throwback

Even though Sears didn't have his best stuff out of the gate, he and Coach Childress eventually found something that was working and stuck with it. For him to get thru 7+ with the way he started is pretty amazing. Even though he's pitched better, he showed why he's the staff ace yesterday. Impressive. For us to face 1st and 3rd no outs, 2nd and 3rd no outs, bases loaded no outs, and bases loaded one out in 4 different innings and give up no runs in those spots is one of the craziest things I've ever seen. And we continued our ability to score runs with 2 outs. This team clearly has the clutch gene that we've been missing the past couple of years. Need to get the bats going today, as it's going to take some runs to get the sweep. Doubt our pitchers will be that fortunate with getting out of huge jams the next two days - law of averages has to catch up to us at some point. NW is pesky, so they're going to stress Christo today. Need him to stay in the strike zone consistently - limit the free passes - or, even better, let the offense go to work and get him a big lead. EDIT: Just how crazy was our ability to get out of jams on Friday? Boyd's World has compiled actual analysis of each team's chance of scoring at least 1 run in certain situations from 8000+ college games from 2023. 1st and 3rd, no outs - 85.9% 2nd and 3rd, no outs - 85.9% Loaded, no outs - 84.6% Loaded, 1 out - 63.7% We should've given up 4-6 runs or even more in those spots, instead we put up a 0. Crazy.

I wonder if Keisei will wear a satchel bag while shooting at the Final Four to give everyone else a chance.

Need to get back to the days of having 8-12 guys on this list.

I'd be surprised if we add any games. Bolt has not done so in the past when we lose games to weather - he doesn't like playing more than 4 games in a week. We only had 2 weeks out of 14 scheduled with 5 games this season. We've scheduled fewer than 56 games in the past few years to avoid 5-game weeks. Plus, with where our RPI is, playing a lesser opponent at home isn't much benefit. If we could find a way to make up the game at K-State, we might try that one, as there's little risk in a road loss to a top team, plus we have the pitching depth to pull it off. However, it's just not what Bolt typically does.

It's way too cold to play today with the wind chill - I see now that K-State has a Thurs-Sat conference series with Texas this weekend (avoiding playing on Easter), so that leaves Wednesday out, otherwise I'm sure we'd have played tomorrow. No coach is going to voluntarily play a non-con game the day before a big conference series. Bummer, but it just makes this weekend that much more important. Fortunately, the weather this weekend in the Chicago area looks much better than it did a few days ago, although it's still not great. And I don't think they have lights there, so moving games around at the last minute is tough. At least they've upgraded the facility some over the past several years and have artificial turf now, which helps a ton if it rains. It's still in the lower third of the B1G for facilities, but light years ahead of where it used to be. Keep an eye on Sunday's forecast, which looks like the worst weather day - they may try to play 2 on Saturday, but they'd have to start early in the day to beat the darkness. My guess is they'll just take their chances and leave the 3 games where they are scheduled.

Huh? Michigan is not good this year, Ohio St and Indiana are in free-fall, and we're playing most of the best teams in the league, at least based on RPI so far. Rutgers is probably better than all the teams he mentioned, other than Maryland, and we have to go to New Jersey. NW on the road this weekend will be no picnic. Odd take. It's a scheduling 'gift' in terms of having a chance to keep our RPI high, but it's not a gift in terms of trying to win the league. Iowa got that. They get Rutgers and NW at home, they don't play Maryland or Indiana. They do have to come to Lincoln. Now, Iowa's schedule doesn't look quite as soft as it did in the preseason, but it's still a far easier slate in terms of trying to win the league vs what NU has. Maryland has to go to NU, Rutgers, and NW. They don't play Minnesota. They may end up with the toughest schedule.

