Aaron

IU has the same problem they did last year along with the basketball team in that they cannot score at a high level. Their defense is very good and their floor is substantially higher as result. However, to get to the tournament again like they want their offense needs to be much better. Scoring only one goal each against mediocre Valpo and UT Martin doesn't bode well unless some changes are made and IU will need to win a lot of 1-0 games (which they are capable of potentially) which is a lot to ask once Big Ten play starts.

Hopefully the D will be ok. This is two games in a row they have looked less than stellar. To be fair against Wright St. Pratt played goalie in the first half and then in the second half Munie and Maher sat, which is the normal center backs, so its really hard to tell anything from that game without your normal complete defense at any point. Last night though is not good and better improve as the normal guys played almost the whole night. No excuse as this is same D IU fielded last year and rarely conceded a goal. Bezerra and the offense are ready to go though and Vic could easily have 20 to 30 goals this season. Usually defense is ahead of offense at this time a year, but right now it is opposite for the Hoosiers which is mind blowing and defense wins championships. Need to get the backline shored up fast to reach heights team wants.

We've known this for weeks. IU just made it official. Good hires!

My guess is IU is so loaded, he jumped at the chance to go professional as he would of had to compete for playing time at IU with the deep roster we have. Sucks to lose him but by no means crippling given the depth of talent this team has.

I actually think this is a good thing. While I love Parker, I have never been a fan of Held and think some of the struggles this year (although not all by any means) can be attributed to him. When I saw the announcement on Parker my first thought was "That sucks". With Held now I thought "Thank god". This gives Mercer a chance to reset the staff and address the issues this team had hopefully. If I had my choice Parker would be back, but Held would of been replaced regardless. Hopefully this gives a chance at a terrific staff from top to bottom.

This team could be in trouble. We lost top 6 players to draft and now Parker. To cap it off Toetz is in the transfer portal. Mercer is facing the test of his career now and how he handles it will determine if he is the long term coach here (the four transfers is a good start but a lot more to do). I am not mad at Mercer, but he certainly has some things to prove and whether he is up to coaching at this level remains to be seen. Not saying he cannot do it, because he absolutely can, but time will tell if he is the right guy or job is simply to big for him. To early to know and not fair to pass judgement either way yet. Next couple years will be telling.

To bad but rather lose him then a player obviously;). My guess is they will have a student do it just like they had Austin Render take over baseball from Greg Murray last couple years. Maybe they give Austin both sports now or possibly another media student. They all do a solid job and I support whoever calls the game.

Very replicable. Decent substitute, but guys like him are a dime a dozen. The bottom line is of the guy's we need back, Glass is the special player and the one we needed of the four seniors and got him. Black is also a dime a dozen guy. Palazzolo (who has all but said he is leaving) is the next best in the senior group but also flawed. He is a terrific hustler and very fast, but often gets ahead of himself and tries to play quicker than his body allows and can miss easy goals and passes as a result at times. Time for Coleman Gannon, Emerson Nieto and Kyle Folds to step up in mid who have much higher ceiling and are high ranked recruits this year and last. If they can be what they are capable, we may be best team in country or close to it. Only other big decision is Bezerra. MLS draft is not until winter, but he could sign is a free agent and is very much ready to do so. If he goes, Wittenbrink is the guy and there will be a drop off. If we want to be a top team with a legit shot at a title, we need Bezerra back (very questionable) and Celantano (I think he comes back) as well. We may lose Sessock as well on D, but that's not overly concerning as they have been grooming Lawson Redmon and still have Maher, Munie and Beebej who are among the best in the business and D should be tough as nails like usual.

My dream is to have Smith take Dan Held's spot which would be a truly All-Star staff. One can dream and it would never happen, but that would really give IU a heads up with Mercer as head coach and Justin Parker and Tracy Smith as assistants. Three head coaching type people on one staff:).

Can we have him back? We still don't know enough about Mercer and absolutely no way you can fire him right now nor should we, but would love to bring Tracy back somehow in someway which is not possible right now. If one of the assistants leaves (which if Held or Simmons want to go or are fired my feelings would not be hurt) maybe he can have that job for a year but obviously not going to happen. Wish ASU had done this right after we lost Lemonis and Smith came back, but obviously Sun Devils not working on our schedule:).

Nebraska just took Arkansas who is best team in country to an elimination game tomorrow for the Regional Championship. If that does not prove once and for all they are best team in Big Ten I don't know what does. Deepest pitching staff (although their 2 and 3 starters are not always good) with depth to go all the way and best offense in conference. Does not excuse IU not finishing second and taking Maryland's spot in NCAA Tournament (No excuse to lose Illinois and first Maryland game which is what kept us out and put them in), but Nebraska was far and away best team in Big Ten and I thought so all year and earned the conference championship. There is a reason the Huskers were several games ahead of everyone and it was a muddy mess for the few spots behind them. Congrats to Cornhuskers for representing Big Ten.

Mercer very well could be different and I really hope he is. I am just pointing out it has not gone great for Wright State coaches outside of Wright St. Doesn't mean Mercer will not be fantastic here which is certainly possible. Merely telling what has happened previously.

