If you thought SEC bias was only a thing in football, Clemson softball fans have some news for you.
The NCAA selection committee announced regional pairings for the national softball tournament on Sunday and, in their first full season, John Rittman’s Clemson softball club will be heading to the postseason.
While that’s absolutely exciting and should be celebrated, we subsequently can’t help but be disappointed in the atrocity that is the NCAA.
The NCAA selection committee absolutely hosed Clemson softball
Clemson won the ACC regular season crown and was ranked No. 10 in the nation heading into the ACC Tournament. The Tigers advanced to the ACC Championship game in the tournament and lost 1-0 to the Duke Blue Devils.
Despite holding an impressive 42-6 record and being atop the conference, the Tigers won’t host a regional and, instead, are ranked as the third-worst No. 2 seed in the field. As a result, they will have to travel to Tuscaloosa to play in Alabama’s regional.
Of the 16 regionals, seven of them will be hosted by SEC teams. But that’s not the infuriating part.
Duke, who finished behind Clemson in the ACC standings and went 3-2 head-to-head against the Tigers for the year, is ranked as the No. 13 seed (17 spots ahead of Clemson) but can’t even actually host a regional. So, they’ll host their regional in Athens.
NCAA D1 Softball Committee Chair Matthew Larsen explained that the committee looked at Duke’s overall body of work to award the Blue Devils as a regional host, but for some reason that didn’t apply to Clemson apparently.
The Tigers gave up one total run in three days at the ACC Tournament and yet they’re punished and the seedings prove that the committee never even was really considering Clemson as a regional host.
Oh, and then the worst part of it all: The Florida State Seminoles are also a regional host.
Florida State, despite losing to Duke and not even making it to the ACC Championship, is the No. 10 overall seed in the field. They’ll get to host a regional- even though they finished behind the Tigers in the regular season- while Clemson gets to go travel to one of the best teams in the country.
Do games and wins even matter to the NCAA? It seems they’d rather rely on a flawed RPI system than do actual homework to give us the best field possible with proper seeding.