IU Baseball

[Alford Bailey]

Unacceptable. Don’t think there is any way Mercer is back.

[Class of '66 Old Fart]

At least today, we won't lose by blowing a lead.  PUke scored 3 in the 1st inning.

[Class of '66 Old Fart]

It was 6-2 PU after 5 innings.  We scored 5 in our 6th but the PUkesters scored 2 of their own and added 3 in their 7th.  We picked up 1 run in the 8th but return to Bloomington winless in West Laffy.  Final score 11-8.  For the weekend, PUke scored 27 runs against us.  Today, PUke had 16 hits off 5 Hoosier pitchers  -  9 of them were for extra bases.  One more weekend to suffer through.

[Aaron]

Its time for a change if IU cares about this program. Mercer took 2010's first world problems of tough draws and bad rules after yearly postseason appearances, and lowered it to third world legit problems of being amongst the worst in the league the last few years. 

Fred Glass did some stuff well, but had absolutely no idea how to hire a baseball coach or what qualities to look for. When I heard Lemonis and Rich Maloney were the finalists after Tracy Smith was poached, I was very worried as Lemonis had no head coaching experience and Maloney failed at Michigan as soon as league got tougher. 

While Lemonis did OK and was clearly the better choice of those two and did a decent job, fans now seem to have a sanitized view of his tenure where player development was a real struggle. The man could recruit better than anyone but had no idea how to make the players better once they got here.

Glass learned nothing when he hired Mercer who was from area, but babysat a Wright State program playing at a Bart Kaufman Field type facility while rest of league played at Sembower Field type places in a very easy conference. Furthermore, every Wright State coach who has gone on to higher jobs has failed given the built in advantages there.

As I said on a previous page of this thread, Brian Smiley is also from the area, but actually has built the same school Smith did back into a mid-major power after years of struggle since Smith came here. When identifying a coach, whether its Smiley or someone else (and there are a few in that same boat who would work at IU but Smiley is the local one with this trait), it is imperative to make sure you hire someone with head coaching experience who actually built the lower level program they were at and Glass seemed to have zero concept of this when hiring coaches across the board.

Given NIL and where college sports are at, I kind of understand letting baseball limp along to keep money funneling towards other more important sports. However, keeping Mercer beyond this season would be an admission by athletic department that the results are no longer important and they are OK going back to Sembower days as much as I would disagree with it.

[Class of '66 Old Fart]

9 hours ago, Aaron said:

 However, keeping Mercer beyond this season would be an admission by athletic department that the results are no longer important....

In a nutshell this is where a lot of non-revenue sports are going to be across the college spectrum.  I fully expect to see more non-revenue sports being dropped at all levels as ADs put their efforts into revenue producing sports.

[Brass Cannon]

1 hour ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

In a nutshell this is where a lot of non-revenue sports are going to be across the college spectrum.  I fully expect to see more non-revenue sports being dropped at all levels as ADs put their efforts into revenue producing sports.

Agreed.  Teams will need to find wealthy NIL benefactors who are willing to fund specific teams.  Otherwise programs will instead be dropped or left to dangle 

[Class of '66 Old Fart]

Final 3-games of the season hosting Illinois (27-23) (13-14).  All 3 games televised on B1G+.  Note this is a Thursday - Saturday finale.

• Thurs - 6:00
• Fri - 6:00
• Sat - 2:00

Preview

Radio

Live Stats

[Class of '66 Old Fart]

We led 5-0 after 2 and didn't let this one slip away winning with a final score of 10-4.  Neubeck started and pitched 6 innings giving up just 5 hits and a single run.  But he wore out in the 7th and Vogel and Yarberry closed it out.  We had 12 hits.  Denny went 3-5.  Ten Oever, Fry and Moore each had 2 hits.  Ten Oever had 4 RBI.

[Class of '66 Old Fart]

The Illini got on the board quickly. They scored 3 in the 1st inning off Connor Linn; added 1 in the 7th and 3 more in the 8th.  5 Hoosier pitchers held them to just 5 hits but walked 6 and hit 4 batters.  And 4 of the 5 hits were for extra bases - 2 doubles and 2 HR.  We entered the 9th trailing 7-3. Will Moore opened with a solo HR followed by a Cole Decker double.  Cal Gates walked to put runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs, but Aiden Stewart hit into a double play.  A Ricketts walk put runners on 1st and 3rd and Hogan Denny blasted a 3-run HR to tie it up and send the game into extra innings.

But Illinois scored 2 in the top of the 10th and we couldn't mount another rally.  Final score 9-7.

Season comes to a close tomorrow with the first pitch scheduled for 2:00.

[IUHoosierJoe]

48 minutes ago, Class of '66 Old Fart said:

The Illini got on the board quickly. They scored 3 in the 1st inning off Connor Linn; added 1 in the 7th and 3 more in the 8th.  5 Hoosier pitchers held them to just 5 hits but walked 6 and hit 4 batters.  And 4 of the 5 hits were for extra bases - 2 doubles and 2 HR.  We entered the 9th trailing 7-3. Will Moore opened with a solo HR followed by a Cole Decker double.  Cal Gates walked to put runners on 1st and 2nd with no outs, but Aiden Stewart hit into a double play.  A Ricketts walk put runners on 1st and 3rd and Hogan Denny blasted a 3-run HR to tie it up and send the game into extra innings.

But Illinois scored 2 in the top of the 10th and we couldn't mount another rally.  Final score 9-7.

Season comes to a close tomorrow with the first pitch scheduled for 2:00.

Just a note on how Illinois scored their 2 runs in the 10th: 2 walks and a hit batsman to load the bases with no outs.  First run scored on a double play ground ball.  Then a two-out wild pitch scored the second run.  So Illinois scored 2 runs in the 10th without a hit or an RBI.  Business as usual for IU.

[Class of '66 Old Fart]

And the fat lady has sung on the 2026 baseball season.  Certainly not what anyone expected but at least the team did win the final weekend series beating Illinois 11-2 this afternoon.  We pounded out 10 hits off 5 Illini pitchers.  Cal Gates unloaded the first home run of his college career in the 4th and it will always be memorable for him as it was a grand slam.  

Lots of questions to be answered before next year.  Good read from Ari Shifron at the link below. 

https://www.assemblycall.com/p/pro-development-or-program-decline?r=2xu6ia&utm_medium=ios&triedRedirect=true