Hey CUSA, Pod Play does not Work

This past weekend while college baseball conferences play their tournaments a crime was being committed in Pearl, MS. Conference USA robbed two teams of an opportunity to play themselves into NCAA regionals. Most teams must lose twice to be eliminated, but not in CUSA. CUSA (and the ACC) play this crazy two pod system that does not work.

When the tournament games were done for Thursday Memphis already knew they were in the Championship game, which was still 3 days away. That meant that the other 3 teams in their pod already knew they were eliminated from the championship game with games still remaining. Houston and Southern Miss were simply playing for respect and Rice was playing for seeding in next week’s regionals. The worst part is that Southern Miss only had 1 loss in the tournament instead of 2 which is usually the case in a baseball tournament.

UAB won their pod on Friday afternoon by defeating Tulane. At three o’clock Friday afternoon East Carolina and UCF stepped on to the field already knowing they were eliminated from championship play with two games still remaining in tournament play. This makes absolutely no sense to be eliminated from conference play after just one game and after only one defeat.

Conference USA really does need to evaluate their pod play system and ask themselves is this really the best way to determine a conference champion? Perhaps if CUSA wants to continue this silly system than changes need to be made to ensure that the championship game participants are not known until after all of the games are played. The interest and excitement are gone when you already know who is going to be in the championship game with 5 tournament games left to be played before you get to the championship game.

In college baseball a double elimination tournament is the only way to determine a true champion. I hope CUSA is happy with a championship game between the #5 and #7 seeded teams when #2 and #4 only have one loss and were both eliminated with games remaining. This year’s CUSA tournament was dull, boring, uninteresting, and pure nonsense.

by Thomas "Bubba" Rosenbaum -
CUSA-fans.com ECU Correspondent