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Aaron

#IUBASE - 2018 NCAA Tournament

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Today at noon on ESPNU we find out where we are going for NCAA tournament. Here are the potential sites we could be sent to:

  • Athens (host school: Georgia)
  • Austin (Texas)
  • Chapel Hill (North Carolina)
  • Clemson, SC (Clemson)
  • Conway, SC (Coastal Carolina)
  • Corvallis, OR (Oregon State)
  • Deland, FL (Stetson)
  • Fayetteville (Arkansas)
  • Gainesville (Florida)
  • Greenville, NC (East Carolina)
  • Lubbock, TX (Texas Tech)
  • Minneapolis (Minnesota)
  • Oxford (Ole Miss)
  • Raleigh, NC (North Carolina State)
  • Stanford, CA (Stanford)
  • Tallahassee, FL (Florida State)

I vote for Deland, Gainesville or Tallahassee first as I have friends and family in Florida I would like to see I have not seen in a while and this would be a great excuse. Second vote would be Athens or Clemson as I have family in Atlanta I could see as well (although I see them regularly). Third choice would be Chapel Hill, Raleigh, Greeneville, Conway or Austin. No people I know at these sites but all of those 10 I just mentioned are a non-stop flight from Indy (as I said I have plenty of airline points) and would strongly consider going. Corvallis, Fayetteville, Oxford, Stanford or Lubbock are out of question for me (note they won't send us to Minneapolis as they avoid at all costs pairing you up with conference foes) as they are hard to get via flight and very expensive.

From a pure competition standpoint probably Stetson, East Carolina or Coastal Carolina would be ideal as we have already played Coastal and beat them and East Carolina and Stetson are less battle tested from slightly weaker leagues. All other 12 are power conference teams who are really good. Note as a 2 or 3 seed we will play a fellow 2 or 3 seed in first game who will be on level of Louisville, Illinois Purdue, Ohio State or Kentucky but eventually we will have to beat a 1 if we want to do well.  

 

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Well I'm out for going. There was a decent flight but 100 degree heat and the draw turned me away as I am not confident we will get far.

Texas A+M with a top 16 RPI didn't host and was relegated to a 3 seed because of an awful conference record. Like us were really good out of conference but struggled in conference. TAMU doesn't blow you away with anything but is merely solid at everything and competed at a higher level in the SEC. There ace is a guy named John Doxakis who has a 2.89 ERA which is good but not great for an ace but given our hitting recently and the fact he has competed against SEC competition does not make me confident. They also have a stud for a closer but the rest of their bullpen is unproven with minimal appearances by many and is not especially deep with only 7 guys besides the closer making at least 10 appearances and only 2 have ERA's below 3. Team ERA a solid 3.23. There lineup is solid but unspectacular. Nobodies home run numbers jump off the page but almost everyone has hit 5-10. 4 guys hit over .300 led by a guy named Michael Helman at .366. Bottom 4 guys all hit around .250 or below. Again team batting average is a solid but unspectacular .284. It looks like they do nothing really well but nothing really badly and are merely solid at all areas much like us.

Overall, though they play in a much tougher conference so take numbers similar to ours and add a few points for being in SEC. I am not confident in our first game given how we have played but hoping for the best. We are probably the worse 2 seed arguably and them the best 3 seed. The only good thing I can say is we will bat last as the higher seed in first game which gives us a small advantage. A huge disadvantage though will be the crowd as both Texas and Texas A+M I assume will bring large numbers of fans I. Texas Southern our 4 seed is awful so I would expect us to at least win an elimination game Saturday. I don't like our chances against Texas or TAMU though given how we have played. Texas is pretty similar to A+M competing in a stronger Big 12 and solid but unspectacular at everything. Only big difference is their leading hitter at .341 has a bulk of their Home Runs with 19 so kind of like a mini Bren Spillane from Illinois. Otherwise similar except for a slightly weaker bullpen and higher ERA.   

I will be watching every game online or on TV and hope for the best. First game is Friday against TAMU on ESPN2 at 5pm.

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1 minute ago, Aaron said:

Well I'm out for going. There was a decent flight but 100 degree heat and the draw turned me away as I am not confident we will get far.

