throwback

That's been pretty rare the past several years, so it was impressive. We looked like a veteran team that knows what it's doing.

Not a huge surprise, but sounds like we're going to be spending a lot of time out west in our 2025 schedule. Sounds like we're playing a tough tournament in Arizona to open the season Feb. 14-ish and we'll have road trips to USC and UCLA in league (not sure exactly when). We also may have another weekend trip out to the state of California for a non-con series. Hope we're flying charter for at least a couple of the trips. Some talk that Oregon St is coming to Lincoln for a non-con series - not sure if it's midweek or weekend. Sounds like we'll have a couple more tough B1G road series in addition to USC/UCLA, although it sounds like we're going to miss playing Oregon entirely. With 10 conference weekends now, we only get 4 non-con weekends, and it sounds like we're scheduling up. If it all comes together, I think it'll easily be the toughest schedule we've had under Bolt. Good thing we get some bonuses in RPI for playing on the road, but still got to win some of them. I think this team is going to be ready for the challenge - it's a good time to schedule up. They should be announcing the official schedule sometime this month. --- Also, we're playing Wichita in a fall exhibition at Haymarket Park Sept. 21 at 1 pm - Red/White series is Oct 11-16, but taking Oct 13 off - times announced later.

Not a game, but still pretty cool

Not really 2024 related, but NU is stacking Midwest high school pitchers for the 2025 class/2026 season. My goodness. Childress effect taking effect.

If you ever wanted to try BIG+ you can pretend to be a USC fan and receive a year for free. https://www.bigtenplus.com/en-int/page/welcome-usc-fans?couponCode=USC24

Trey McGowens was at training camp for the 3v3 USA team, but it doesn't look like he made the Olympic roster.

Bet they wish they'd have played that 4th game against us that they cancelled because they couldn't handle basketball and baseball going on at the same time - plus they blew a couple late leads against us - if they win just once in that series, they're probably in.

And if you want to play the "what if" game today - we blew 5 9th-inning leads this season, plus we lost to Tech when tied going into the 9th. We win just 4 of those games, we finish in a tie for the B1G regular season at 18-6 and - assuming the B1G tourney goes the same way - finish 43-16 overall. That's a guaranteed host resume - fits all the criteria for B1G teams that have hosted in the past (18+ conference wins, conference regular season title, 42+ wins). Plus we'd have had the B1G tourney title. One nasty closer on the roster away from it. So close.

I'm going to guess Arkansas because .... well, it's the NCAA selection committee. If the NCAA has its way, we'll be playing at Arkansas in NCAA regionals until Van Horn retires. Really, really sucks that no northern team was selected to host. The selection committee should be embarrassed by that. All the talk of wanting to grow the game goes out the window with garbage decisions like this. Indiana State had the metrics to host, and absolutely deserved it. Terrible decision. Hell, I'd almost say we deserved to host more than Arizona. Hope Illinois gets a bid, but with the way the NCAA treated the northern teams on hosting, I'm not sure. UI will be sweating it out today. Ultimately, I think Illinois gets in, but probably one of the last 4 in. And if PSU had won yesterday, I'd guarantee Illinois would get left out. The committee always spouts that conferences don't get a certain number of bids, but it's garbage. They give the ACC and SEC as many bids as they want and split up the leftovers among the others. PSU would've stolen Illinois' bid yesterday for sure.

Unreal run through the losers' bracket - I figured we'd be good for the first 2 elimination games with Sears & Mac, but our pitchers were unbelievably good past them, and that's what it takes to make that kind of run. I didn't think we had it in us, but they found a way. Tons of fun. Coach Childress deserves a ton of credit - his sequences were carving up some really good hitters, and the guys executed it. We found some clutch hitting too - so happy for Swanny - amazing what a little confidence can do for you. Overbeek & Columbus & Stokes were really good too. And Caron told the rest of the B1G to shove their leaving him off the 1st 2nd and 3rd team all B1G with emphasis. Plus he caught all 52 defensive innings we had. I'm not sure how he was able to walk by Sunday, let alone bang another huge HR. Perhaps the most incredible individual performance for a Husker position player in the postseason I've ever seen. That 5-game stretch was as good as we've played all year ... and that's saying something as good as we were in Febr through about mid-April. Not only did we run off 5 straight elimination wins, but we technically had nothing to play for and all 5 of those games were against teams that had to win the B1G Tourney to get an NCAA bid, so they were playing with desperation. Truly amazing toughness and determination by our guys. The last 6-ish weeks have been uneven and a little rough, but sometimes you have to go through some rough patches to make you resilient in the postseason. Hope we can keep it going this weekend - no one wants to see us in their regional, I can guarantee that.

"to play"

Stephen is a rebel.

That's probably what we'll do, if they even decide to start Sears on Sunday - but I do know the coaches want to win this tourney very badly. There's nothing quite like celebrating a title and hosting that trophy ... and to do it before 15000+ Husker fans on Sunday in Omaha would be unreal. Once you're in that tourney mentality, you don't want to give off the vibe that it's OK to lose or that you're 'saving' something. If they have a chance to win Sunday, they'll go all out to win it. Kind of that "put everything into winning today and worry about tomorrow, tomorrow" mentality that you have to have in the postseason. We'll see what happens. If they manage to get to Sunday and give Sears the ball, he may not give it back. I've heard he's a bit of a competitor.

