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ccgeneral

#IUBASE - 2018 B1G Tournament

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Lets do this late tonight. I wish I was a coffee drinker with the late start but hate it and don't touch it. However, I can go into work a little later tomorrow.

Amazingly we still could host if we win tourney and beat Minny. Otherwise a 2 seed. Fortunately very low pressure as their is nothing on the line other than that and even 2 losses now still makes us a 2 and we can only help ourselves by winning.

This first game scares me. With the way Stiever has been we can't afford to have him give up an early run or 2 with Snarkis pitching for Illinois as it is going to be hard to score on him just as it was the Saturday we faced him earlier in the year even though we still won game. Also Spillane is still at .411 for Illinois and now has 21 home runs so still no one has slowed him down.

Overall this game scares me the most given Stiever's ability to give up an early run and than settle down. He has to be near perfect as this could easily be a 2-1 game again like last time. After that even against Minny there 2 guy is good but not great and we will have Milto this time so feel much better about that. Than Herrin who against any 3 I am confident in. If we can get by today which I am nervous about I feel very good about our chances rest of tourney. Go Hoosiers!  

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A few important notes tonight:

1. Replay is used in limited fashion in this tournament unlike the regular season. No where near as extensively as majors but plays at plate and boundary Home Runs can be reviewed as well as maybe 1-2 other things.

2. Its changed somewhat I believe with some tweaks to the baseball but the ball does not fly out of this park at all from what I remember. I will never get out of my mind during the college world series where Schwarber and Travis each hit a ball as hard as I have ever seen and Schwarber's was caught at wall in right and Travis' went off center field wall. If either of those flies out as it would off in 90% of other parks we would of beaten Miss St in second game of college world series instead of a one run loss. A ball just now for MSU was crushed and caught on warning track.

3. Minny is not taking this tourney as seriously as they should and think they have hosting Regional locked up which is very presumptive. They threw out their 3 guy who pitched Sunday and he really struggled all year. As a result Minny is up just 3-2 in top 6. This game is moving slow so we may start even a little after 10pm (45 min between games at least). My coaches I interned with taught me always throw your best pitcher out there in first game of tourney and don't play ahead unless he either is either inadequately rested or there is an extreme talent gap with team you will play first game (like when we played a horrible Youngstown St team in 2014 Regional and held Denato back a night). Neither of these scenarios is the case here and it is making this game much harder for Minny than it needs to be. Either way root for Minny this game as we want them in a winners bracket game for a chance at RPI points and an outside chance at hosting. With loss that possibility is all but eliminated so you want the easiest team possible (MSU) with chance to move on.      

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Minny just won 3-2. Expect our game to start around 10:10 or 10:15 just a few min behind schedule. Given they had to get 4 games in today not terrible.

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7 minutes ago, ccgeneral said:

@IndianaBase: First pitch is scheduled for 10:35 pm ET.

How did needing 45 minutes between games turn into needing 75 minutes? Game before us only finished 20 minutes behind the scheduled 3 hour window so in other words despite a 10 p.m. schedule it had no chance of starting before 1015 even with a game that finished on time. I don't get the Big Ten sometimes. Whatever. I can sleep till 8 p.m. tomorrow but don't put in the tourney preview games need 45 minutes between them when it is clearly a lot more. 

 

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5 hours ago, Fkfootball1 said:

Like all the other sports. Glass will do nothing. He's perfectly fine with having his programs be mediocre. 

I'm just happy baseball is competitive still. Lemonis is a really good recruiter so we will have plenty of talent on the roster always. Can he get us to the next level with more consistency is the problem.

I watched five innings last night so missed the issues that transpired into runs for Illinois. But what I saw from IU hitters was a lack of discpline at the plate. Instead of taking a few pitches guys were going up there hacking and trying to hit home runs in a ballpark where only Kyle Schwarbers hit home runs. To good of a lineup to only score 1 run. We had that starting pitcher on the ropes in the 5th and couldn't capitalize with bases loaded, 1 out. Need to clean things up today or else I will have even less confidence of us doing anything in the regional. 

