NCAA committee chair explains why ECU, Arizona hosted over Mississippi State, Duke, others

The road to the 2024 College World Series has officially been set. On Monday afternoon, the official NCAA Tournament bracket was revealed, finalizing each team’s path to making it to Omaha. The reveal began on Sunday evening, when the 16 regional host sites were announced. The decisions came with plenty of controversy.

Notably, East Carolina and Arizona were named as regional hosts. While both teams had enough on their resume to get the nod, their RPI led many to believe that they would be on the 2-line instead of hosting. ECU’s RPI is No. 22, while Arizona is No. 31. The most notable hosting omissions were Mississippi State, Duke and Indiana State, among others.

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Following the bracket reveal on Monday, NCAA Selection Committee Chair Matt Hogue broke down what went into those discussions for the final couple of hosting bids.

“That was a collection of teams that we spent a good deal of time on,” Hogue said on ESPN2. “There was great deliberation within the room to determine those final couple of host sites. I think what it came down to was a variety of factors. Really a holistic approach, but we looked at common opponents, we looked at how successful teams had been in their conference. The amount of series wins, for example.

“Consistency of play throughout the year, and committee felt particularly looking at common opponents and how well a team’s had fared against the same out of conference opponents. And at the end of the day, the committee felt that East Carolina deserved that spot.”

Indiana State was another team in the mix. They finished highly in RPI at No. 10, but lacked quality wins over their resume. The Sycamores’ best series win was against Xavier, a team that missed the NCAA Tournament.

The battle for the final regional hosting bids was a tight one

To Hogue’s point, East Carolina did have a couple of advantages over Duke specifically when it comes to common opponents. While Duke won a midweek game over ECU late in the year, the Pirates won two out of three in a series against North Carolina and swept their two midweek games over NC State. Duke lost two out of three against both of those teams.

Further, Hogue emphasized the importance of an overall body of work. ECU has lost seven of its last 13 games, but before that stretch the Pirates had lost back-to-back games just once. That came during the second week of the season, falling 7-6 to Campbell in a midweek road game and 2-1 at North Carolina on that Friday.

“There were a lot of factors that were reflective of the entire season, not just, a handful of games,” Hogue said on his teleconference regarding the final hosts. “I know there’s a lot been made of East Carolina losing a series at Tulane late in the year, but if you go back and look through the entire year, they only had one other time they lost back-to-back games. So you’ve got to look at the full picture.”

While Duke won the ACC Tournament, they also lost their final three weekend ACC series against Florida State, Georgia Tech and North Carolina. The Blue Devils also lost series to NC State and Clemson, giving them five series losses on the season. Mississippi State lost series to Texas A&M, Florida, Ole Miss and Arkansas, giving them four on the year. While both Duke and Mississippi State were playing against a higher level of competition, the committee preferred the overall body of work of East Carolina.

Despite high RPI, the committee viewed Arizona highly

Many felt coming into Selection Monday that Arizona’s resume warranted them hosting a regional. Winning the Pac-12 both in the regular season and conference tournament speaks very loudly. But, due to the committee’s heavy reliance on RPI in past years, Arizona being at No. 31 felt like too big of a hurdle to overcome.

Still, the committee felt strongly about Arizona due to them being double Pac-12 champions. The only other host that can say that is Tennessee (UC Santa Barbara did not have a conference tournament in the Big West).

“Arizona had some unique factors in the fact that they were a double conference champion,” added Hogue. “I think of the hosts, Tennessee is the only [other] one that has that designation. So they won their regular season, they won their tournament. They also had the number one non-conference strength of schedule in the country at the time we were we were looking through it. So that was a pretty overwhelming case.”

Regional play will get underway on Friday. Regionals are played in a double elimination format, and the winner of each will advance to Super Regionals the following weekend.