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Message: [QUOTE="huskymedic, post: 4661362, member: 549"] [URL unfurl="true"]https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/conference-tournament-action-makes-for-thrilling-week-of-college-baseball-off-the-bat/[/URL] National Writer for Baseball America Teddy Cahill: -> It’s unusual that I think the selection committee botched the host sites in a real way. There’s often a team that you feel like got snubbed—think Oklahoma last year—but that’s just kind of the way things work. There’s always a team that’s just on the wrong side of the dividing line, whether we’re talking top-eight seeds, hosts or the tournament bubble. Year after year, however, I come away thinking the committee pretty much got the right hosts. This year feels different. When the selection committee on Sunday released the 16 host sites, I was genuinely disappointed by the decision not to put a regional in Boston. The Eagles have a hosting-worthy resume. They’re 35-18, went 17-15 against ACC competition, rank 18th in RPI, went 18-9 in true road games, went 7-9 vs. Top 25 opponents (more T25 wins than six of the hosts) and 13-14 against top-50 opponents (as many or more than four hosts). It's not a top-eight resume and if this were any other ACC team (with the possible exception of Notre Dame), I wouldn’t be writing this. Someone has to get snubbed, after all. But this is BC. This is a team that didn’t play a home game until March 22 and played 32 of its 59 games (60.4%) away from home. This was an opportunity to put a regional in the Northeast, where there hasn’t been an NCAA Tournament game since 2010. And this was an opportunity to do it without forcing it, which the selection committee did in 2010, when it sent Florida State on the road to Norwich, Conn., as a traveling No. 1 seed. It's not the selection committee’s job to grow the game or help the sport establish stronger ties in areas of the country outside its traditional hotbeds. But it is within the selection committee’s directions to “place regional tournaments so that the maximum national balance can be obtained.” A Boston Regional could have reasonably been top-seeded and host BC, No. 2 Connecticut, No. 3 Northeastern and pick a No. 4 seed from Army, Central Connecticut State and Maine. That regional would have meant something special to the players and fans and helped bring new people to college baseball. There’s truly nothing like postseason baseball for bringing new people into the game. This is a missed opportunity. BC and UConn (which nearly had a hosting-caliber resume itself) will be back in the hosting mix sooner than later, but you never know when. The selection committee could have created a special atmosphere, one that would have helped expand the game’s popularity. Instead, those teams will all get on planes this week and head south and west. It’s nothing the players aren’t used to—they did it all February and March. <- [/QUOTE]

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