WAC weighs options The future of baseball in the Western Athletic Conference is one of the primary topics up for discussion at the conference meeting being held in Phoenix this weekend.
The conference is looking for
better baseball schedulingBy Al Chase
achase@starbulletin.comThe concerns involve maintaining competitive balance while remaining practical, especially in terms of the huge travel costs incurred by the six conference schools that sponsor baseball.
There is no indication the four schools that don't field a baseball team -- Boise State, Texas-El Paso, Tulsa and Southern Methodist -- have any immediate plans to reestablish the sport. At one time, all four had baseball teams.
One proposal has the conference split into two divisions with the addition of non-WAC schools just for baseball.
Sacramento State, once a WAC associate member, would join a division that includes Hawaii, Fresno State, San Jose State and Nevada. The other division would have Rice and Louisiana Tech joined by Centenary, Texas-Pan American and Texas A&M-Corpus Christi.
This is the least attractive of the proposals according to Hawaii coach Mike Trapasso.
"It brings about an unbalanced schedule and, frankly, brings in some weaker teams which would only lower the league's RPI rating. I'm adamantly opposed to playing an unbalanced schedule," Trapasso said.
Another idea is to revert to a single round robin with teams playing a home-and-home schedule every other year. The WAC did this a few years ago when there were more schools in the conference.
"Most other conferences do that, but the problem we have is we don't have enough teams. That would mean a 15-game league schedule and, again, I think we lower the status of the league," said Trapasso.
Another proposal is to keep things the way they are, a 30-game schedule with teams playing each other three times at home.
"The reason we're looking at these different proposals is that it's pretty costly playing everyone home and home. I can't fault schools for looking at that side of things," Trapasso said. "I think it is a little crazy to take kids on a 12-day road trip in the middle of the semester.
"In every single scenario they will be looking at a postseason tournament. I think we'll have one in the near future," Trapasso said. "I think it's silly not to have one. It means more games and gives everyone something to play for right to the end.
"I've been in situations at Georgia Tech where we were a bubble team going into postseason. We went deep into the tournament, won three or four games to get us over the 35-, 36-game mark and got an at-large bid (to the NCAA Tournament)."
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