throwback

Welp. If we go 2-0 from here and Indiana loses to both Oregon and Ohio St, we can still get to #9 seed. Otherwise, we're playing on Wednesday ... hopefully. Go 0-2 and we can still miss the B1G tourney ... and the chances are pretty high that we will. Most of those teams toward the bottom have multi-team tiebreakers over us. That loss today was a killer. In fact, even if we beat OSU, we won't be guaranteed a spot in the B1G tourney immediately. We might have to wait to see some other results later in the week. Because of how poorly we fare in the multi-team tiebreakers against the lower teams, we still might need to beat Iowa to make the tourney. So we have to beat OSU to keep alive any hope of getting a day one bye. But we may have to beat Iowa to make sure we're in the tourney at all. For the games Sunday thru Tuesday, the games that really affect us are Indiana at Oregon and UCLA at NW. If we beat OSU and NW loses to UCLA, that won't quite clinch a spot in the B1G tourney, but we'll be in pretty good shape barring 3 or 4 major upsets in other games down the stretch. If we beat OSU and Indiana loses to Oregon, that still keeps alive for the #9 seed. If we lose to OSU, it very likely will take a win over Iowa to make the B1G tourney. We might sneak in as the #15 seed by going 0-2 if USC loses its last two games (home v Wash / at UCLA); otherwise 0-2 almost certainly leaves us out. More great news on a shit sandwich of a day.

Disappointing after getting that great start, but LSU can really score. How UNO no-hit them for almost 8 innings last week might be the biggest mystery since why NU hoops can't seem to decide to start playing until they're down by 15-20 pts. Nunez continues to be a major bright spot - nice to see Frost get going, too. Surprised by Sanderson's slow start. We need him to have a big year. I have no idea what the coaches see in Clark. Of course, considering how the guys performed after him -- outside of Jasa's one good inning -- probably wouldn't have mattered much. Huge, huge game tomorrow. Come home with another non-winning weekend, and our regional hosting chances are almost certainly gone. Unfortunately, K-State is rolling after a tough first weekend. We'll have to earn it. Need Brockett & Christo to be brilliant. Wouldn't surprise me if we get Worthley for a couple lefty batters if it's tight and ask Broderick to go multiple innings. Sounds like Mac felt a little tweak last night - with pitchers, that's not good. Hopefully he felt it early enough and shut things down before any injury occurred. Hoping for the best - we definitely need him.

It takes a special kind of awful effort to shut out Garcia in the first half and to give up 1 FT and still have to rally to get the halftime deficit to 9 against that team. The defense has its own problems -- how do we commit 1 foul in the first half on a poor FT shooting team that was dicing us up inside? why do we let them completely dictate the pace for the first 25 minutes with zero adjustments? -- but I have no idea what this team is trying to do on offense. Why do you spend the first 4 minutes forcing every ball into Meah and then never do it again? The first half was a contest to see which offensive player could stand in one place longer. Not sure why we weren't extending the game with fouls in the final 90 seconds when they'd have had three straight 1&1s. And that decision to try for the 10-second call worked, but just another head-scratching decision. Aren't we better off trying to force them to hit 1&1s and extending the number of possessions? Somebody who knows the analytics would have to weigh in on that one, but I have to imagine the percentages are pretty low getting the 10-second call vs them potentially missing the front end of the 1&1. Minnesota just beat us on our home floor with 3 made FTs. One of the most disgusting losses I can remember in a while.

N70 OS 63 6

NU 71 UM 66

Reasonable chance Brockett starts Sunday vs K-State, especially after what he did to them last year. Save Walsh for the game at UNO the following Tuesday. Long-range weather forecast for first home games, pretty good, all things considered: Mar 4 at Omaha - 52 degrees and a chance of rain - windy Mar 5 vs S Dak St - 45 - windy Mar 7 vs Wash - 46 Mar 8 vs Wash - 55 Mar 9 vs Wash - 61 Mar 11 vs Wichita - 57 Mar 12 vs Wichita - 54

After Monday's games and if chalk holds from here (chalk according to the bracket generator), not much change from previously: NU goes 3-0 #9 seed - Wed BYE; Thur v Illinois *We could still get to #8 seed if we go 3-0 and Illinois loses one game to Iowa/Mich/Pur; could still get to #7 seed if we go 3-0, Illinois loses one, and Oregon loses two of USC/Wash/Indiana NU goes 2-1 Wins vs OSU/Minn or OSU/Iowa - #9 seed - Wed BYE; Thur vs Illinois Wins vs Iowa/Minn - #10 seed - Wed vs Minn; Thur vs Oregon *If we go 2-1 and lose to OSU, we could still get to the #9 seed if OSU loses to USC and beats Indiana. With NU/OSU/IU at 9-11, we win the tiebreaker for 9th. (Indiana would also have to go 2-1 in its other 3 remaining games vs PSU/Wash/Ore - we need it to be a three-way tiebreaker. And we need Rutgers to stay out of the tiebreaker, so they have to go 1-2 vs Minn/Pur/MIch. And we'd need USC to lose to Oregon to keep them out of the tiebreaker.) NU goes 1-2 #12 seed - Wed vs NW; Thur vs Mich NU goes 0-3 Misses tourney If chalk holds, double byes go to: 1-Maryland 2-Wisc 3-MSU 4-Purdue Of course, there's no way chalk holds from here - at least as the generator selects chalk. Some of the generator's "favorites" are a little suspect based on how teams are playing now. We definitely could use Ohio St to lose at USC tomorrow to help our seeding chances of getting to #9.

