TUCSON, Ariz. -- Just 11 months ago, Arizona was the toast of the college baseball world. On Monday, it was an afterthought.
The Wildcats were not selected Monday for the NCAA tournament, a spurning that came less than a year after they celebrated the program's fourth national title with a dogpile on the mound in Omaha at the College World Series.
“It’s tough for all of us,” said UA infielder Johnny Field. “Obviously, we didn’t play as well as we wanted to (at times), but we thought we played well enough (lately) to sneak in.”
Arizona won five of its last six and four straight to end the year, but it turned out to be too little, too late.
Instead, the Wildcats, who finished 34-21 overall and 15-15 in the Pac-12, will be watching rather than defending their title. Not since 2008 had a defending champion (Oregon State) not been back to defend its title in the tourney.
“It’s an unfortunate situation for us,” said third baseman Brandon Dixon. “We don’t want it to be done. But it is what it is, and we move on.”
This is also the first time since 2009 that Arizona has been left out of the tourney. Veteran coach Andy Lopez, in unusual territory without a postseason to prepare for, said he’ll likely do some recruiting and go to California to visit his 93-year-old mother.
And he’ll likely lament what could have been had Arizona been able to hold on against Stanford and Washington in late-game situations. UA went 1-5 against the two teams in early May.
“I get disappointed when it comes to this stuff,” Lopez said. “If I could leave the country for the next five weeks, I would, because I don’t really pay attention to anything beyond this point because we didn’t get in.”
Lopez called it his responsibility to get his team to the postseason, and since the Cats didn't get there, “I take full responsibility for failing them, but life is not fair at times.”
A couple other factors that contributed to UA's tourney omission were its schedule (Arizona had an RPI of 58) and its swoons, as the Wildcats lost six straight games at one point in the middle of the season and later lost six of seven.
But Lopez pointed out that UA was 38-17 last year when it on its magical, improbable run to the title. And he believes that the teams out West suffer from an East Coast bias from the selection committee. Only four Pac-12 teams made the tournament.
“In the Southeastern Conference, you get rewarded for having an average year, a.k.a. Florida, and in the West Coast, you don’t get rewarded – you get punished,” Lopez said. “There’s no way (just) four teams from the Pac-12 get in. Come on.”
Lopez said teams on the West Coast just “can’t have an average year.” And he told his players the same thing Monday.
Lopez admitted that he went to bed Sunday night thinking his team would be in. In fact, he had arranged a team function to celebrate the postseason berth.
But there will be no party. No dogpile in Omaha. No fifth NCAA title.
Quite the difference from a season ago.
“Great moment and a tough moment,” he said of the difference between this moment and the one just less than a year ago. “(But) they are moments, and you get over them.
"As I told them ... if this is the worst thing that happens in your life, sign the contract and keep the duplicate form just in case someone loses it. It does motivate you.”
