For the second straight season, Washington State missed out on advancing to an NCAA Division I males’s golf regional.
However for the second straight season, the Cougars will nonetheless be competing in Might.
Washington State is amongst 10 groups that can tee it up within the second annual Nationwide Golf Invitational, school golf’s model of the NIT in school basketball. The NGI, a 54-hole stroke-play event and the brainchild of Golfweek’s Lance Ringler, begins Friday at Ak-Chin Southern Dunes in Maricopa, Arizona.
“The sources which have been given and the significance that has been place on school golf within the final decade, that’s created a necessity for extra groups to have the chance to play postseason golf,” Ringler stated. “The NGI is that outlet. We’ve got mid-majors that completed second at convention, groups that beat their schedules handily however didn’t obtain the rankings to be seen, groups that hardly missed making regionals.”
The Cougars fall beneath the latter. The primary group ignored of the NCAA postseason on Choice Wednesday, Washington State ended the convention event season ranked No. 67 within the nationwide rankings, a spot behind Colorado State, which secured the ultimate at-large berth. The season prior, when Golfstat nonetheless was the NCAA’s official rating, the Cougars settled only a few spots under the magic quantity.
Based on Ringler, who ran his Golfweek/Sagarin group rankings behind the scenes this season, the Sagarins, which intently mirrored Golfstat most years, had Washington State comfortably in as an at-large.
“I do know the committee did every little thing they might to make one of the best choices, and I respect what they did,” Cougars coach Dustin White. “I believe our general physique of labor was fairly good, and sadly it simply obtained away from us on the very finish, and we’ll simply do higher subsequent time.”
Washington State completed ninth or higher in every of its first eight occasions this season, a stretch that featured 4 top-3s and put the Cougars at No. 50 in Mark Broadie’s new rating in early March.
Nevertheless, the squad’s remaining three outcomes appeared like this: twenty first, 14th, and eleventh on the Pac-12 Championship, the place Washington State was pressured to play the ultimate 36 holes of the 72-hole, 6-count-5 occasion with out its No. 2 participant, senior Preston Bebich, who has battled a again harm all spring.
Of their remaining Pac-12s earlier than changing into an affiliate member of the West Coast Convention for golf, the Cougars shot 98 over, 61 pictures behind champion Arizona State.
And when the 81 regional individuals have been introduced on Golf Channel, White and his gamers didn’t hear their names known as – once more.
“It stung,” White stated. “I’ve seen how exhausting these guys have labored, and we’ve performed some actually good golf a lot of the yr, so to overlook out by one – I informed the blokes, look, it’s like lacking the lower by one on the subsequent stage; the man lacking the lower by one versus the man that misses by 10 is a heckuva lot nearer to the place he needs to be. These guys are pounding the door and doing the proper issues, and it’s solely going to be a matter of time.
“The fellows are at peace now. However I informed them, don’t dwell on this, however do every little thing you possibly can subsequent time round to keep away from having this sense once more.”
Washington State tied for sixth at its NGI debut final yr, although it additionally completed simply 10 pictures again of champion Texas State. Three groups that competed in that inaugural yr – Arkansas State, Stetson and Ball State – went on to qualify for an NCAA regional this season. The Cougars, even with dropping 4 seniors, hope to do the identical subsequent season.
For now, although, they’ll look to indicate everybody that they belonged in regionals this yr.
“They have been pissed off, they have been irritated, and so they need to go right down to Phoenix and show some extent and say, that is actually who we’re,” White stated. “These guys nonetheless need to exit and compete, and so they need to put an exclamation level on their season.”
