throwback

Sears was brilliant again - at age 24 at the time of the draft, I don't know what MLB teams will think of him, but they'd be crazy not to take a flyer early in the draft. Wow. In a year where offense is ruling the day in the B1G, Sears is the clear front runner for B1G pitcher of the year. Even as good as our pitching has been, our offense simply has to get it going if we want this season to be a special one. I know tonight was tough to hit, but the wind doesn't explain all the Ks. Been a season long problem. Should've been up 5 or 6-0 after 3 innings. ESE and SE winds tomorrow as high as they're going to be will be pretty rare at Haymarket - we get strong south or north winds several times a year, but rarely blowing straight in. That wind screaming in from dead center will make small ball a must. Mac needs to be ready to hold down the OSU running game if they get anyone on base. Both teams will be running a bunch if anyone gets on. Hell, the throw from the catcher to 2nd base on a steal attempt will be dicey into that kind of a wind. As a plus, the pitchers should get an extra few MPH on their fastballs. Huge day for throwing strikes tomorrow. Must make hitters put the ball in play in those kinds of weather conditions.

Dana Altman has some thoughts.

There is a bit of a 'marking of my territory' pissing match going on between the Saltdogs and Huskers right now. Too bad, as they got along nicely for many years. I'm probably biased but feels like Saltdogs are being d*cks about a few things around Haymarket Park right now for whatever reason. Huskers have ideas for making the fan and player experience better and Saltdogs are just throwing roadblocks in their way right and left.

So I assume for old times' sake, the NIT game will go into triple overtime, and push Keisei's 3-pt victory to the ESPN the Ocho app.

And nice to see we're not opposite the Texas A&M regional for the supers ... yet. We're a 2 seed in the Baseball America projections in Stillwater. https://www.baseballamerica.com/stories/2024-ncaa-baseball-tournament-bracket-projected-field-of-64-april-3/ Maryland is a 3 seed in both D1B and BA Rutgers is a 3 seed in D1B and next four out in BA Grand Canyon is a 4 seed in both (auto qualifier) K-State is a 2 seed in both Kansas is a 3 seed in both North Dakota St is a 4 seed in both (auto qualifier) Oklahoma is a 2 seed in both bluebirds are a 3 in both Texas Tech is first four out in both Wichita St is next four out in BA No Iowa. Huh.

We played with fire all weekend offensively and got away with it, but it finally caught up to us tonight. Not a great performance at the plate again, especially with as many leadoff hitters as we got on base in the early innings. Outside of a few huge innings at NW, we had a lot of these same issues, but we made NW play for mistakes. Couldn't do the same tonight. Some of the offensive woes were self inflicted by failing to move runners, some of it was bad luck by lining into an early double play, but, regardless, you aren't going to win many midweek games scoring 3 runs. Just a weird night overall - we throw out 3 runners on the basepaths, 2 at home, and they make 2 errors uncharacteristically, yet we can't make them pay for any of it because of putrid offense. Unfortunate chance missed for a potential Q1 win. I'm sure Sears will be ready to right the ship Friday. Need to get the offense fixed, though. Too many good hitters struggling right now.

Walsh is going to start - wind will be blowing out tonight, though, so maybe his advantage in the big park is a little lower tonight than it is with the normal south wind.

Caron definitely trending toward being a pretty high MLB pick this summer, and Columbus will be out of eligibility (I think, but who knows anymore), so we need to bring in an older catcher. Probably better to grab one now than wait for what's available in the portal.

