A look back at the tournaments

I can testify that developing a cold while out of town is no fun. I didn't feel like providing much in the way of commentary for several days. While waiting for the tournament selection show, here are some thoughts about the various tournaments.

Atlantic Coast Conference
I'm not a fan of the round-robin pool play, and this year's events only served to reinforce my opinion.

After losing its first two games, Clemson had no chance to reach the championship game, but still had to play a third time. I know about the pride factor and all that, but why should a team face the prospect of going 0-3 - which No. 1 Texas did in the Big 12 Tournament.

I suspect Clemson is safely in the NCAA Tournament field, but what about if the Tigers were on the bubble and went 0-3? Not good.

Also, Florida State entered the championship game not having played since about 3 p.m. Friday. N.C. State started a game Friday night, then wound up playing the equivalent of two full games on Saturday, the last one ending less than 12 hours before the start of Sunday's title game.

Weather events aside, N.C. State still would have been at a disadvantage rest-wise. A team shouldn't have an extra day's rest over another entering a title game.

Big South
I'm not a big fan of the single-elimination play-in games the league used to get from eight teams to six. It can be argued that such a setup provides more of a premium on/reward for finishing higher in the standings.

I don't like the fact a team may have to use its best starter just to get into the main draw, where all the other teams are more rested and have all their pitching options.

Southeastern Conference
Having sat through three games under the pitch clock, (20 seconds to deliver a pitch with no one on base, 1:48 between innings), I wouldn't mind seeing it being adopted nationwide for the regular season. To me, the biggest difference was the shorter time between innings. I'd love to know how the SEC convinced the TV networks to cut down on the break. That's where the time was saved.

I didn't like the league cutting the Saturday games to seven innings because weather delayed the start, but I can understand it.

The two teams in the finals, LSU and Alabama, didn't qualify for the tournament until the next-to-last day of the regular-season.

Southern Conference
The SEC makes a couple of swaps between brackets for the third round to avoid having rematches so early in the tournament. I wonder if the SoCon might look at doing the same. Samford and Elon were matched Wednesday and Friday, as were College of Charleston and Appalachian State.