B1G Standings 2-1 Maryland 2-1 Iowa 2-1 Penn St 2-1 Illinois 1-2 Indiana 1-2 Purdue 1-2 Mich St 1-2 Michigan 0-0 NU 0-0 Rutgers 0-0 N'western 0-0 Ohio St 0-0 Minnesota This week's conference games: NU at N'western Rutgers at Mich St Maryland at Michigan Minnesota at Iowa Purdue at Ohio St Penn St at Illinois Indiana BYE B1G Boyd's World RPIs (http://boydsworld.com/baseball/rpi/currentrpi.html) through 6 weeks: 10 Nebraska (17-5) (-6 spots vs last week) 36 Maryland (18-6) (3 H) (-4) 39 Rutgers (17-7) (3 A) (0) 54 N'western (10-11) (3 A) (+10) 73 Iowa (13-10) (3 H) (+18) 80 Ohio St (10-11) (3 H) (-27) 106 Indiana (12-12) (3 H) (-41) 108 Illinois (10-12)* (+32) 109 Purdue (16-9)* (-30) 136 Michigan (9-15)* (0) 139 Michigan St (9-12) (3 A) (+26) 148 Minnesota (10-10) (3 A) (+64) 215 Penn St (12-9)* (-46) * NU doesn't play Non-con opponents: 15 Oklahoma (14-9) -- L (1 N) (-10) 19 K-State (17-6) (1 A) (1 H) (+37) 46 bluebirds (17-3) (2 A) (1 H) (+11) 58 Wichita St (15-8) -- WL (2 A) (+13) 59 South Alabama (14-10) -- LWW (3 H) (+7) 63 Texas Tech (17-7) -- L (1 N) (+7) 72 Kansas (12-10) (1 A) (1 H) (+21) 92 Coll of Charleston (14-8) -- WWW (3 A) (+40) 97 Grand Canyon (13-10) -- WWLW (4 A) (-2) 118 North Dakota St (7-16) -- W (1 H) (+6) 125 South Dakota St (11-12) (1 H) (+2) 142 Nicholls (17-10) -- WWW (3 H) (-39) 149 Baylor (8-15) -- W (1 N) (+6) 222 New Mexico St (10-13) -- WW (2 H) (+11) 298 Omaha (4-18) -- W (1 H) (+2) The Pac-4: 62 Oregon (15-7) (-15) 101 Washington (6-11) (+3) 166 UCLA (9-12) (+10) 181 USC (8-15) (-10) What our quads look like right now: Q1: 1-2 (13 total games) (+6 games from last week) L – Oklahoma (N) WL – Wichita St (A) XX – bluebirds (A) X – K-State (A) X – K-State (H) XXX – Northwestern (A) XXX – Rutgers (A) Q2: 6-2 (13 total games) (-1) L – Texas Tech (N) WWLW – Grand Canyon (A) WWW – Coll of Charleston (A) XXX – Maryland (H) X – bluebirds (H) X – Kansas (A) Q3: 3-1 (17 total games) (-8) W – Baylor (N) LWW – South Alabama (H) XXX – Ohio St (H) XXX – Iowa (H) XXX – Michigan St (A) XXX – Minnesota (A) X – Kansas (H) Q4: 7-0 (11 total games) (+2) WWW – Nicholls (H) WW – New Mexico St (H) W – N Dakota St (H) W – Omaha (H) XXX – Indiana (H) X – S Dakota St (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+ Big week on tap - a win at K-State would look really good on our resume by the end, as KSU (and KU) are going to continue to get a nice Big XII bump in the RPI all season. And I can't imagine NW is going to stay Q1, but they're vastly improved from a year ago, which is stunning considering the turmoil they've had in that program. Even winning Q2s at NW is helpful, thanks to it being on the road. Big opportunity to go on the road & truly establish ourselves as a regional host contender this week. This is a schedule to this point that gives a northern team a chance to host a regional, even if we lose a few of the projected Q1 games to Q2. Even our B1G opponents should help us in RPI, based on who we play on the road and who we miss. Huge jump by C of C the past two weeks has been a big help to our RPI. As far as the back end, Minnesota did its part this past week to get far away from Q4, and now we need Indiana to get it's sh*t together at least a little bit to limit our Q4 games as much as possible. We're at the point in the season where we're trying to string 3-1 weeks. If we can go 3-1 every week from here on out, we're going to be around 41 total wins and we'll be around 18 B1G wins, which often is enough to win the league. With this impressive start against a pretty salty schedule, we put ourselves in a position where we don't need a bunch of unbeaten weeks. Stringing 3-1s isn't easy, and we'll probably have a clunker of a weekend at some point -- hopefully not this week, as this will be a tough one. But we've done a helluva job to this point to put ourselves in this spot. Most years, we're hoping to string 3-1s at the start of B1G play just to have a shot to win the league and to squeak into a regional, so this has been a tremendous start.