B1G Boyd's World RPIs (http://boydsworld.com/baseball/rpi/currentrpi.html) through 7 weeks: 12 Nebraska (20-5) (-2 spots vs last week) 32 Maryland (20-8) (3 H) (+4) 43 Rutgers (19-9) (3 A) (-4) 66 Ohio St (12-12) (3 H) (+14) 81 N'western (10-15) -- WWW (3 A) (-27) 86 Illinois (14-12)* (+22) 100 Indiana (15-14) (3 H) (+6) 102 Iowa (15-11) (3 H) (-29) 104 Michigan (11-17)* (+32) 115 Purdue (17-12)* (-6) 117 Michigan St (12-14) (3 A) (+18) 145 Minnesota (11-12) (3 A) (+3) 207 Penn St (13-12)* (+8) * NU doesn't play Non-con opponents: 29 Oklahoma (15-12) -- L (1 N) (-14) 37 K-State (18-8) (1 H) (-18) 39 bluebirds (20-4) (2 A) (1 H) (+7) 56 South Alabama (16-12) -- LWW (3 H) (+3) 59 Texas Tech (17-7) -- L (1 N) (+4) 60 Kansas (15-10) (1 A) (1 H) (+12) 77 Wichita St (18-9) -- WL (2 A) (-19) 89 Grand Canyon (15-11) -- WWLW (4 A) (+8) 94 Nicholls (20-10) -- WWW (3 H) (+48) 101 Coll of Charleston (17-9) -- WWW (3 A) (-9) 135 North Dakota St (7-16) -- W (1 H) (-17) 154 Baylor (10-17) -- W (1 N) (-5) 203 New Mexico St (11-16) -- WW (2 H) (+19) 208 South Dakota St (11-15) (1 H) (-83) 298 Omaha (6-19) -- W (1 H) (0) The Pac-4: 65 Oregon (19-7) (-3) 96 Washington (8-12-1) (+5) 108 USC (11-15) (+73) 174 UCLA (10-15) (-8) What our quads look like right now: Q1: 0-1 (7 total games) (-6 games from last week) L – Oklahoma (N) XX – bluebirds (A) X – Kansas (A) XXX – Rutgers (A) Q2: 10-3 (21 total games) (+8) L – Texas Tech (N) WWLW – Grand Canyon (A) WWW – Coll of Charleston (A) WL – Wichita St (A) X – K-State (H) X – bluebirds (H) WWW – Northwestern (A) XXX – Michigan St (A) XXX – Maryland (H) Q3: 6-1 (17 total games) (0) W – Baylor (N) LWW – South Alabama (H) WWW – Nicholls (H) X – Kansas (H) XXX – Ohio St (H) XXX – Indiana (H) XXX – Minnesota (A) Q4: 4-0 (8 total games) (-3) WW – New Mexico St (H) W – N Dakota St (H) W – Omaha (H) X – S Dakota St (H) XXX – Iowa (H) --------- 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+ Great position to be in at the midway point of the regular season. Only one Q4 game left (hopefully) and all of our conference games should end up Q3 and higher -- but Iowa, c'mon. This is pathetic even for you. Iowa & Indiana are hovering near the cut-off line, so we need them to play a little better -- hopefully just enough to stay out of Q4. For a northern team, our Q2 record is extremely impressive. It sucks that our Q1 opportunities are so limited, but that's the nature of being a northern team. Someone in the SEC will play 30+ Q1 games. It's just how it goes. If we keep dominating in Q2, though, the committee will take notice. Q1 matchup on tap Tuesday, at least for now - adds a little more spice to the rivalry. Almost feels like with how long Walsh went on Saturday, the coaches made the decision to move Walsh out of the midweek starting spot to get a 3rd lefty they trust out of the bullpen on the weekends. We'll see, though. Maybe Walsh starts and has a tight pitch count. If he doesn't start, it's probably Horn Tuesday. I do love Walsh pitching in that big ballpark, though. Ohio St righted the ship over the weekend after a rough couple of weeks, and it won't be a gimme this weekend at home. Need to go at least 3-1 overall to keep pushing toward a potential B1G title and a potential home regional. Also it appears the NCAA selection committee is going to use the DSR rankings on the team sheet this season. These rankings try to incorporate margin of victory - slippery slope for baseball, I think, but it appears they're going to try it. (Maybe the NCAA has been using it in the past, although I can't find anything that indicates that.) NU was 16th in these DSR rankings before yesterday. There isn't a huge difference between DSR and RPI that I can see. Maybe some of the smaller schools like Dallas Baptist and UCI that play in weak conferences can take advantage of it by blowing out conference foes. I'm not sure the difference is enough to convince our coaches to start trying to run up the score, but who knows. https://d1baseball.com/diamond-sports-ranking/

Not sure if this was a prediction, but I'm going to assume it was - nicely done!

I seem to remember Coach Miles getting ejected on something pretty similar to that down in San Antonio - wasn't his 2nd technical for being out of the box when he was trying to get someone's attention that the shot clock wasn't running? Something like that. Can you imagine being an NC State fan right now? The heater they've been on since starting the ACC tourney is something every sports fan dreams of experiencing. They wouldn't even be here if UVa didn't completely botch the final minute of the ACC semis to let NC State bank in a 3 at the buzzer to force OT. Adding in what they did in the ACC tourney just to make the NCAA field, NC State to the Final Four is one of the craziest postseason runs of all time. As if that wasn't enough for the fans, they got to beat UNC in the ACC final and knock Duke out in the Elite Eight. Also kind of strange in the NCAAs where the guards always seem to rule the day to see two huge dudes in Edey and Burns completely dominating. Going to be a war in the paint next weekend when those two collide.

B1G standings after week 2 3-0 NU 5-1 Illinois 4-2 Iowa 4-2 Michigan 2-1 Ohio St 3-3 Maryland 3-3 Mich St 2-4 Purdue 1-2 Rutgers 1-2 Indiana 1-2 Minnesota 1-5 Penn St 0-3 N'western I'm not sure this weekend could've gone any better for NU in trying to win the B1G - maybe if PSU had gotten one game vs Illinois. Minnesota stealing one at Iowa, Maryland losing a series at Michigan, Purdue stealing one at Ohio St, Rutgers losing a series at Mich St - all great results. And NU's sweep wasn't too bad either. B1G schedule week 3 Ohio St at NU Michigan at Iowa Illinois at Minnesota N'western at Penn St Purdue at Rutgers Indiana at Maryland Mich St BYE

Another crazy game - for us to have 11 left on base and NW to have 1 almost never happens in an extra inning game. For us to manufacture a run in the 10th without a hit is exactly what this team is all about. The offense was pretty putrid most of the day, but we found a way. 10 road wins before April 1 makes the NCAA selection committee take notice. Teams that want to win a conference title have to find a way to collect the W multiple times when things aren't going quite right. We probably fit that criteria a couple of times this weekend. Road conference sweeps are hard, and NW is going to beat some people the rest of the season - perfect way to start the B1G race.

Love the black socks today - guessing a subtle middle finger to our former AD

Moved the start time an hour earlier to hopefully beat the rain. Another nice win today and we also received a few helpful results in the B1G. It's never too early to start scoreboard watching.