If chalk holds from here and NU beats NW, NU would be the #10 seed and play #15 Penn St on Wednesday. #7 Mich St would be next on Thursday. (If a few upsets happen, NU could get as high as #7 I think.) 1. UCLA (16 - 1) 2. USC (15 - 2) 3. Ohio St (14 - 4) 4. Maryland (12 - 6) / Above Michigan based on head-to-head record (1-0). 5. Michigan (12 - 6) / Below Maryland based on head-to-head record (0-1). 6. Illinois (11 - 7) / Above Mich St and Oregon based on winning percentage against #4 teams [Maryland and Michigan] (1-1). 7. Mich St (11 - 7) / Above Oregon and below Illinois based on winning percentage against #4 teams [Maryland and Michigan] (1-2). 8. Oregon (11 - 7) / Below Illinois and Mich St based on winning percentage against #4 teams [Maryland and Michigan] (0-2). 9. Indiana (10 - 8 ) / Above Nebraska based on head-to-head record (1-0). 10. Nebraska (10 - 8 ) / Below Indiana based on head-to-head record (0-1). 11. Iowa (9 - 9) / Above Minnesota based on head-to-head record (1-0). 12. Minnesota (9 - 9) / Below Iowa based on head-to-head record (0-1). 13. Wash (7 - 11) 14. Wisconsin (4 - 14) 15. Penn St (3 - 15) ------- 16. N'western (2 - 14) 17. Rutgers (2 - 16) 18. Purdue (2 - 16) If NU loses to NW and chalk holds, NU falls to #11 and would play #14 Wisconsin - #6 Illinois would be Thursday. https://bball.notnothing.net/big10.php?sport=wbb

Saw during the Wisky-UO game yesterday that the last time every B1G team won at least 5 conference games was 2014. Could happen again this year, although we're playing 20 games now instead of 18 -- and there are a few more teams. Hard to believe PU ever finished last with Painter in charge ... but it's actually happened twice in his time there.

Not a Husker opponent, but UNO clinched at least a share of the Summit title last night for the first time - can win it outright with one more win in a game they'll be heavily favored at home. If they win the regular season title outright, they get 2 chances to make the NCAA tourney - win the Summit tourney themselves or have second-place St. Thomas win the Summit tourney - The Tommies are ineligible for the NCAA tourney while they transition to D-1 , so UNO would go as the regular season champ. If they go, UNO is right on the edge of being one of the four lowest 16 seeds - as a bottom four seed, they'd be in Dayton & give them a roughly 50/50 shot at winning a game. I think they'll be seeded a little too high to end up in Dayton if they make the NCAAs, but if, say, they get upset in the Summit quarters and St. Thomas wins the whole thing, UNO could drop into one of those last four 16 seeds.

Exactly. Wonder if we have too many veteran hitters thinking about their draft status in June and not focusing on the work it takes to get there. Our approach at the plate is absolute garbage so far. And outside of Vandy, we've really only faced 2-3 plus arms ... and we beat one of them Friday. Makes no sense unless guys are thinking about the wrong things up there.

A season's worth of terrible baseball in one afternoon. Pretty telling that the only hitter who did anything today was a freshman. Horn was solid, as were a couple of freshmen on the bump. Otherwise, really bad all the way around. Our veteran guys are not carrying their weight right now at the plate or on the mound. Margin for error is gone now. Need huge performances next weekend and against Oregon St -- plus dominate the midweeks -- to have any hope of being a regional host. It's not over, but it's in serious trouble already. Just awful after we had set ourselves up for a great day with last night's win and how deep we got into ULL's bullpen. But we never threatened to take advantage of it. Made things very easy on ULL.

