throwback

We're switching up the rotation this weekend - Sears / Christo / McConnaughey - I think this is the way to go.

I'll just drop this in here - Warren Nolan's site is not great at predictive metrics, but if this one happens to be accurate for our final record, conference record, and RPI, we will be a top 8 national seed guaranteed. Even if we can get all 3 Ws this weekend and put up an 18-5 start, the 44 wins predicted here might be a bit crazy, but 40-41 wins isn't completely crazy. And 40-41 wins would be regional hosting territory. https://www.warrennolan.com/baseball/2024/team-sheet-predict?team=Nebraska (These quadrants are not accurate, by the way - NCAA changed the quadrants for this season, and this site hasn't updated them yet.)

Was afraid we'd have a bit of a letdown tonight and we certainly did at the plate - to be fair, not a fun night to hit, but we didn't have great approaches, either. Fortunately, our guys on the bump were ready to go. 5 Ws down, 3 to go on the homestand. The great start to the season continues.

Great - we get a cold night for a non-con game and it's against a team that thinks 40 degrees is a good day to go to the beach.

Sounds like Dr. Gold from UNMC is going to be the new NU president - depending on which insider source you believe, this is exactly who Trev wanted / didn't want to get the job. This whole thing has been beyond strange. Good to have all of the administrative drama over so we now can focus on that 1st hoops NCAA win.

The speed at which things move in the AD transfer portal might be even faster than in the athlete transfer portal.

Not the smoothest performance we've ever had, but it was plenty good enough. McConnaughey was cruising at such a high level that they must've scrapped their plan to get him out after a few innings. Since it was a pretty easy night for him with very few stressful pitches, he should be OK to maybe start Sunday, if that's the direction they decide to go. Hope Walsh is ready to pitch tomorrow at the same level as he's been swinging it. 3 bombs in 3 games would be pretty amazing if he had been in the lineup all season - it's beyond amazing after coming in cold off the bench. He's red hot, but I doubt they have him hit and pitch tomorrow. He needs to focus on being on the bump and try to get us through 5 after we had to use a lot of our top bullpen arms tonight.

Sounds like it's pitching by committee tonight - they want 3 innings from McConnaughey to save him for the weekend, but they also want him to get used to starting.

Unfortunately for them, the Mavs are bad, really bad. But they did play the bluebirds tight last week in the midweek, so NU doesn't want to play around tomorrow. UNO can pitch a little, but they really can't score. 269th in batting average and 284th in OPS. Been shut out 3 times already and 2 or fewer runs 8 times in 18 games. That's awful, especially against a weak schedule (ranks 293rd). We are 58th in batting average, 103rd in OPS, and 2nd in schedule strength. I think we'll be able to cruise tomorrow - we have enough guys left on the roster, plus a former Mav, who know what happened a year ago and who don't want a repeat. If we're going to have a letdown this week, it'll be Wednesday would be my guess. Hopefully not, but that'd be the spot for it. Weather sounds cold and wet this weekend, so hopefully we can get all 3 games in vs the Aggies.

