UH improves chances for NCAA baseball tournament.
Consecutive series wins over top foes result in RPI leap
SUGAR LAND — What the University of Houston baseball team has done in the span of 11 days is akin to flooring it from back of the pack in a NASCAR race.
The Cougars have weaved in and out of danger, made a couple of big moves and enter the final turn with a completely different postseason outlook.
“You can’t become consumed with the RPI (Rating Percentage Index),” UH coach Todd Whitting said. “But what we do have to be concerned with is winning the conference championship, which has been the standard and goal the entire season. We knew that if we were in contention for the conference championship at the end that the RPI was going to take care of itself.”
Back-to-back conference sweeps of nationally ranked Wichita State and East Carolina have resulted in a gigantic leap from No. 116 RPI on April 20 to No. 52 entering Tuesday night’s non-conference game against Sam Houston State at Constellation Field.
While Whitting emphasizes there remains “a ton of work to do,” the Cougars have gone from out of the NCAA Tournament conversation to a No.3 regional seed in the latest projections by Baseball America and D1Baseball.com. On Monday, the Cougars moved into the Baseball America rankings for the first time this season at No. 21.
More importantly, the Cougars (28-16 overall) hold a twogame lead in the American Athletic Conference race.
“With two weeks to go for us in conference play, we’re in as good a position as we can possibly be,” Whitting said. “A two-game lead is a pretty sizable lead in a conference as tough as ours.”
Prior to the run, Whitting said he met with the team to discuss what it would take to make the NCAA Tournament. Whitting was not concerned, even with a low RPI. A schedule backloaded with a handful of top-50 RPI opponents offered a chance for the Cougars to make up ground in a hurry.
UH was 17-12 at the start of April and had a brief hiccup with consecutive losses to Tulane. Since then, the Cougars have won eight of the last 10 games.
“We just had to start playing good baseball more than anything,” Whitting said. “When you looked at our schedule a couple of weeks ago … just about every team we have on our schedule is a top-50 and sometimes top-25 RPI. You knew whatever was going on with the RPI that was working against us was going to get better based on the opponents we were playing and how many road games we had left.”
After a three-game home sweep against then-No. 24 Wichita State, the Cougars jumped from 116 to 83 in RPI, according to the tracking website warrennolan.com. They jumped to 58 after a road sweep against thenNo. 7 East Carolina.
Help has come from up and down the roster during the hot streak.
Center fielder Grayson Padgett (.412) and second baseman Connor Hollis (.421) have been named AAC players of the week in consecutive weeks. In the last seven conference games, all wins, the UH bullpen has a 1.58 ERA. Carter Henry has picked up three saves in the last week, and Joey Pulido posted back-toback saves in the final two games against the Pirates.
Padgett had a walk-off homer to beat Wichita State, and Wendell Champion has moved into the starting lineup in right field the last four games, delivering a home run to set the tone in the ECU opener.
And they’ve done it with defense: Tyler Bielamowicz threw out a runner at the plate to preserve a one-run lead in Game 2 against ECU.
UH has two AAC series remaining — against Central Florida (No. 41 RPI) beginning Friday at Schroeder Park and at Connecticut (No. 13).
Whitting said a regular-season title in the AAC, currently rated the third-toughest conference, should be enough to receive an at-large NCAA bid regardless of what happens in the conference tournament. The Cougars’ résumé also includes 11 top-50 wins, the second-most behind Vanderbilt (12) among teams outside the top 15.
“I think it’s all going to work itself out,” Whitting said.