-Walker earlier.
And your point is??
Sure - we can lose to a team that’s ranked #50 something in the country in any given ONE game. For that matter, we can lose a given game to a team ranked 92…or 138. That’s baseball.
But, that’s not what this thread is (at least, WAS) about…it was about where Fairfield is rated in the RPI…and that’s WAY too high. I completely understand why it is and how RPI is calculated…and I also understand that, in this case, one of it’s inaccuracies is exposed. By comparison - again, in THIS case - ELO has it right and RPI is flawed.
Meanwhile, the flaws in the ELO are exposed by the following. After Saturday’s action, TEXAS now sits at #1 on the ELO (supplanting us) even though we (a) have a better record - though barely; (2) beat them head to head; (3) have a MUCH strong SOS (ours is rated #1 in RPI - ELO doesn’t list SOS per team); and we have 14 Q1 wins, while Texas has 7. Meanwhile, RPI has Texas at #8 (all of this per Warren Nolan’s site), which seems much more accurate.
Bottom line - ALL of the “objective” rankings have their strong points, and weaknesses.
The point of all this, before you hijacked it into an RPI discussion, is that Fairfield is one of those dangerous teams you don’t want showing up in your regional. Another Fresno State, who won the CWS as a 4 seed? Maybe.
I would love for the Hogs to play Fairfield to advance in the playoffs… they won’t like it much however.
Jeff, I don’t know why you have such a burr up your butt where I’m concerned. You have a knack for interpreting every post I make in response to a thread you’re involved with - or, especially a post or point you make - as if I’m attacking you personally, and that’s just not the case.
For example, you accuse me of “hijacking the thread into an RPI discussion”…yet, look at your second post in this thread…after noting in the OP that Fairfield would “still be number 1 in RPI” tomorrow, in your second post, you were the one who broke down how RPI is calculated (maybe the 10th time you’ve done so in the past 5 years) - not me.
We ALL know that Fairfield is not the #1 team in the country, no matter what rating or ranking has them atop their rankings. Your OP clearly implied as much, but we all feel that way. I said I thought ELO had them (Fairfield) much more accurately ranked - and I’d bet most agree.
Then you responded by that with “They’re ranked above OU and Auburn, both of which beat us in Baum-Walker earlier”. And I asked you what your point was. If it’s that a “good” team can beat an elite team on their home field, I think most of us already knew that. And I commented that I thought ELO “had it right” and then provided examples in which both of these two prominent and well-known ranking algorithms were way off base, IMO.
My comments were on point and solid takes. They were not “attacks” of you, only a response to posts you made about my posts. There’s no need for you to make a snarky comment about me “high-jacking” the thread when I stayed true to the subject matter in both of my prior posts. I know that you’re sensitive to being “disagreed with” in any way, so I try to avoid conflict with you. But it’s you that comes after me, when I’m talking about WHAT you’ve said, not you. No disrespect intended, Jeff, but I’m much more interested in what someone says or posts here than I am them, personally. Really.
You need to step back and count to 100 or something before you keep coming after me. Mod or not, it’s not acceptable behavior. And I’m not the only one who has noticed it.
Jeff is not a mod, for this very reason. He has not been a mod here for some time.
Wiz, when you come after me in a confrontational manner I’m going to confront right back. But I know how to correct this problem.