B1G Boyd's World RPIs through 5 weeks: 4 Nebraska (13-5) (-1 spot vs last week) 32 Maryland (15-5) (3 H) (+7) 39 Rutgers (10-4) (3 A) (+23) 53 Ohio St (10-8) (3 H) (+18) 64 N'western (7-9) (3 A) (-15) 65 Indiana (9-6) (3 H) (-10) 79 Purdue (12-4)* (-14) 91 Iowa (10-9) (3 H) (+6) 136 Michigan (7-13)* (-20) 140 Illinois (7-11)* (-13) 165 Michigan St (7-10) (3 A) (-13) 169 Penn St (11-6)* (-40) 212 Minnesota (8-9) (3 A) (-19) * NU doesn't play Non-con opponents: 5 Oklahoma (13-6) -- L (1 N) (+5) 56 K-State (13-6) (1 A, 1 H) (+26) 57 bluebirds (14-3) (2 A, 1 H) (-17) 66 South Alabama (12-8) -- LWW (3 H) (-15) 70 Texas Tech (14-6) -- L (1 N) (-25) 71 Wichita St (13-6) -- WL (2 A) (-23) 93 Kansas (10-8) (1 A, 1 H) (-25) 95 Grand Canyon (11-8) -- WWLW (4 A) (+14) 103 Nicholls (17-6) -- WWW (3 H) (+25) 124 North Dakota St (5-14) (1 H) (-26) 127 South Dakota St (10-10) (1 H) (+31) 132 Coll of Charleston (12-6) -- WWW (3 A) (+56) 155 Baylor (7-12) -- W (1 N) (+8) 233 New Mexico St (10-10) (3 H) (+26) 300 Omaha (3-15) (1 H) (-7) The Pac-4: 47 Oregon (13-6) (+19) 104 Washington (6-8) (+32) 171 USC (6-13) (+7) 176 UCLA (7-11) (-65) What our quads look like right now: Q1: 0-1 (7 total games) (-1 game) L – Oklahoma (N) XX – bluebirds (A) X – K-State (A) XXX – Rutgers (A) Q2: 4-3 (14 total games) (NC) L – Texas Tech (N) WWLW – Grand Canyon (A) WL – Wichita St (A) XXX – Northwestern (A) XXX – Maryland (H) X – Kansas (A) Q3: 6-1 (25 total games) (+1) W – Baylor (N) WWW – Coll of Charleston (A) LWW – South Alabama (H) X – bluebirds (H) XXX – Indiana (H) XXX – Ohio St (H) XXX – Iowa (H) XXX – Michigan St (A) XXX – Minnesota (A) X – Kansas (H) X – K-State (H) Q4: 3-0 (9 total games) (NC) WWW – Nicholls (H) X – N Dakota St (H) X – S Dakota St (H) XXX – New Mexico St (H) X – Omaha (H) Living in Quad 4 this week - need to go 5-0. Season is 1/3 over already, so RPIs are starting to hold some actual weight. Amazing that we're still top 5. If they aren't already, expect every team south of us to start crying about how we're gaming the system. Still lots of moving up and down the RPI rankings for all our opponents. Nicholls is close to Q3, which would be nice. If we could end the year with only 6 Quad 4 games, that'd look really good on a Northern team's resume - would show we made a big effort to upgrade the schedule. C of C took a big jump this week and is closing in on Q2, which would also be nice. Quite a few B1G teams had an RPI dip last week, but 4 of the teams that lost ground aren't on our schedule, so not quite as bad as it could be. Hopefully Minnesota doesn't fall much farther. Quad 1: Home games vs. RPI 1-25, neutral site games vs. 1-40, road games vs. 1-60 Quad 2: Home games vs. RPI 26-50, neutral site games vs. 41-80, road games vs. 61-120 Quad 3: Home games vs. RPI 51-100, neutral site games vs. 81-160, road games vs. 121-240 Quad 4: Home games vs. RPI 101+, neutral site games vs. 161+, road games vs. 241+

https://www.warrennolan.com/basketball/2024/team-net-sheet?team=Nebraska

One of the all-timers here - I don't believe College Station gets a shoutout like several other Tejas cities, but there's a Houston mention, so it'll work for Sunday, too.

NU 86 TAM 79 1

B1G game times: Thur 11:15 am - Mich St - Missi St Thur 2:10 pm - Illinois - Morehead St Fri 11:15 am - N'western - FAU Fri 5:50 pm - NU - TAM Fri 6:25 pm - Pur - vs 16 seed Fri 8:40 pm - Wisconsin - JMU Omaha games Thursday: 11:40 BYU-Duquesne 2:10 Illinois-Morehead St 6:35 Iowa St-South Dakota St 9:05 Drake-Washington St

Fred on BTN (this was from his press conference, not live) Wanted the team to be able to savor the moment together. Good day not to have anything to prep for. Could reflect about where things are. Start prepping immediately now - put a game plan together to try to win against a great team. BTN guys: NU is built to win NCAA games - versatility in scoring Trev Alberts story line is unbelievable ::wink:: TAM wins with offensive rebounding NU will be tough for TAM to scheme for because so many guys can beat you. I like NU - they're tough Have to keep TAM off the glass - 42% offensive rebounding, but they miss a lot of shots - a LOT of shots. TAM is good defensively If you get Houston, let's see what happens.

Yup, that sounds on brand. BTN will have Fred on here in a few minutes.

SEC Network will have a selection special from 8-10 pm Central. I'm guessing they'll pick A&M to roll.

Husker sighting! CBS has a camera for us, even though it's just the team at the watch party. Looked relaxed on the big couch. Thought I saw CJ sitting there, so he must be feeling better.

Another dominant workmanlike performance today - although it'd be nice to stop falling behind by multiple runs. Overall, a really good 4-1 week. We have so much depth - has to be tough for the coaches to push the right buttons everyday with the lineup, but that's a great problem to have. Plenty of depth on the bump, too. We're a really good baseball team - not sure we have superstars like last year, but we have a ton of really solid players. We did a great job taking care of business in this sweep - now we can't lose focus this upcoming week with school restarting and with 3 of the weakest teams on our entire schedule coming to town. Anything less than 5-0 this upcoming week would be a disappointment. Set the tone heading into B1G play the following weekend.

I would agree - for a school with OSU's resources, this feels like settling. Just figured they could get about anyone with their resources. He did do a helluva job over 6-8 games, but running a program is a whole different monster. Kinda weird that a new AD and new President are OK making an emotional decision and rubber stamping a guy who's already on staff -- and was part of the failures through the first 3/4 of the season -- for their first major sport fire/hire.