The baseball team achieved Monday what no other second place team in the Atlantic Coast Conference team had previously done -- it was denied a bid to the NCAA regional tournament.
Despite winning 11 of their last 12 regular season ACC games, the Blue Devils were unable to convince the selection committee that they were one of the top 48 teams in the country
"We're very disappointed," head coach Steve Traylor said. "For the first time in the history of the ACC, the No. 2 team is not going. A No. 5 team [in the ACC] -- N.C. State -- was a No. 2 seed in a regional, and we still weren't one of the top 48 teams taken. It's very disappointing, but what a great year our guys had."
Both the Wolfpack and Florida State were ACC teams that made the regionals despite finishing below Duke in the conference standings.
"[The committee] went around us twice to get to those two," senior Ryan Jackson said. "The ACC teams that got bids were one or two seeds, and we couldn't even pull a sixth-seed. That seems preposterous to me."
According to Jim Wright, media coordinator for the NCAA College World Series, one of the factors that prevented Duke from receiving a bid was the Blue Devils' poor non-conference schedule. Wright said the Blue Devils' non-conference strength of schedule ranked in the 250s out of the 276 Division I teams.
"What the committee has tried to do in recent years is emphasize the importance of playing a good non-conference schedule," Wright said. "That's where Duke had a problem this year, where the opponents that Duke scheduled did not have a very good year.
"Outside of Old Dominion, West Virginia, who made the tournament, and East Carolina, [who] was certainly being considered, all the rest of the non-conference opponents -- including the Howards, the Coppin States, the North Carolina A&Ts -- some of those teams just had miserable records."
Wright also noted that Duke's poor performance in the ACC tournament hurt the team's post-season chances. The Blue Devils lost both tournament games -- to Wake Forest and North Carolina.
The ACC teams that made the NCAAs -- Clemson, FSU, N.C. State and Georgia Tech -- all won at least two games in the ACC tournament.
"Another factor is how well you do in both the regular season and the post-season tournament," Wright said. "Certainly regular-season wise, Duke was right up there. Unfortunately, Duke didn't fare quite as well in the ACC tournament. That hurt them as well."
Traylor conceded that a better performance at the tourney may have helped the Blue Devils' chances.
"It sure would have helped to win a couple [in the tournament] to be sold to the committee a little bit harder," Traylor said.
A third factor -- one which Duke could not control -- was the high number of upsets that occurred in conference tournaments across the nation.
Wright said more than half of the conference tournaments were not won by the No. 1 seed, meaning some top teams received at-large bids rather than automatic bids.
"The committee knew early Sunday night as those upsets started coming in that there were going to be some very deserving teams that did not take this field, because unfortunately the numbers game of a 48-team bracket was coming into play," Wright said.
Still, the decision was a shock to all Blue Devils -- past and present -- who had expected Duke's first NCAA bid since 1961.
"To not get [the bid] was disappointing to the coaches, the players on our team right now, and also players that have played here in the past," Traylor said. "A lot of people went home from work to watch the ESPN pairings, got together with their friends and kind of suffered along with us. Nothing takes that disappointment away."
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.