The Georgia State Panthers baseball team is taking care of business in the final stretch of the season. After a series loss to Delaware and Old Dominion many Panther baseball fans were beginning to wonder if the team was going to miss out on the CAA championship tournament yet still win 30+ games. Not so fast says the Panthers. During a time of the season when the Panthers had to win against the teams in their easy schedule, they did so. The Panthers are 5-1 in their last 6 CAA games against Northeastern and Hoftra and appear to be plowing along at full strength. Let's take a look at this past weekend in the CAA.
Like mentioned in my previous post, the Georgia State Panthers completed a home sweep of the Hoftra Pride. Taking a look at what I said would be the CAA impact series of the weekend, we see James Madison swept UNC-Wilmington knocking UNCW from 1st place to 5th place. The top five of the CAA (in order of standings) is now James Madison, Delaware, Georgia State, Old Dominion and UNC-Wilmington.
The biggest gainer in the standings over the weekend is Georgia State, going from 5th to 3rd place. The Panthers are just a half game back from James Madison and Delaware who are tied for 1st. The biggest loser this weekend is UNC-Wilmingon. After being swept by James Madison they find themselves in 5th place looking up at the four tournament spots. The log jam continued to tighten this weekend as the top 4 spots are separated by just half a game from 1st to 4th. UNC-W is 1.5 games out of 1st and 1 game out of 4th.
You can find an updated team vs. team record grid here.
This coming weekend we have CAA series of Georgia State at UNC-Wilmington, Northeastern at George Mason, Old Dominion at Delaware and VCU at Towson. I'm going to call the ODU at Delaware the CAA impact series of the week because currently both teams are in the tournament. The runner-up would be GSU at UNCW. Really both are important but if both go as I see (Delaware and GSU both win 2-of-3) then the top four teams stay the same but Delaware owns 1st, GSU moves to 2nd, JMU drops to 3rd and ODU remains in 4th.
Looking at the remaining CAA schedule, there is a very real possibility we end up with 4 teams locked in at 19-11 to finish the season. This situation favors GSU because currently they have the best overall record and would finish ahead of the other teams in the tiebreaker. One thing is for sure, we're looking at one of the most exciting CAA finishes we've seen in years. Gotta love playoff race baseball!
***EDIT***
My last paragraph has some incorrect information in it. I had a misunderstanding of how the tiebreakers work so let me pass along the correct information.
1. In the event of a tie, the following tie-breaker system will be
used:
a. If one team has won a series versus each of the other tied teams,
they are removed from the tiebreaker and become the highest seed. If one
team has lost a series versus each of the other tied teams, they are
removed from the tiebreaker and they become the lowest seed.
b. Head-to-head competition, if all tied teams have played each other.
c. Winning percentage versus common Conference opponents.
d. Each team’s winning percentage versus the highest common opponent
in the standings and continuing down through the lowest common opponent
in the standings, if necessary.
e. Coin flip if a tie exists among two teams and a draw if a tie exists
among three or more teams.
2. All ties will be broken in descending order. Once ties are broken,
they remain broken throughout the tie-breaker process. When arriving at
a pair of tied teams, the tiebreaker begins anew among those two teams.
So under these tiebreaker rules Georgia State will lose a tie with Delaware or Old Dominion but wins against James Madison. Thanks to Dave Cohen of Georgia State University for finding the tiebreaker rules for us!
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