But it's a very, very small difference = 0.0004. It still comes down to making a run - STARTING TODAY! Let's Go Hokies!

if the season ended right not. However, I think only the top 13 (through LSU) are cemented into hosting. Georgia, Okla State, and Texas A&M could be passed with A&M being the most vulnerable (they were upset yesterday and can't improve their standing). I was tempted to put Georgia into the cemented list but I held off. Georgia has OU and Okie State has a potential path of Utah, Ariz/ASU, then TT. I believe VT and Stanford have a 50/50 (maybe slightly better) chance by winning the ACCT but you might want to pull for Duke and FSU to keep winning because I believe VT will need to play and beat these highly ranked RPI teams to push them over the finish line.

6 total conference wins, which happens to be how many wins VT has in the SEC. At the end of the day wins and losses matter no matter who you play. VT would be better off to be a mediocre SEC team when it comes to seeding than a top tier ACC team. ** Edited by Hokie_Forester at 5/7/2026, 8:09:04 AM

They are all above average which is why they won 84% of their OOC games. I think we would be .500 in the SEC this year. In the long run, I think our coaching/recruiting would get us to the top 3rd of the SEC because we would have SEC prestige and money and we would be a first round host team nearly every year.

Also to be .500 in SEC we’d have to lose 6 in a row is my math right on that @laphroaig @VTChip No offense but why as a Hokie fan would you add on to the SEC overblown love fest? MSSt, SC, Tenn, Ole Miss ALL have offenses that are not CLOSE to as good as the top 6 offenses in ACC

against the SEC every chance I get. I’ll root for every team in the country playing an SEC team unless them winning a particular contest helps VT at that time. That goes for all the teams people hate in the ACC. I love it when the SEC underperforms. But, I am a stat guy. The data says what it says. I try NOT to mix emotion and partisanship in with opinions that have data behind them. I try NOT to spin bits of information to help my case if it contradicts the bigger picture. Not my nature. Some prefer finding l things to ding the “SEC is the best” because they don’t like the SEC. (Some envy behind that). That’s OK. Lots of people debate at that level. To me, that’s like being an attorney who always takes their client’s side in a court case and poke holes in the other sides case regardless of what they really believe. Nothing wrong with that. If this was a shared board with SEC people I might do the some of the same. I do that with some SEC friends because they annoy me. If it comes down to judgment in an absence of information, I will bias towards VT and the ACC. But, fair question and I hope my answer makes sense. I do enjoy debating as I think you do too or we wouldn’t spend so much time in here. And I share the passion for VT sports.

Data doesn’t tell the whole story all the time. I agree that the SEC is the best conference. But I also think the bottom 1/3 is overrated and buoyed by the top. Both can be true. Just look at our performance in those 6 games. Granted they’re not vs the top 6 teams BUT…2 of those teams are in the SEC quarterfinals…and the other one (SC) just lost THREE one run games vs Bama who’s in consideration for the top 3-4 seeds nationally. We won all 6 games BY NO FEWER THAN 3 runs. If you look throughout the schedules of UGA, SC & Aub you’ll see some wins vs top 15 teams and a bunch of their losses by 1 or 2 runs. ON THE FIELD we showed we were considerably better than those 3. Not sure what else we’re supposed to do…unless our scheduling strategy needs to become…schedule 20 games OOC vs the top 10 and just hope to win a couple because losses to top 10 teams seemingly count more than wins vs the top 50 🤷🏻‍♂️🙄

drawing conclusions. I don’t know what “data doesn’t tell the whole story” means. By data I mean a season of game results. What else is there to look at? You are sharing run differentials in games. Isn’t that data? Kentucky, who was 1-23 in SEC played Louisville and Stanford twice and went 2-2. They won more games against 2 of the ACC’s better teams and could only win 1 out of 24 against the SEC. If Kentucky was in the ACC I think they would be in the middle of the ACC this year. We are ranked higher than the bottom 3rd of the SEC. I get the point about losing to a top 10 being worth more than beating a top 50. I don’t think there is an intention there. It’s math. But, I know this for sure. It would be much better to lose to a top 10 team than lose to Liberty, MSU and Charlotte. Win those games and we are a lock to host. Maybe even just two of them. We don’t have much room for error against weaker OOC opponents. The trouble is not just us. It’s the strength of our entire conference. And right, there is not much we can do about that. On subjective thing in the RPI is the weightings of the 3 factors. Record is 25% and SOS is 75%. You could put more weight on the record and that would shift us up vs.bottom feeding SEC teams. BUT, it will move others up too. If you do that does Grand Canyon move up and host? And would it then give teams the incentive to play a lighter OOC just to boost their record. There are tradeoffs when you make formulary adjustments like that. I think the scheduling is fine. We just don’t have much room for error.

and don't wear thick O&M glasses 24/7. Don't disagree about VT's potential standing in the SEC but they are where they are because of their SOS. Top SEC Tiers: 1. OU, Ala, Ark, Fla, Texas, Tenn (I know, they have stopped hitting) 2. LSU, A&M, Ga, Miss St ( this is where I would put VT) ** Edited by hokietony at 5/7/2026, 9:29:29 AM ** Edited by hokietony at 5/7/2026, 9:33:31 AM

top to bottom. Yes, they are the best conference top to bottom but after the top 4 or 5 schools they are nothing special. Go look at who Ole Miss lost to out of conference, it is a joke that they are anywhere near VT let alone ahead, but RPI says just because they got their teeth kicked in by good teams in conference they are.

