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He didn't make the postseason roster, so his year is over. Just wants to let teams know now so they can watch him in summer ball, I guess. Clearly with that timing, he's checked out from this team, so good luck to him?

Agreed - I think MD could advance with the perfect situation, like a hitter friendly ballpark. But they'd need a lot of good luck to get the right matchups. I hate to say it, but Iowa might be the team that has the best chance to advance out of a regional - they can win a lot of different ways. Have to go vomit now.

Hell of a baseball game, but what a gut punch loss - to pitch that well against that team for 9 2/3 innings and then to lose it on a HR that scrapes the back of the outfield wall was crushing. The work on the mound brought back memories of what NU did to Arkansas in that first regional championship game a couple years ago, except I think this MD team is better offensively than those Hogs. Shay was sooooo close to getting through that 10th 1-2-3, but MD's hitter managed to keep fouling good pitches into the seats before he finally got a slight hanger and put a good swing on it. Jace was as good as he's been all year - he stayed up in the zone, knowing the ball wasn't going to carry at night in that park, and MD played into it. His off-speed stuff was great, too. Ultimately, we just couldn't hit fastballs last night. Dean for MD was mixing things up very well, as he had his off-speed stuff working nicely, but we just didn't seem ready for the fastball in the zone from any of their pitchers. I thought we had a lot of late and indecisive swings on fastballs. That's really disappointing. At this level, you have to punish fastballs when you get them in favorable counts. Also HATED that we brought the infield in on Shaw when he singled up the middle to tie it at 1. Should've been an RBI groundout with the infield back. If you have a chance to hold MD to a single run in the middle innings, you take it, rather than risking giving up a crooked number. Now Jace - eventually - worked around the trouble and kept them to a 1, but maybe we could've gotten another inning out of him if we play that inning safer. I will admit that I hated it at the time because I was sure there was no way we were winning that game 1-0, yet, had Shaw hit that grounder directly at Matthews, we might've gotten out of that inning with a zero and potentially could've won 1-0, so maybe the coaches actually know what they're doing more than me. Still, I hated the decision in the moment. The game nearly got away from us right there. Pretty much next to impossible to get to Sunday at this point, let alone win the whole thing. To have any shot, the offense has to crank up big time, and we're going to need unexpected dominant pitching performances from guys like Brockett, Sears, Walsh, Perry, Bunz, and Christo. Each of those guys does have a great performance in them, but they all have to do it now. No room for error. Weird things do happen in this tournament, and our offense generally has punished pitchers once we get past the top few guys on a pitching staff, but it's a tall, tall hill at this point.

Tons of info in an OWH/LJS update today: Keisei's decision should be known by early next week Gary's shoulder was going to need surgery, even if he had finished the season Hoiberg said the shoulder injury Gary had when he arrived at NU affected his shooting significantly NU may still add another player, but it's being choosy - any roster additions focus on team culture Gary and Allick hoping to be healthy for the Spain trip, which starts July 28 Hoiberg expects Allick to improve his 3-pt percentage significantly And more...

Whew. Not sure we deserved to win that one, but in tournament play, you have to win some ugly ones. To have RU's closer melt down like that was pretty crazy, but glad we were able to take advantage, since we missed some opportunities to deliver a knockout blow early. That turn of the double play in the 8th inning was absolutely amazing. For Carey to get anything on the throw to 2nd was impressive enough, but Max's turn with the runner on top of him was a thing of beauty. Huge, huge play in the game. Going to be a dogfight tomorrow. Need Jace to be ultra-sharp. Glad we're playing at night, as the ball won't travel in that park, and he'll have a better chance at negating UM's power. Of course we can't rely on power either, so hopefully we can manage some small ball runs.

Runs were tough to come by on day 1 in Omaha, especially considering how much the offenses were ahead of the pitching during the regular season in the B1G - hopefully our back half of the order has its small ball game dialed up for today and for the week.

Boyd's World's preseason projection for NU wasn't far off - we ended up 31-21-1 with RPI of #104 Was hoping we would've done better - but we can make the regular season forgettable by going on a big run this week in Omaha

These are great ideas, but you're asking a conference that hates spending more than 10 minutes thinking about baseball to actually put some thought into creating a fair schedule. I'm sure BTN was behind the schedule changes this year because they were tired of creating insomnia in their production crews by starting games at 11 pm last year. No one in the conference office seems to care about baseball, unfortunately. Heck, at this point, their football schedule was left in such a mess by the previous disaster of a commissioner that they're probably down to spending 3 minutes thinking about baseball.