Texas A+M with a top 16 RPI didn't host and was relegated to a 3 seed because of an awful conference record. Like us were really good out of conference but struggled in conference. TAMU doesn't blow you away with anything but is merely solid at everything and competed at a higher level in the SEC. There ace is a guy named John Doxakis who has a 2.89 ERA which is good but not great for an ace but given our hitting recently and the fact he has competed against SEC competition does not make me confident. They also have a stud for a closer but the rest of their bullpen is unproven with minimal appearances by many and is not especially deep with only 7 guys besides the closer making at least 10 appearances and only 2 have an ERA's below 3. Team ERA a solid 3.23. There lineup is solid but unspectacular. Nobodies home run numbers jump off the page but almost everyone has hit 5-10. 4 guys hit over .300 led by a guy named Michael Helman at .366. Bottom 4 guys all hit around .250 or below. Again team batting average is a solid but unspectacular .284. It looks like they do nothing really well but nothing really badly and are merely solid at all areas much like us.

Overall, though they play in a much tougher conference so take numbers similar to ours and add a few points for being in SEC. I am not confident in our first game given how we have played but hoping for the best. We are probably the worse 2 seed arguably and them the best 3 seed. The only good thing I can say is we will bat last as the higher seed in first game which gives us a small advantage. A huge disadvantage though will be the crowd as both Texas and Texas A+M I assume will bring large numbers of fans I. Texas Southern our 4 seed is awful so I would expect us to at least win an elimination game Saturday. I don't like our chances against Texas or TAMU though given how we have played. Texas is pretty similar to A+M competing in a stronger Big 12 and solid but unspectacular at everything. Only big difference is their leading hitter at .341 has a bulk of their Home Runs with 19 so kind of like a mini Bren Spillane from Illinois. Otherwise similar except for a slightly weaker bullpen and higher ERA.   

I will be watching every game online or on TV and hope for the best. First game is Friday against TAMU on ESPN2 at 5pm.

The Longhorns leading hitter you speak of is Roger Clemens son. 

Also, A&M was a bubble team heading into the SEC tourney this weekend but won their first three games in pretty convincing fashion reaching the semifinals and beating Vanderbilt, #8 Georgia and #21 Auburn. They fell 2-1 to #4 Ole Miss. It is safe to say that given the momentum from having such a good tourney and also playing just a few hours away from College Station you have to like their chances. Couple that with us playing not great baseball as of recently.

Overall, this is a pretty favorable region since there isn't a team that jumps out as 'stacked' or one that has two or three ace pitchers. UT lost in the Big 12 tourney to Kansas and Oklahoma, however, they finished the regular season winning 7 of their last 8. If we put it together we have a good chance here but that's a huge 'if' at this point in time given how this team has played within the last month or so. 

 

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One potential problem we may have being in Texas as IU fans is if games get put on Longhorn Network. Texas' first game is on Longhorn network but they are playing a team in Texas and Longhorn network is on basic cable there so both teams (and A+M) can watch without an issue. However, it is part of a sports tier everywhere else. It would be the same if we were hosting the regional and they put the game on BTN against a team from outside Big Ten region (one team [IU] could easily watch while the other [whatver team we played from further away] would have a difficult time). Also you wouldn't be able to watch online most likely on ESPN3 since Longhorn network is not part of our cable service. Anyone in Indiana would have to order the sports tier on their TV for a month which would suck. 

From a personal standpoint I will be gone at a hotel with most likely limited cable Saturday so I am hoping for ESPN or ESPN2. If not I am at least hoping for ESPNU, ESPNNEWS or ESPN3 where I can at least use my home cable subscription to watch online as hotel has Wifi.

Also games are already sold out so if any IU fans were planning to go and have not purchased tickets yet you may want to rethink.  

Friday is 5pm on ESPN2 for us and Saturday is at 2:30pm if we lose and 7pm if we win but TV after Friday for all games on weekend won't be announced until first day is complete I believe.

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Well today's the day! Again 5pm ESPN2.

I had an early morning appointment and got into work late unfortunately so I will probably stay here after work (I end right at 5pm) and watch the game in our break room since it takes me 45 min to get home and don't want to miss any of the game with it being postseason. As a result I will have my computer access a little away from where I watch so don't expect me to post until after the game or very sparingly during a break maybe.

