032: ⚾️ ACC Tournament pool play history
A look back at the pool play format of the ACC Tournament.
The 2023 ACC Baseball Tournament starts tomorrow in Durham. The tournament features the league’s top 12 teams and concludes on Sunday, May 28.
Since 2017, the ACC has adopted a different kind of pool play format1. This format puts a premium on the 30 scheduled regular season conference games while trying to save pitching ahead of the NCAA Tournament. The winners of each division, Atlantic and Coastal, earn the top two seeds and the remaining seeds are determined by win percentage.
There are four pools with three teams in each pool. Each team is guaranteed a minimum of two games. If a pool fails to produce a team with two wins, the top seed automatically wins the pool and advances to a four team, single-elimination bracket to determine the tournament champion.
How often has the pool failed to produce a team with two wins?
There have been five tournaments under this format since 2017 because there was no tournament in 2020 due to COVID-19. Four pools in each tournament, and that means 20 pool winners.
17 of the 20 pool winners have won two games. 85 percent.
Only three pools have been won by a team with fewer than two wins:
NC State in 2019 with a -10 run differential
NC State in 2021 with a -2 run differential
Georgia Tech in 2021 with a -1 run differential
How often are the top four seeds advancing out of pool play?
Only seven of the 20 pool play winners were one of the top four seeds of the tournament. No team that has advanced in pool play with a 1-1 record has won the tournament either.
Under this pool play format, none of the top four seeds have won the conference tournament. The winners of past five tournaments - Florida State (8 seed in 2017, 6 seed in 2018), North Carolina (5 seed in 2019, 8 seed in 2022), and Duke (9 seed in 2021) - all were seeded outside the top four.
Under this pool play format, the number one overall seed has never advanced to the semifinals. Those number one seeds and their pool play records:
2022: Virginia Tech (1-1)
2021: Notre Dame (1-1)
2019: Louisville (0-2)
2018: North Carolina (1-1)
2017: Louisville (1-1)
The sum of the seeds in the semifinals or the winners of pool play by tournament:
25….2017
25….2018
22….2019
22….2021
33….2022
Odds to win the tournament
College baseball is having a moment in the world of sports gambling. The sport feels like it brings out the true degenerates because information is scarce.
As an aside, it’s fascinating that the ACC footprint only features the following states with legal online sports betting2: Virginia, New York, Massachusetts, and Indiana.
While data across all of college baseball is scarce, WarrenNolan.com has lots of useful information. This includes simulations for the ACC Tournament games and odds to win each game. Of course, these simulations might not adjust for location or injuries.
It’s hard to imagine Wake Forest won’t advance out of pool play given the Demon Deacons dominance this season. Wake Forest would become the only number one overall seed to advance out of pool play under the tournament’s new format or since 2017.
All games are televised on ACC Network through Tuesday to Saturday, and the championship is at noon on Sunday on ESPN2.
Check out the code for these two charts, and please let me know if you spot any errors or if you have any questions.
This is according to the ActionNetwork. Someone should write an article on conference realignment and states with available online sports betting.