Three Strikes: Stolen Bid Watch, Sun Belt West, Justin Janas

Image credit: Gonzaga 3B Brett Harris (Photo courtesy of Gonzaga)

It’s scoreboard watching season, not just for the purpose of conference races, but also to see what bubble teams across the country are doing if you’re a bubble team yourself. 

This is particularly true once conference tournaments get underway in earnest, and don’t look now, but that will be the case in less than a week. Not only do bubble teams build resumes with wins in conference tournaments, but annually, bids get stolen there as well.

A stolen bid occurs when an automatic bid via conference tournament is won by a team outside of at-large consideration in a league that also has a viable at-large candidate. That outcome turns one-bid leagues into two-bid leagues and two-bid leagues into three-bid leagues, effectively shrinking the bubble each time. 

So, in other words, if you’re a bubble team, you want conference tournament automatic bids to be won by teams that are already going to get in as at-large teams to make the bubble as soft as possible. 

Major conferences that expect to get one-third of the league or more into regionals can be bid-stealing conferences in the instance of a team like Kansas State, for example, winning the Big 12 Tournament. 

For our purposes here, we’re going to focus on the smaller conferences that could go from one to two bids or from two to three bids. If you’re a bubble team, here are the teams you want to root for as conference tournaments unfold. 

American: East Carolina – The AAC might get two bids under any circumstances, but ECU is the only postseason lock in the league, so bubble teams should be rooting for the Pirates to make it official with the auto bid. 

ASUN: Liberty – The Flames are solidly in as an at-large team if they need it, so bubble teams will want them to secure the auto bid here. The conference tourney could be a bit tricky for them, as the ASUN scheduling model means they have yet to play Florida Gulf Coast, the other best team in the league, and could possibly meet it along the way. 

Atlantic 10: Virginia Commonwealth – With an RPI inside the top 40 and a 4-4 record against the RPI top 50, VCU has an intriguing at-large case. It’s not a lock, but bubble teams will feel better if the Rams just go ahead and win the auto bid. The good news for those bubble teams is that a four-team field in the A-10 Tournament does reduce the risk of VCU being upset. 

Big East: Connecticut – UConn’s at-large resume is fairly light, with just a 2-8 record against the RPI Top 50, but its own RPI is hanging around the top 40, so you can’t count it out. An auto bid through the four-team Big East Tournament will allow bubble teams to breathe a bit easier. 

Big South: Campbell or USC Upstate – The Big South got trickier for bubble teams last weekend when Campbell beat USC Upstate in a series for the second time this season, in turn bolstering its at-large case. Anyone but one of those two winning the auto bid would be awful news for the bubble. 

Colonial: Northeastern – Right up until they split with Delaware last weekend, the Huskies had been laying waste to the CAA North Division. With an RPI inside the top 40, Northeastern is a viable at-large candidate and the only one to be had in the conference. 

Metro Atlantic: Fairfield – Whether or not you think it’s deserving, if Fairfield doesn’t win the MAAC auto bid, it is going to get serious at-large consideration. The good news for the bubble is that Fairfield has been so dominant in league play that it is incredibly tough to imagine it losing the games necessary to be eliminated in the conference tournament. 

Mid-American: Ball State – The MAC doesn’t have a conference tournament this season, but it would be good for bubble teams if BSU won the auto bid via the regular-season title rather than Central Michigan. Sure, its RPI, which is just north of 50, keeps it from being a surefire at-large candidate, but it has a compelling resume with a series win against Kentucky and a four-game split with Arizona. 

Missouri Valley: Dallas Baptist or Indiana State – DBU has the better overall resume and Indiana State has the better RPI. Both feel like somewhat borderline cases right now. Bubble teams need one of the two to win the auto bid. 

West Coast: Gonzaga – No conference tournament here, but San Diego is still within striking distance of winning the auto bid via the regular-season title. The Zags are in the Field of 64 either way, so a conference title for USD means a stolen bid elsewhere. 

Would Anyone Like to Win the Sun Belt West?