I am pumped and lets go IU today!

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Not sure what our Big Ten Rivals in Columbus are up to or why their game is moving so slow but its taken 2 hours to play half the game and its only 1-0 OSU (I checked at 2pm and the game started on time). Don't be surprised if our game starts online, ESPNNEWS, or we just don't get to see it for a couple innings.  

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Our game starts on espnnews with prev game running over right now. As i said Watching in our breakroom at work since i finished right at 5 and dont want to miss much. Fortunately our work cable has all 4 espns right by each other on dial. 

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Well I can't say I am surprised. We walked into a hornets nest today and were stung big time. Really we were just over matched and there was not much we could do. Our problem was the late season cave in that forced us into a Regional with 2 teams who are better than us (TAMU and Texas) instead of hosting lower seeds or at least being a higher 2 seed who did not have to play the best 3 seed in the tourney. The reason we struggle in first games and its been an issue all year I have talked about is Stiever is not a true ace. He's a really solid 2 and has actually developed much better than most of our players from the struggling bullpen guy as a freshman to a solid starter. With that said he will always be inferior to most Friday guys we face and this really is not the fault of the staff who I think has gotten a lot out of Stiever. We have a lot of good arms but no true no. 1 guy and its why we struggle in first games against better aces. On the weekend we are strong as our 2 and 3 guys are as good as any in the Big Ten and most of college baseball. We are still looking for that elite no. 1 guy since Kyle Hart graduated. 

I get people are frustrated and I am among them and the player development is inexcusable right now. I stopped watching after the 4th inning today and am working the games around my weekend as oppose to past years where I have worked my weekend around the games in the tourney. With that said as a northern baseball team to make the tourney 5 times in 6 years is better than almost anyone north of the Mason-Dixon line. While this year has finished really poorly it was still a solid year by a lot of measures.

With that said I do think we all need to be concerned moving forward whether this is sustainable given the player developement issues in the program and whether we can keep recruiting at this level if that doesn't change. Lemonis is not going anywhere nor should he esecially with Tracy Smith not on the market now. I would like to see a new assistant coach that focuses on hitting who can better develop players and their approaches at the plate. 

I do think we beat Texas Southern tomorrow in a high scoring game as their pitching is atrocious. I think our season though ends Sunday though in first game with a thorough beating from Texas or TAMU again. This is exactly what I thought would happen before the weekend started and why I passed on spending $300 to fly to Austin to see the games.     

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Minny is killing an awful Canisius team but OSU and PU were about as bad as us today from a Big Ten perspective. OSU got killed by a pretty good South Carolina team 8-3 and PU laid the biggest egg getting killed 9-1 by an average Houston team ranked in 40's. Like I said as far as Big Ten has come it still has a bit to go to catch other power conferences.

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Well it took us 4 innings but like yesterday when A+M scored 7 with 2 outs we struck for 3 with 2 outs on doubles by Fineman and Walker and triple by Houston. 3-0 IU going to bottom 4.

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IU tacks on 2 more to make 5-0 to bottom 5.

I am in the awkward situation of watching on my computer in the Turkey Run Inn lobby area. There is Wifi in my room but it is much slower in there and not fast enough to stream a game vs. in the lobby its fast (room runs at 4 MB while lobby at 24). As a result no sound and lots of people around me. 

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Why are we the visiting team when we're the higher seed and playing a team that's 27-27? Aaron, are you well versed on what determines home teams in the postseason? I'm still incredibly bitter about how our stacked 2014 team lost on a walk-off home run in our own stadium due to lower-seeded Stanford inexplicably getting to bat last.

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7 minutes ago, TheWatShot said:

Why are we the visiting team when we're the higher seed and playing a team that's 27-27? Aaron, are you well versed on what determines home teams in the postseason? I'm still incredibly bitter about how our stacked 2014 team lost on a walk-off home run in our own stadium due to lower-seeded Stanford inexplicably getting to bat last.

Yes the formula is convoluted and awful. Higher seed get its first game then whoever has been home less gets to be home for that game (since Texas Southern was road and we were home yesterday it switches today) and if its even you toss a coin which will happen tomorrow no matter what for early game since both teams will have been home and road once each. 

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