After Friday's games - if chalk holds in the other games from here (which of course won't happen): NU goes 0-4 Misses B1G tournament NU goes 1-3 Win vs Iowa or OSU or Mich: #12 seed vs Rutgers Wednesday; Michigan Thursday Win vs Minny: #12 seed vs Iowa Wednesday; Michigan Thursday NU goes 2-2 Wins vs Iowa/OSU or Minny/OSU or Mich/OSU: #9 seed BYE Wednesday; Oregon Thursday Wins vs Iowa/Minny or Iowa/Mich: #10 seed vs Minny Wednesday; Illinois Thursday Wins vs Mich/Minny: #10 seed vs NW Wednesday; Illinois Thursday NU goes 3-1 Loss vs Mich or Minny or Iowa: #9 seed BYE Wednesday; Oregon Thursday Loss vs OSU: #10 seed vs Minny Wednesday; Illinois Thursday NU goes 4-0 #7 seed BYE Wednesday; OSU-Minny winner Thursday If chalk holds, top 4 seeds would be: 1-Wiscy 2-Maryland 3-MSU 4-Purdue

Couldn't have started a weekend series much better than that - our starter goes 6 innings and dominates - our hitters see almost 200 pitches and 6 pitchers with a double header on deck. A road sweep is always difficult but we set ourselves up to go get one.

Hope you're doing better!

Double-header on Saturday

Not a great weekend weather-forecast wise in Louisiana - get ready for a probable double header Saturday. Luckily we have Brockett available as a 3rd stretched-out guy if we have to play 18 innings Saturday and Horn or Walsh get into early trouble.

Playing with the bracket projector a little bit - we're probably going to have to go at least 3-1 down the stretch to have a shot to get into the top 9 and get that first-day bye. And we probably have to win at Ohio State or hope they get swept on their LA roadie - we lose most of the tie-breakers to them if we lose the rematch and we're both at 10-10. However, if we beat OSU but only go 1-2 in the other 3 games, we could still get to #9 at 9-11 because then we win the tie-breakers against Ohio St. For our hopes of getting a day 1 bye, that OSU game looks like the big one. If we go 4-0, good chance at #7 seed - could get to #6 with a miracle or two. If we go 2-2 with wins vs Iowegia and Minny - likely would be the #10 seed If worst case scenario happens, we could still miss the tourney. https://bball.notnothing.net/big10.php?sport=mbb

N 81 M 76

Holy crap - what a tough kid. I mean it's not quite Komine pitching in the NCAA supers at Stanford with his jaw wired shut, but still really tough. Hearing he'll probably be out until the Washington series, maybe a little longer. Needed some surgery, obviously. Glad he'll be OK.

Hopefully this GCU game wasn't a preview of how we're going to play in midweek games again. Still, 2-2 is a solid start against that quality of opponents on opening weekend. Really need to go 4-2 the next two weekends - ULL had a bad opening weekend, as did K-State, so 4-2 is definitely doable. The bad: The offense at times was really bad. Way too many Ks again. Still, if the offense was just average vs GCU, we have a 3-1 weekend, so I'm not too worried about it. Frost had a rough start - he's too good of a hitter to go 0-fer much longer. Just needs to get that 1st hit to get going. Too many veteran pitchers struggling with the strike zone. Again, I think we can chalk it up to first weekend jitters. Not too worried about it. Regardless, Childress won't put up with it, so it'll get fixed one way or the other. Wish we could've pitched a few more freshmen, but the game circumstances just didn't allow it. The good: That win over Vandy was really impressive. We pitched out of some tough spots. Yes, the offense struggled outside of Swanny, but the rest of the guys did a nice job working counts and getting on base. That Vandy starter is the real deal, and Vandy threw a lot of plus arms at us, yet we still found a way to win. We really competed - which makes the GCU game that much more disappointing because we didn't compete like we can. Defense - significantly better than I expected - Sanderson was good at first and Jesske stepped up at catcher vs San Diego St - especially for an opening weekend, we were really good in the field Carey - He didn't have a huge weekend in any one category, but he looks so much more comfortable on defense and at the plate. Really impressive. Brumbaugh - I was skeptical of him hitting leadoff and playing 2nd base, but he was really good other than for the opener - nice that he's healthy. Horn - Outside of the first inning jitters, he was dealing against a lineup that looks the part. He is poised for a big season. Walsh & Brockett - If those two guys can pitch like that the rest of the year, we're going to win a ton of games. Very few teams have #3 and #4 starters like that. Jasa - So excited to see him put up 2 strong innings with only 1 walk. Might have the best arm on the team ... as long as he can find the zone. Much more to like than dislike on the opening weekend. Really wish we could've gotten to 3-1, but we can make up for it the next two weekends. Inside the league, Michigan was great on opening weekend. Also liked what Purdue did. N'western won a series at Long Beach. Penn St looked good. Indiana was a mess. More good than bad in the league on opening weekend.

And the Iowegians score 24 in the second half and lose by 26. Guessing Fran-con was close to an 2 in the second half.

Jesske starting at catcher today - Helligso got dinged up last night but might play late if needed - otherwise same lineup as last night - Cymbalista must not be quite ready to go multiple innings.

Erased two double-digit second-half deficits on the road in a two-week span. Let's not need to do that Wednesday and give Fred's hand time to heal.