As an unintended bonus, looks like we'll protect our top 10 RPI ranking by not playing today. Even going undefeated on this homestand with weak opponents, I expected us to drop to 25-30 in RPI. Our early-season schedule just keeps looking better and better. By the way, K-State is top 30 now in RPI - big, big home and home with them coming up. Both games may end up being Q1 - certainly Tuesday's road game will be Q1 by the end. I expect NU to throw everything into winning that game Tuesday (or maybe Wednesday if the weather forecast is accurate). In fact, if that game gets pushed to Wednesday, I'd give serious consideration to starting Sears. We won't do it because it doesn't send the right message, but I guarantee it will get discussed in the coaches' offices.

No game today

The fewer sweeps in B1G series here in the early going, the better. If we want a shot to host a regional, we need to win the regular season and, ideally, do so convincingly, so if the others beat themselves up the first few series, all the better for us.

Whew. Played with our food all day, but still managed to finish it off.

Well said - last night sucked a$$ to put it mildly. Even though I saw the sun come up this morning, it doesn't really feel like it. But this last season and a half feels like we're still on the climb. Last night was a one-off versus what we've done going 29-14 over the past 43 games with a 21-14 record versus high-major teams. The impressive record in the last 35 games against peers is not a fluke. Not by a long shot. We beat multiple teams that are still playing in the second round and took another second-rounder to OT on the road. Not a fluke. Excited to see how the roster shakes out, how many guys use their extra year, and how we handle being the hunted instead of the hunter in 2024-25. We won't be picked 13th next season.

Going to be an interesting year in the B1G after these opening-day conference-play scores: Purdue 10, Iowa 3 Penn State 4, Michigan 3 Illinois 9, Indiana 1 Maryland 7, Michigan State 6 (10 inn) Indiana and Iowa get boat-raced and Maryland struggles with one of the worst teams in the league so far. (Yes, Iowa did throw its All-American Brecht yesterday, and he gave up 6 runs (3 earned) in 5 innings. Ouch.) I thought maybe Iowa and Indiana would right the ship after rough non-conferences, but it didn't happen in the openers, not by a long shot.

Felt like coming in that TAM reminded me most of MSU on our schedule, but TAM's guards were quicker and more aggressive about getting downhill than MSU's guards were / are. I didn't think TAM's guards would shoot as well from 3 versus how MSU can shoot it, though. But TAM hit 5 more 3s against us and 8 more total FGs than MSU did on 10 more total shots than MSU had - just a faster pace than our game with MSU, so we kind of played into TAM's hands with pace, although some of that was we were behind most of the way by several possessions vs TAM and had to speed things up. We put TAM on the FT line 11 more times than we did MSU, which I was afraid might happen. But I didn't see TAM shooting at a higher percentage (49/56.5 vs 44/47) on total FGs and 3s than MSU did, and that killed us. Just didn't have any answers on defense tonight.

This time of the year is all about matchups and it just turned out to be a terrible matchup for us - couldn't stay in front of their guards, which left us out of position constantly on defense. Felt like they could've scored on every possession. When we allow them to get into the lane at will AND shoot 3s at 50+%, we were never going to win that game. TAM looked unbeatable tonight. So in the grand tradition of teams that beat NU in the NCAA tournament, they'll score 18 points in the first half against Houston, and lose by 42 on Sunday. Not sure I'll be in the mood to watch it by Sunday, though.

Can hear the national broadcast for every game here I believe - https://westwoodonesports.com/madness/

They put THAT video out at 8 am? How do they expect me to get any work done today, knowing I'm now going to have to put that thing on loop until 5:50? They couldn't have waited til 3 or 4 pm? Seriously one of the best videos they've done, and they have done a lot of them this season.

I hope the rest of the SEC likes shooting airballs as much as Mississippi State does.

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.