So Cal Poly tied ASU at regionals and due to the tie breaker, will not be going to nationals. They tied the 13th ranked team in the country in a monster of a region, but the at-large process leaves them completely stranded.
If any of you watched the live coverage of the KOLAS calculator, you know that they originally thought Cal Poly beat ASU because the results have them listed in that order, and in that situation Cal Poly would definitely be going to Terre Haute as one of first few at-large selections. Then they realized their mistake and redid the calculations, which left Poly far in the dust. Doesn't it seem strange that in a race that came down to a difference of less than a second, a tie breaker decision(the college tie breaker seems like flipping a coin) has such a dramatic difference in the outcome of the teams at Nats?
Stanford, Portland, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona State are all ranked in the top 20 in the nation, and although Cal Poly is obviously not a contender to take down those top 3, it at least showed it is near the level of Washington, and at Regionals, ASU and Poly were equals.
Is the current selection process fair? I think for the most part it is, but I also think that in situations like this, where a team shows it is on par with a team like ASU, the committee shouldn't have to blindly follow a scoring system when an extenuating circumstance occurs.
Do you think Poly should be going to nationals? What do you all think of the tie breaker in college versus the 6th runner tie breaker, and what are the advantages of either tie breaker?