At least he's the Bears' problem now.

Nice to win the finale - too bad we didn't win yesterday, too - would've been nice to be the #3 seed. Just have to hope for the best at this point - not sure we can put it all together and play at the top of our game for an entire week, but it would be a lot of fun to go on a run. Maybe being an underdog will do us some good. Probably must start 2-0 to have any shot, but weird things do happen in this conference tourney, so who knows.

Looks like MSU is going to knock off Indiana - if so... 16-6 Maryland 15-7 Indiana 14-7 Iowa 14-8 NU 13-9 Rutgers 13-9 Michigan 11-11 Mich St 12-12 Illinois ---- 10-12 Purdue 9-13 Minny Karma's a bitch, Purdue. I'd really love to catch Iowa or Indiana and get out of that #4/5 seed, but that's going to be tough with us protecting our pitching. Or it'd be nice to drop to #6 to get out of Maryland's side of the bracket.

Nice win - good to see PU's coach get the boot. What a putz. Excellent management of our pitching staff tonight. Guessing we're going to see some guys who haven't thrown much this year once Jace gets 4-5 innings tomorrow, so will need the bats to be rolling again. I believe we tied the team HR record for a season tonight at 93. Pretty crazy when you think about what everyone thought this team's offensive strengths would be before the season. Love seeing Swanson make PU pay for walking Max. What an idiotic move by PU's coach. On top of the idiotic move of leaving his starter out there with 120+ pitches to face NU's 2-3-4 hitters the 4th time through the order. Did I mention that PU's coach is a putz? ___________ By the way, Friday's game is now at noon Central so they can try to beat the rain. Funny how PU is willing to move some games around when they need to play. NU should refuse to allow the time change.

I should also mention, as much as I want to beat Purdue, realistically, this weekend means nothing in the big picture, while the B1G tourney means everything. I hope the coaches take that into account and keep pitch counts short - have everyone as fresh as possible for the B1G tourney, especially if we have to start on Tuesday. Especially important for Olson, so he can come back Tuesday (and hopefully the following Sunday). We'll see, though. It's one thing to make a plan like that but it's another thing to stick to it in a tight game. Everyone wants to win.

Nice all-around performance this weekend - I liked how the coaches basically forced the bottom half of the order to stop swinging for the fences by playing small ball with those guys, and it worked a lot. Saw a lot of unselfish at-bats and visible frustration when they knew they were a little selfish. Now it'd be tough to beat Maryland playing small ball that often, but it's going to work against most of the rest of the league. Also is a good strategy for playing in Omaha. And it should give those back half of the order guys some confidence - for example, they set up Evans in RBI situations quite a bit this weekend, and he hit the ball as well as he has in a month-plus. Haven't seen the two-base sac fly in a while - fun to do that in the same week as we get a triple play. On to Purdue - we owe them after the garbage they pulled last year ... and hopefully we kick the crap out of them and then stomp on the corpse.

Last night was everything that is so maddening and encouraging about this team. Slow starts, lackadaisical play early. Then their talent rises to the top and they find a way to win. Last year's team didn't have much talent, so when they lost, it was a shoulder shrug. This team is too talented to be sweating a trip to the B1G tourney going into the final two weeks. Sounds like Perry lit the boys up between games and they responded. Plus, Perry backed up his words with a strong outing on the mound. Hopefully they can take some inspiration from that and play with that same sense of urgency over these final games.

Disappointing finish to the series, but just thankful we won one game. We're scuffling and Maryland is red hot. This is the dominant Maryland team everyone was expecting to see, although they're scoring more and pitching worse than expected I think. It's too bad Christo and Sears were not good today, because we're going to need those guys to come up big in the B1G tourney. Doubtful we'll turn it around fully over the next two weeks, but hopefully we can gain a little momentum going into the B1G tourney against some weaker opponents than the Terps. Good news is Illinois finishes at Rutgers, so I'd guess they go 1-2 and finish 12-12. Plus we own the tiebreaker vs them, so 3-3 should be plenty, even if Illinois somehow wins the Rutgers series. Fingers crossed. At least Illinois finishes up this weekend (and has its league 'bye' the final weekend), so we'll know what we need to do going into that Purdue series to finish ahead of Illinois. It'd be nice to stay out of Maryland's half of the bracket. Think I'd rather be the 6 or 7 seed than the 4 or 5 seed. Unless the wind is howling in at TD all week, Maryland is going to wear out the pitching staffs in its half of the bracket in the tourney, which is a disaster in that format. Hopefully the Iowa players realize they cannot bet on sports yet in Omaha before they get on the bus for the tourney, so they'll have to make their bets before they leave or they'll need to walk over the pedestrian bridge near the stadium and bet over their phones once they're on Iowa's side of the river. Seriously, what a potential disaster that could be for the entire sport. Not sure why sports books feel the need to take wagers on regular-season college baseball, but I guess the low wager totals at least make it easy to spot fraud. Kind of scary to think about how easy it'd be to point shave in college football or some basketball games these days, where the total wager pool is much higher and wagering is available in so many different places, making it easier to hide fraud.

