throwback

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.

That's be a very, very late coincidence, but those are that the ones committee just happens to -- quite often -- make happen randomly. ::Wink:: Hope Trev has the smarts to not get on the plane if that one pops up in Omaha. Although we do have a history of loudly booing athletic directors in that building, if I recall correctly, so maybe he should show up.

This is where I'm at - likely an 8, but still a chance at a 7, even though the committee doesn't seed for story lines. ::Wink:: I mean NU as a 7 and Iowa State as 2 in Omaha could just happen randomly, right?

Needed a nice, easy win today and got it and then some. Walsh responds to his first at-bats in a while in a big way. Good job by everyone of finding ways to get on base - 16 runs on 11 hits takes some work. Sears wasn't as sharp as normal, but he still puts up six zeros, and Worthley was really good, saving the rest of the bullpen for tomorrow. Shutting out that team on 4 hits is pretty impressive, considering their numbers coming in. Love our chances to finish off the sweep tomorrow. We should have almost all of our key bullpen arms recovered from Friday, other than maybe Timmerman, while Nicholls burned through a billion pitchers today. Hopefully Horn dominates and gives the bullpen another day off, though.

Wanted to mention how many good minutes Diop gave us - he got really lost on defense only once, but he battled in there overall. And that little baseline jumper was pure. For someone who's played as little as he has, to be on that stage and look like he belonged against Illinois' front line was nice to see. It'll be a big offseason for him developmentally.

Welp, that sucked. Shannon is as good as there is in the country when he's allowed to play like that and, to his credit, he took full advantage of how the game was being called. If he's allowed to play like that next week, too, that's an easy Sweet 16 team and maybe more. To Underwood's credit, taking that quick timeout 90 seconds into the second half did the trick. They turned it on after that. Thought we hung in there despite some horrendous foul trouble until Goode banked in that 3. That broke us. Saw some heads hanging on that one. Positive spin is that we now can get an extra day of rest and prep for the NCAAs. Don't have to worry about the nightmare of playing on Sunday and then having to turn around and get assigned a Thursday game. I am more confident than ever that we are really good. I think having a more free-flowing style of basketball, like usually happens in the NCAA Tournament, will benefit us versus the bull-in-a-China-shop style that B1G games, like today, sometimes become. It's usually all about matchups now, but I like our ability to match up with a wide range of styles against a similarly talented team in an 8-9 or 7-10 game.

One of these things is not like the others.... I mean it sucks being on a list of other top-level programs and seeing Colorado on there, but I guess learning how to put up with the peasants is part of what we have to do now.

To be fair, LeBlanc has worked directly with the baseball team for a few years, so these guys know him well, but still pretty damn funny.

I think CBS owes Kent Pavelka residuals after using so many of his call highlights today.

I see the team asked Dennis LeBlanc to jump into the winning team photo with them last night and he was yelling "we're 1-0!"

The one thing about RPI is our winning pct is a decent part of it - since we were 10-5, we can still ramp up our winning percentage a bit, where teams like FSU and A&M can only go down from where they are now. I still don't expect us to be anywhere near the top of the rankings by next Sunday, even if we with the other 7 games on the homestand, but we probably won't fall as far as I was initially thinking if we keep winning, thanks to the winning pct portion of the formula. Another gutsy win last night ... at least I think so. I was a little distracted. I do know that game was going to be the toughest of the 8-game homestand by far. A real chance now to go 8-0 here. Difficult, but a realistic chance. We'll see how much consistency we can build - we've shown plenty of ability to get into -- and then win -- tight, wild games. The next 7 games should be all about taking care of business in workmanlike fashion. College baseball teams that want to be highly successful must have that component.

N 71 I 68

By the way, Nicholls' starter tonight was a freshman All-American last year and is considered a pretty high MLB draft pick in 2025. He'll be a handful for us. Makes it even a little more surprising that we didn't flip Sears and Christo this weekend. Hopefully Christo is on his A game. Definitely cannot afford to fall behind 4-0 again tonight.

Thought I'd pop this in here one more time -- like taking a picture of the scoreboard after the first quarter -- but it's headed downhill starting tonight. Not too far down, hopefully, just have to win. We'll be one-third of the way through the season after this weekend, so RPI is starting to be meaningful.

And pitchers are so much more focused on velocity and spin rate - always trying to get swing and miss pitches. Guys that pitch to contact are becoming a rare breed. As coaches have more and more data, they can see trends that are successful and work to develop those trends. College baseball has so much more incredibly specific data available now than even 5 years ago. Honestly, I don't feel like most of our guys are overswinging or are reluctant to try to go the other way. The seemingly high K rate has been a bit perplexing to me, but Ks seem to be up so much across the sport that our results make a bit more sense. College hitters going for faster exit rates and the optimal launch angle are certainly on the increase, but college pitchers are also throwing so much harder and with so much more spin than they did in the recent past, it can't help but result in more swing and miss.

NU 79 IU 61 3

The way this ugly game is going, it deserves to go into 3 or 4 overtimes.

Was just wondering if that means he's going to do the 8 pm game tomorrow too. Hopefully TBD saves some of these bricks for tomorrow.