The Missouri Valley Conference has announced a change to their post season tournament as they will switch to pool play. This follows the lead of the Big 12 and the ACC who have gone to this format over the last couple of seasons. The teams will be separated into two polls with the number 1, 4, 5 seeds in a pool while the number 2, 3, and 6 seeds in the other pool. You can check out the full press release from the conference below.
ST. LOUIS, Mo. — The Missouri Valley Conference will use a new six-team format for its post-season baseball tournament that will determine the league’s automatic entry in this year’s NCAA tournament.
The top six teams in regular-season play will meet in the conference tournament, May 20-23 in Wichita, Kan., and will be split into two 3-team pools or pods, with the two pod winners meeting in a single championship game.
Teams will be placed in pods based on seed. Seeds 1, 4 and 5 will be in one pod and seeds 2, 3 and 6 in the other pod.
Each team in the tournament is guaranteed to play three games. Teams in each pod will play two teams in its pod and one team outside its pod.
The two teams with the best composite records in their respective pods will play for the tournament championship. In cases of multiple ties, the highest seed in a pod will advance to the championship game.
This year’s format replaces last year’s six-team, double-elimination tournament bracket where the top two seeds received byes.
Unlike in previous years, teams will know days in advance of the tournament who their opponents will be each day and when they will play.
This year, there will only be one championship game, set for 7 p.m. Saturday, May 23. In the past, if a previously unbeaten team lost in the first championship game, a second title game was played to determine the league champion.
MVC coaches felt the old format had flaws that resulted in some teams being disadvantaged. Teams that lost in the first round, for example, had to play as many as six straight games to win the tournament championship.
“The six-team tournaments we’ve had in the past were never really popular with the league coaches,” said Joe Mitch, MVC associate commissioner for baseball.
“Those tournaments were confusing and not always fair for all teams. We’ll give this new format a try this year and then evaluate it at the end of the season to see if we want to continue with it in the future.”