Great win today - Maryland is as hot as anyone. Just shows what can happen when you get some early runs. Tomorrow may be a bit wild. Probably take 10+ runs to win again tomorrow. A series win for us the way things have been going of late would be extremely impressive. I imagine we start Walsh, and he's the kind of pitcher that can mess up the hitters' timing really badly at least the first time through the order, so hopefully he's got sharp off-speed stuff for a few innings at least. I know it doesn't seem like it in a game that'll probably be 15-12, but jumping on top again tomorrow would be a very good sign.

A good bounce back by the boys after Friday's debacle. Not getting the sweep probably ends our regular season title hopes barring a miracle, but getting 2 of 3 at least keeps on track for a decent B1G tourney seed. It's so much easier to play from ahead. Props to the offense to get things going early and to the starting pitchers for being ready to pitch Saturday and Sunday. Tough, tough weekend coming up. Maryland is finally playing like they were expected to prior to the season. Going to need quick starts and some breaks to go our way to win that series.

Just can't survive down 2-0 and 4-1 every night. Chasing runs constantly is no way to live. Olson did a good job of battling back after the horrific start, but this team is definitely finding ways to lose right now instead of making plays to win. And I have to defend Matthews on the play in the 9th - he has blown some easy plays in the field this season, but that ball in the 9th was absolutely stung right at him and he had no chance but to try to field the short hop and it came up on him. Incredibly difficult play. At least half of major league shortstops would've had that bounce off their chests too. It's an error technically, but a very tough one. We never should've been in that spot, honestly. 4 straight batters hit bullets on 2-strike pitches to open the 9th. That should never happen. Clearly, Shay wasn't spotting well last night, as he grooved those 2-strike pitches. Plus, two of those hitters were trying to sacrifice before being forced to swing away with 2 strikes. Unreal. Then Bunz gives up the bases clearing double on another 2-strike pitch. Plus we load the bases in the 8th with our best hitter at the plate and can't score. Then we get the go-ahead run at the plate in the 9th with our other best hitter and can't score. Meanwhile, their #9 hitter who's below .200 blasts a key HR. It's really hard to believe sometimes.

I absolutely hated our approach at the plate tonight. You've got a SDSU starter who has barely pitched and who has clear control problems, and we are chasing too much and trying to hit everything 500 feet. How that dude had only 65-ish pitches thru 5-2/3 innings is almost criminal. Needed to make him work waaaaay harder than we did. Then that got me thinking. Our offensive approach has been pretty poor for most of the month of April. It's been the same story. Lackadaisical approach at the plate to start games over and over and over. Not sure what our game plan has been, but it ain't working. And now that our weekend starters are showing cracks in the armor, our slow starts offensively are magnified significantly. It seems like we're always behind 2-0, 3-0, 4-0. It's tough to win when you're always fighting from behind in baseball. Kind of explains why we've been struggling so much in the midweeks, as we're always behind it seems like. We haven't had that problem so much on Fridays and Saturdays until lately, but it's becoming a huge problem now. Feels like we spent February and March showing we were a surprise HR hitting team, and now in April, when our bats should be really heating up, we're just kind of taking it for granted that we're going to hit some bombs and come from behind. We need to get back to the basics we had early when we weren't thinking about HRs, and they were just happening. I'm not a rah-rah guy, especially in baseball, but we definitely need more intensity / focus at the start of games. Maybe we need a more stringent plan at the plate that everyone needs to follow, maybe we need to swap Burnham and Matthews in the order, maybe we need to do something different in BP, I'm not sure. Sometimes, it's hard when your two best players make it look so easy and are laid-back players. The rest of the team kind of takes on that same mentality / approach, but those other guys need a bit more focus. Starting to feel like that leadership vacuum we had last year is rearing its ugly head again now. We were hiding it with great starting weekend pitching and tons of bombs for quite a while, but with the season on the line, it's slipping away. I'm not sure who the 'enforcer' is on this team, and it's probably too late to find one at this point. It's tough when your 5th-year senior hitters don't really have a significant role for them to live up to their captaincies. Maybe Efry can get them going - he is hitting better of late and getting more playing time and he's a guy that will show a little fire. ------ It was great to see Christo pitch so well last night and Sears tonight. If I'm the coaches, I'm starting Christo Sunday and I'm giving Sears consideration as a weekend starter, too, if Kaminska can't get it back. Christo and Sears have electric arms, maybe the best arms on the team, so to get them going would be a big, big help heading into the postseason. We're kind of at the point where we can't worry about a bad outing from one of those guys on the weekend setting them back mentally. We're down to crunch time, and they can either help us in the postseason or they can't. Might as well try it while they both have a shot of confidence. Also should mention SDSU played a very solid game and definitely deserved to win. But at some point the opponent outplaying us / wanting it more than us has to stop. We have way too much talent for those kinds of things to happen, especially in the midweek. To me, it all comes back to lackadaisical approaches at the plate early in games.