Here is what scares me to death about Mercer is that everyone wins at Wright State and then have been either mediocre or horrible at a better job. It started with Rob Cooper who went to PSU and has been nothing short of pathetic after winning at Wright State. Granted no one wins at PSU and they have been a bottom feeder in the Big Ten with one tournament appearence in nearly 50 years. Next lets talk about Greg Lovelady who won even bigger than Cooper at Wright State. Lovelady has done far better at Central Florida then Cooper has done at PSU. However, he only has one NCAA Tournament in four years (like Mercer it was his first season) there and has finished near .500 in other three years. The guy Lovelady replaced is Terry Rooney who had a better run that his successor. Rooney made two regionals and had two other winning seasons where they just missed in seven years. Rooney replaced a guy who won very big but was forced out for improprieties. So basically Lovelady has been weaker than the previous two coaches. Alex Sogard the current coach at Wright State has come in for Mercer and kept right on winning. Obviously its way to early in Mercer's tenure to say much, but it is important to note that the last two Wright State coaches who got bigger jobs before him are not doing great. As I have said Mercer deserves plenty of time to fix the issues with hitting this year, but it does worry me that the last two Raider coaches have had little success after moving on but hoping for the best.

Have to assume we will have full slate of non conference also or we would of played several teams twice like this year. The fact we are down to once obviously means this is Big Ten only and we will have regional rivals back on schedule like Notre Dame, Butler, UK and maybe Evansville and whoever else we add. Will be nice change to play non-conference again.

I agree, but we should of had plenty of other big innings against those pitchers. You can't strikeout and look befuddled against guys with double digit ERA's or you don't deserve a title. Ask the coaching staff and I am sure they will tell you and believe in truth that their hitting cost them the game, not that call. There is a different between executing better and massively failing to hit the worst pitchers in the Big Ten. When that type of hitting happens against that staff you don't deserve a title. Its that simple.

Agreed, but I still think you absolutely have to do better off that pitching staff and that call never should of mattered. When you score two runs off those pitchers you deserve what you get regardless of that call. If that happens this weekend, we can complain a little more when runs are hard to come by. However, if this game is the difference in winning the title we can look at Jeremy Houston and our horrible batting against THAT pitching as reasons we lost. Not the call. Horrific and replay needs to be added, but there are many other things to look at before that play on why we lost.

Horrible call but the fact you could not score more than two runs on that pitching staff is what could cost us Big Ten Championship. Yes it cost us one run, but we should of had a lot more than a couple runs in the game against literally the worst pitchers in the Big Ten. We looked befuddled at the plate by guys with double digit ERA's. I absolutely think there should be instant replay for things like this, but we have no one but ourselves to blame given the Houston error and the plate approach. Never should of come down to this. Period. If that call happened Friday and we lose 3-2 to Povich than you can blame the umps, but against that pitching that call never should of mattered.

I don't think that precludes you from getting drafted. He could very well come to IU in end, but if he is drafted I don't believe him signing his letter here stops him from going to pro's. It more gives him option to do either. Will be harder to get drafted with only 20 rounds though.

No sorry. Just heard he is close but no timeframe has been given to me unfortunately.

Not disagreeing, but this seems to be mostly a Big Ten thing, since they started the policy of no fans and when they left it up to schools halfway through the season, all but three of them left the family/friends restrictions in place to this day. I blame the Big Ten for not letting schools set the policies from the beginning like other conferences. If they had done this, more schools might have changed. To say halfway through the spring season it is OK to let fans in, makes it a little harder to change on fly and many schools did not.

Right now every Big Ten team outside of Iowa, Nebraska and Purdue are family and friends only just like IU (theoretically Rutgers "opened it up" to 500 people this weekend but only family and friends showed up). Every other Big Ten school is doing exactly what IU is doing including Michigan and Maryland where we finish season. A family friend drove past MSU this weekend and their baseball game would not let him in as a fan. It really sucks and they probably should let some fans in now, but just realize the vast majority of Big Ten schools are doing exactly what IU is doing still.

It won't matter pitching wise which is big thing. Illinois has no good pitchers. The issue is our bullpen and how we play it and we need to throw decent guys against their offense. Hopefully like three innings each of Mudungo, Bothwell and Tucker will be sufficient and will make everyone available each weekend in between as planned. We have terrific pitching depth. Just unfortunate to have to use it against Illinois and their offense. Biggest thing is we may need it to not lose Big Ten by 1/2 game to Nebraska after their win today. Better to play it before 4 game weekend then after and those were the choices. Not a great situation but this is probably best we can do and just hope we win high scoring game (I have zero doubt we won't put up 5-10 runs on their bullpen given they don't even pitch well on weekends, but key is not giving up more than we score).

This could or worse thing to happen to us depending on how schedule plays out with Nebraska's win today. There is a decent chance we will need that win to wrap up Big Ten Title if we split the two Nebraska games. What scares me is this is the type of game Illinois is at the greatest equalizer against us. They cannot pitch worth a lick which is why we beat them twice, but they have the offense to beat anyone. Our best starters are far better than theirs for a weekend series, but a one off where both teams are using bullpen guys should even it up. We will put a ton of runs on them is this makeup almost certainly, but the key is them not getting to back of our bullpen and losing like 10-8 or something.

Even with family attendance has not been bad. Also, only Purdue and Ohio St allowing fans in right now and everyone else doing family and friends in Big Ten, so we are far from only ones not opened to public yet.

Almost, its 8-4 with 5 points left when the Tennis competition is taken into account correcctly. Need 1/2 point more to tie and a point to win.