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1 minute ago, TXHoosierDaddy said:

I'm just happy baseball is competitive still. Lemonis is a really good recruiter so we will have plenty of talent on the roster always. Can he get us to the next level with more consistency is the problem.

I watched five innings last night so missed the issues that transpired into runs for Illinois. But what I saw from IU hitters was a lack of discpline at the plate. Instead of taking a few pitches guys were going up there hacking and trying to hit home runs in a ballpark where only Kyle Schwarbers hit home runs. To good of a lineup to only score 1 run. We had that starting pitcher on the ropes in the 5th and couldn't capitalize with bases loaded, 1 out. Need to clean things up today or else I will have even less confidence of us doing anything in the regional. 

See i hate this mentality because we were at the next level. We have stepped back as a program

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Just now, Brass Cannon said:

See i hate this mentality because we were at the next level. We have stepped back as a program

We are in the BIG. That's the problem. Even if we get a really good coach like Tracy they will ultimately want to jump to the next level ala Pac-12 or SEC. I think the trade off is we get some consistency and we at least know we will be competitive/good every year. Reality just isn't the 2013 and 2014 seasons as much I would love it to be. 

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1 minute ago, Brass Cannon said:

See i hate this mentality because we were at the next level. We have stepped back as a program

So did Butler in basketball as I keep saying. They were at the absolute top with Stevens but have since stepped back to just being a solid tournament team every year and I didn't here anyone complaining about Holtman and now Jordan saying they stepped back from where they were at the top. No one ever maintains that level and as long as we are a solid tourney team every year that's all we can expect reasonably just as Butler understands is the case with their basketball team. Neither team had any history of success prior to their runs to the championship rounds several years ago.  

Now with all that said I do see issues in the program as I have referred to time and again with Lemonis and his player development is absolutely awful. He can recruit with the best of them but he does not develop the talent that well. The thing I continue to worry about and do not have the answer yet is can Lemonis maintain this solid tourney status each year by just bringing in elite recruits and I am not sure he can. If we can maintain being a solid tourney team every year we have to take it despite being maddening to watch at times. If we fall farther from where we are now we need to make a change period. As many of you know I am as critical of Lemonis as anyone sometimes but we must keep our expectations in check and realize the level we are at now is acceptable. I am just not sure it is maintainable given Lemonis' issues with player development and only time will tell.        

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15 minutes ago, TXHoosierDaddy said:

We are in the BIG. That's the problem. Even if we get a really good coach like Tracy they will ultimately want to jump to the next level ala Pac-12 or SEC. I think the trade off is we get some consistency and we at least know we will be competitive/good every year. Reality just isn't the 2013 and 2014 seasons as much I would love it to be. 

I understand that but we were the 8th team in the country at one point this season and we finished 5th in our conference. The inconsistency within the season is unacceptable for a team looking to be one step below top level. 

 

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15 minutes ago, Aaron said:

So did Butler in basketball as I keep saying. They were at the absolute top with Stevens but have since stepped back to just being a solid tournament team every year and I didn't here anyone complaining about Holtman and now Jordan saying they stepped back from where they were at the top. No one ever maintains that level and as long as we are a solid tourney team every year that's all we can expect reasonably just as Butler understands is the case with their basketball team. Neither team had any history of success prior to their runs to the championship rounds several years ago.  

Now with all that said I do see issues in the program as I have referred to time and again with Lemonis and his player development is absolutely awful. He can recruit with the best of them but he does not develop the talent that well. The thing I continue to worry about and do not have the answer yet is can Lemonis maintain this solid tourney status each year by just bringing in elite recruits and I am not sure he can. If we can maintain being a solid tourney team every year we have to take it despite being maddening to watch at times. If we fall farther from where we are now we need to make a change period. As many of you know I am as critical of Lemonis as anyone sometimes but we must keep our expectations in check and realize the level we are at now is acceptable. I am just not sure it is maintainable given Lemonis' issues with player development and only time will tell.        

I think our problem could be solved simply by bringing in an assistant coach that excels at player development. Leave the recruiting and bringing in talent up to Lemonis. It's perplexing that our hitters have improved only incrementally for the most part and in some cases taken steps back. 

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