Big Ten Tourney Schedule - https://bigten.org/base/article/blt739b9d24b60d2cb5/ Maybe not the best sign, but only 3 (Indiana, Ohio St, Iowa) of NU's 8 conference opponents made the B1G tourney - Maryland, Mich St, Rutgers, NW, and Minnesota all missed the B1G tourney. Other NU Opponents in Postseason Most of these tournaments start Tuesday - pretty amazing how well NU's non-con opponents performed this season Big XII Tournament Oklahoma - #1 seed K-State - #6 seed Kansas - #7 seed Texas Tech - #10 seed Baylor - DNQ (The Big XII invites 10 teams - might be a format the B1G adopts next season - https://big12sports.com/tournaments/?id=1035 - it looks like they play double elimination up to the final four, and then it becomes single elimination) WAC Tournament Grand Canyon - #1 seed https://wacsports.com/news/2024/5/18/2024-university-credit-union-wac-baseball-tournament-bracket-finalized.aspx CAA Tournament College of Charleston - #1 seed https://caasports.com/news/2024/5/18/pairings-set-for-2024-caa-baseball-championship.aspx Sun Belt Tournament South Alabama - #9 seed (must win single-elimination game to get to main part of tourney) https://sunbeltsports.org/news/2024/5/18/bracket-set-for-2024-guardian-credit-union-sun-belt-conference-baseball-championship-presented-by-troy-university.aspx AAC Tournament Wichita St - #4 seed https://theamerican.org/news/2024/5/18/seeding-set-for-2024-american-baseball-championship-presented-by-regions.aspx Southland Tournament Nicholls - #2 seed https://www.southland.org/tournaments/?id=202&path=baseball Summit Tournament Omaha - #1 seed N Dakota St - #2 seed S Dakota St - DNQ (St Thomas won the regular season, but is ineliglble for the conf tourney as it transitions to D1) https://thesummitleague.org/tournaments/?id=255 Conference USA Tournament New Mexico St - #7 seed https://conferenceusa.com/tournaments/?id=516&path=baseball Big East Tournament bluebirds - DNQ (although they are the #1 seed for the NCAA Midweek Championship Tournament)

Ha, that dude was a mess back there today. Not sure I've seen Caron look backward after a missed call like that the entire season. A bouncing strike zone didn't cost us the win, but it was bad. I loved when Overbeek was taking his time to get in the box to start the at bat in the 5th or 6th - you could see the ump getting agitated. Then he rings him up on the first pitch of the at bat that was almost a foot outside. I also loved how he was going to call a pitch clock violation out of the blue in the middle of the game. He clearly wasn't paying attention to it all weekend, because whoever was pushing the button for the clock had no idea what they were doing. It didn't get reset correctly most of the weekend. But he decides in the middle of game 3 that it's time to peek at it.

Disappointing way to end a really good season, but the three-headed monster that has bit us all year struck again - shaky defense, shaky offense, and a bullpen that loves gasoline. It's just tough for us to survive without a great start on the mound, and Brockett didn't have it today, unfortunately. Of course, he made a huge error and Brumbaugh dropping that double play ball in the 2nd to make things look way worse. Maybe Brockett gets it going if he puts up a zero like he should've in the 2nd. Hope we can get hot next week, but asking this team to win 4 games in a week with our current lack of pitching depth is going to be really, really tough unless we start Sears twice if we get to Sunday. Which we may do. Honestly, I wouldn't hate it. I wouldn't mind starting Mac against a #3 seed Friday in the NCAA regional and saving Sears for the Saturday game against hopefully the #1 seed. So you could use Sears twice next week and give him the extra day of rest by using him Saturday in an NCAA regional. Of course, if you lose Friday and have to start Sears against a #4 seed on Saturday, you look like idiots. But I think it's worth the risk. It would appear we have zero chance if we end up in the losers bracket in any tournament, so we might as well shoot for the moon. Our bullpen past the first few guys isn't going to completely shut anyone down, and we're not going to outscore most teams, and you usually have to do both at least once if you end up in the losers bracket.

I don't think we'll do this but I'm starting Walsh today since we don't control our own destiny. I'm saving Brockett to start Tuesday The way MSU's pitching staff has been going lately, we probably can get 10+ runs again today, so might as well start Walsh and take our chances. Walsh mowed down MSU last year, so he may have their number. If we start Brockett on Tuesday, Sears & Mac stay close to their normal rest next week, and Brockett should be able to come back in the championship on Sunday. Besides, I don't think PU will try at all today. They'll definitely not use any of their best arms vs Illinois - other than it being senior day, this game means nothing to PU, so they'll try to set themselves up to make a run next week. Plus, they're PU baseball, so anything they can do to screw over NU, they'll do it. I don't think we'll do this either, but if we start Brockett today, I'm starting Walsh Tuesday for the same reasons. I also like Walsh in that big ballpark. Don't think we'll do either one, though. That's probably why I'm not coaching.

Is there a bigger pile of @#R$!F# in the B1G in any sport than Purdue baseball? I mean how many times over a multi-year span can they screw us over without even playing us? (I reserve the right to change my mind on this take in about 12 hours.)

Crazy year - looked like our B1G schedule was pretty tough, but all 4 of our non-plays will make the tourney. Maybe that's because they didn't lose a series to NU. Purdue owes us to beat Illinois tonight after the garbage PU pulled two years ago.

Glad to see the bats punish their bullpen and to start quick against a really good lefty. Rinse and repeat for tomorrow, please.

Great win - but my goodness do we have to get the bats going. I'm not sure how many more 2-1 games i can survive. Too bad PU couldn't help us - maybe tomorrow. The turnaround with Clark is nothing short of incredible.

Hope we're ready to go this weekend with a B1G title on the line. MSU's pitching is an absolute mess right now, so our bats need to go to work and go get the sweep. Thursday will be the toughest pitching matchup, so if we can survive that one, MSU has allowed an average of 12.7 runs per game in games 2 and 3 of their last 5 B1G series. Have to take advantage at the plate and make it easy on our pitching staff for a change.