You could be forgiven for thinking before the season that the Sun Belt West was going to be one of the best mid-major conference divisions out there. 

You had Texas State, one of the most experienced mid-major teams to be found in 2021. You had the Louisiana Ragin’ Cajuns, a talented team with a pitching staff full of hard throwers and a lineup full of athletic players. 

You also figured Louisiana-Monroe would be in the mix after it brought back just about everyone from a team that was excellent early in 2020. And Texas-Arlington returned a good number of players from a team last year that at least one coach in the area described as the best UTA team he’d seen in recent memory. 

Frankly, it looked like a division that could produce an at-large team when it was all said and done. Texas State had come close in 2019 and was already building that kind of resume in 2020. And most of these teams play SEC or Big 12 foes in midweek with regularity, so putting some marquee wins on the board is never out of the realm of possibility. 

What has come about, however, is a big mess. Going into the last weekend of the regular season, every team in the division is between 12-9 and 9-12, with UTA leading the way at the top. And none of the six teams in the division are in a position to be at-large teams. 

Now, you might see that and be inclined to think that it’s just a matter of all of these teams beating up on each other, and perhaps there is an element of that at play, but that doesn’t explain everything. 

Texas State, one of the three teams tied at 9-12, is also well under .500 overall at 21-31. ULM just took a series against TCU on the road, but it’s also just 9-12 and one game over .500 overall at 24-23. UL got out to the quickest start of any team in the division in league play by running out to a 7-2 record, but it has gone just 4-8 in SBC games since then. UTA now leads the division, but it has lost its last two series. 

All of that means two things. For one, the last weekend of the regular season means a ton in this division. All 12 Sun Belt teams are automatically entered into the conference tournament, so no one is going to be eliminated this weekend, but given that the teams in the West are all no more than three games apart, this weekend’s results will have bearing on the seedings. 

It also means that it’s fair to expect the SBC Tournament as a whole to be a free-for-all. In the East, South Alabama leads with a 14-7 record going into the last weekend of the regular season, and the quality of its pitching staff means that it is capable of running through the field, but outside of that, it’s hard to envision a scenario where one team really dominates the event. 

It’s still possible that one of these teams with high expectations coming into the season puts it all together, wins the auto bid and then makes some noise in the postseason, but if that happens, it will have taken quite the circuitous route. 

Justin Janas Eyes Big Ten Batting Title

The season that Illinois first baseman Justin Janas is putting together might have flown under your radar, but it’s time to take notice. 

The second-year freshman first baseman is leading the Big Ten in hitting at .392 and has a slash line of .392/.506/.442. 

Those numbers got a big boost over the weekend when he finished the Illini’s series win over Iowa with a 5-for-5 game. It was the third time he’s hit 1.000 in a game after going 3-for-3 on March 7 against Ohio State and on April 3 against Nebraska. He has six games this season with three or more hits and the only time this season he’s gone back-to-back games played without a hit was the first two games of the season against Ohio State. 

The one thing he hasn’t done yet is hit for power (just four of his 47 hits have been for extra bases), but he hasn’t really needed to in order to be effective. He has excellent command at the plate, both of the strike zone and of the bat. He’s walked (17) more than he has struck out (14) this season, and in fact, he’s been hit by a pitch (14) as many times as he’s struck out. And when he makes contact, which is clearly all the time, he wields the bat as much like a shield as anything else, content to redirect the ball with authority to all fields depending on the way he’s being pitched. 

It’s easy to see why the season Janas is having could be overlooked. Illinois got off to a slow start, and although it has played better lately, has never been viewed as a serious postseason contender. Janas will also probably be outflanked by other players, such as Northwestern’s Shawn Goosenberg or Maryland’s Ben Cowles, for Big Ten player of the year honors. 

With that said, his emergence is impressive and should be a big reason for optimism for Illinois when it comes to rebuilding a lineup next season that will in all likelihood be without shortstop Branden Comia and third baseman Jackson Raper, the two most effective hitters in the lineup this year outside of Janas. 

The return of Justin Janas in 2022 does not a full lineup make, but it sure seems like a good place to start.