Ugh. Didn't compete at all this weekend. Thought we had that kind of effort out of our system after the horrible trip to USD on opening weekend. Team's at a crossroads now. Starting pitching needs to find its groove again, or this thing is over. Baseball teams tend to have blips on the radar like this on occasion during a season, and we've had more than our share of them in that hellhole of a diamond in Iowa City over the past decade plus, so hopefully that's all it is. If you'll remember, the 2021 champs got swept at home by Rutgers in late April and recovered. The 2017 champs lost 3 of 5 to Iowa and Minny in mid-April and recovered. The schedule sets up to get right over the next 6 games (3 in conference). Hopefully we can., but it's looking pretty bleak after that complete disaster of a weekend. No margin for error left now if we want to try to win the regular season title. Probably need to go 10-2, maybe 11-1, from here. Difficult, but possible ... but only if Olson and Kaminska bounce back fast.

If a new user pops up on here now called "NebrasketballGPT," I'm going to be officially terrified.

Truth.

Sigh. I guess CU doesn't want to finish tonight. Shock. What a clown move. Trash program.

1st - 7-2 Nebraska (at Iowa / Minn / at MD / PSU / at Purdue - 23-25 remaining - #8) 2nd - 9-3 Indiana (MD / at NW / Purdue / at MSU - 22-17 remaining - #4) 3rd - 6-3 Maryland (Purdue / at Indiana / NU / Minn / at PSU - 29-22 remaining - #3) 6-3 Michigan St (at Mich / NW / at Illinois / at Iowa / Indiana - 27-27 remaining - #6) 5th - 7-5 Purdue (at MD / Rutg / at Indiana / NU - 26-13 remaining - #1) 7-5 Michigan (MSU / at Minn / NW / at OSU - 16-23 remaining - #11) 7th - 4-5 Iowa (NU / at PSU / OSU / MSU / at NW - 21-27 remaining - #10) 4-5 Rutgers (at NW / at Purdue / PSU / Illinois / at Minn - 20-31 remaining - #13) 4-5 Minnesota (at Illinois / at NU / Mich / at MD / Rutg - 28-23 remaining - #5) 10th - 4-8 Illinois (Minn / at OSU / MSU / at Rutg - 17-22 remaining - #9) 3-6 N’western (Rutg / at MSU / Indiana / at Mich / Iowa - 30-21 remaining - #2) 12th - 3-9 Ohio St (at PSU / Illinois / at Iowa / Mich - 17-25 remaining - #12) 13th - 2-7 Penn St (OSU / Iowa / at Rutg / at NU / MD - 24-24 remaining - #7) Huge series this weekend for us & for Iowa - Hawkeyes will be putting all their eggs into trying to win the series, or they're pretty much out of the conference race. They have a weak schedule over the back half, so they could make a big run late, but they need to close the gap on us. We get 2 of 3 at Iowa, and we have a great chance to win the league, as our back half schedule sets up nicely as well. NW may not win another league game - brutal schedule remaining. And watch out for Rutgers - they have a favorable schedule left and could make a big run up the standings. Michigan's remaining schedule is favorable too.