The SEC. The split a two game series with both Lousville and Stanford, two of the top teams in the ACC. Kentucky was 25-5 OOC. It’s a national narrative because it’s backed up by statistics. I don’t like it, but it is what it is. And if you are only giving the top 4 to 5 SEC any credit for being special, then you should challenge anyone that brags about us going 6-0 in the SEC this year. Because what you are saying is that doing that means we beat teams that are “nothing special”. You look at the combined SEC records in conference of GA, Aub and USCe. And then the combined OOC records of those 3 teams. The resulting picture is that we beat some pretty good teams, 2 of which were bottom feeders in conference play. They are the strongest conference, top to bottom. And I think their bottom teams would be middle of the pack if they were in the ACC. Softball is not like football where you have most of your season in conference and a much smaller sample to judge relative conference strength. In softball, more than 50% of you games are OOC. That’s a pretty robust population to judge relative conference strength.

Do they schedule pretty easy teams for the most part, if so does OOC record really mean anything for them? You need to look at their record against the other power 4 conferences when they play them. If 20 of Kentuckys 25 wins were against cupcakes then I could care less about out of conference record.

I need to look something up? Why don’t you look something up to support your point? I know that Kentucky played Louisville twice and Stanford twice. And they split with them. So, they were at least 2-2 against ACC and 1-23 against SEC. And 3 teams In the SEC played us 6 times. If you take the 6 games out of our schedule against the SEC teams, 2 of which at are the bottom of the conference, how tough was our OOC schedule? I think you are grasping at this point. Bring back some information to support your point rather than just stating a belief and asking someone else to refute it. I’ve made my case.

said about the SEC: it is easily far ahead of the other conferences in every way: in conference, out of conference, strength of schedule and performance against that schedule. Stop asking questions that are already definitively answered by objective data and computer analysis. (BTW, RPI is not among these, but Massey et al are). ** Edited by King of Hokies at 5/7/2026, 10:39:58 AM

for every team, half or more that our OOC. It’s not like football. Softball/baseball Is a very robust data base.

was a team that has lost half of its game should not be that highly seeded because they played a hard schedule.

they are not one of the SEC's top 10 teams. That does not mean they aren't a good team. They are 23rd in DSR which is more of a performance driven ranking system and that is probably about where they belong.

higher RPI than VT and to me that is complete BS.

Team evaluations Just because you play a tough schedule and LOSE more than 1/2 of the time doesn’t mean you’re better or equal to a team that wins 44/53 games including a ton of run rule games SoS should matter to a point but it’s already factored into many metrics. So saying some team with a better SoS that’s ranked a couple spots behind another team with a much better record and lower SoS is overvaluing SoS if they take into account the ranking that’s inclusive of SOS AND then double down and say….well #21 should be ahead of #19 because they have a higher SOS. THAT is the biggest issue I have with bracketology and seeding You cannot control your schedule totally; about 1/2 of it is totally in your conference’s hands. You also cannot control the trajectory of teams’ seasons when you played those teams the first 4 weeks of a season that has 13 weeks

we didn’t. And no one can control anything other than their own games. So, that is everbody’s issue, not just ours There has to be a method to rank 200+ teams that don’t play each other in a closed system. To do that you have to at least consider record and SOS and run differential. We’re back to SEC winning 84% of OOC games, the best. And they aren’t playing all light weights. A 1-23 team in the SEC went 25-5 OOC. ** Edited by nkhooch at 5/8/2026, 3:31:39 AM

When we also weren’t able to practice outside at all. MSU had beaten Clemson the week prior and was receiving votes in Top 25 poll at the time. Teams change during the season. There are circumstances beyond numbers. Yeah we lost to LU…but now they’re in the drivers seat in their conference tourney…Bama gets a pass for losing to Samford; OU a pass for losing to Long Beach. We won’t get a pass for losing to a team who was good early but crashed and burned later, nor will they consider the team had the flu, I’m sure. I guarantee you if the top SEC teams lost a game or 2 early because of a flu bug EVERYONE would hear about it as their excuse. Are these excuses? Yep. Well the SEC is the KING of excuses.

point while ignoring the total picture. What is the deal with “what we can control”? No team is any different from us on the front. It’s an irrelevant point. Nobody gets a pass for losing a game. It’s all reflected in their numbers. You act like these ranking decision are being made by people. Computers don’t make judgments or give passes. And if the “SEC” was making a sickness excuse I would say the same thing to them. Are you simply trying to match the absurdity that the other side puts forth? Aim higher. Computers don’t care if someone has the flu. And is our team the only one who was ever impacted by sickness or injury? It’s just the breaks of the game. If you want to “if only” feel free but it doesn’t matter. And there no way to factor those things in. Nobody is going to evaluate every extenuating circumstance for every team in every game and use their judgment to move a team up or down. ** Edited by nkhooch at 5/9/2026, 12:59:32 AM