Todd4State
05-30-2014, 01:15 AM
I've been in St. Louis for the past few days, hence why I haven't posted a lot.
On being paired up with the Ole Miss Regional:
I figured that this would happen eventually, and it probably won't be the last time we are paired up. I knew it was more and more likely once I saw how the committee was pairing up all Texas teams at Rice. The NCAA committee doesn't care about how many people you bring to your regional- even if we brought 15 K to Starkville for every game, that would be a blip in the NCAA budget. What they DO care about are TV ratings. They know that rivalries generate that. Pairing up rivalries is something that is not uncommon for the NCAA to do.
The biggest thing I don't like about it is the SR would be in Oxford, but it is what it is. Take care of business next time Diamond Dawgs.
On our regional:
Going with the theme taking care of our own business- I don't know that necessarily losing to Holy Cross and Arizona killed us as much as not beating LSU and winning the series with Ole Miss and Texas A&M. Losing to Holy Cross didn't help us- but we had opportunities and not once did we do what we had to do. I hope that this is a lesson that our players have learned and will correct next year. In fact, I expect them to.
Some of our fans wanted to go to ULL really bad- and now you have gotten your wish. But you shouldn't be surprised that they aren't allowing us to take over the place. The best solution I can come up with is for us to host so that we can have all the tickets that we want.
On the regional draw:
I think we got a reasonable draw considering how we did and our RPI. Probably in part because the committee wanted us paired up with Ole Miss. ULL is one of the best teams in the country. DO NOT UNDERRATE THEM especially at home. They have a team that Skip Bertman would be proud of. We're going to have to go deep into our staff and stay in the winner's bracket because I don't think we can beat them two in a row. Hopefully I am wrong about that. San Diego State is very respectable- and ESPN is going to give them a lot of love on the broadcast because of Tony Gwynn and the fact that they are the underdog. I expect to see someone talking about the crappy announcing. We should be OK against them- especially with Fitts and Lindgren. Should we lose, having Jackson State is a huge help for us. We won't have to use Ross on them unless they pull off a monumental upset on road. We could probably throw Preston Brown and be OK against JSU, although I'm not advocating that. But with all due respect to JSU, having them in our regional basically makes this a three team regional. Should we win, Ross is a good pitcher to throw against ULL. He won't provide them any help with his velocity and he can keep them off balance with his movement. Hopefully he is on. Pitching Fitts first should allow us to use Lindgren more than once in this regional. Brandon Woodruff could be the wild card for us. Luke Laster will obviously pitch first though.
On us going to Louisiana:
I think that Louisiana is one of the best kept secrets as far as baseball talent goes. LSU is a powerhouse, and there are always at least 1-2 mid majors that are very solid. I want us to recruit Louisiana as much as we recruit Alabama and Memphis as far as out of state talent. Will Clark is from NOLA. Brian Wiese was from Baton Rouge. Chase Vallot if we get him is from Lafayette and we see how highly thought of he is. And then we are getting Kyle Breaux from Louisiana and he is a candidate for Team USA. LSU can't keep them all. Ole Miss has had a lot of luck in Louisiana as well. I hope Cohen and his staff use this time to establish some relationships for recruiting the Pelican State even more. If we can add 2-3 players from there in addition to what we get from Mississippi, we can find some impact guys.
How we finished the season:
Since the shaved beard meeting, we have done better. The hitting is still inconsistent- but improved. The biggest thing I see is that the general team attitude is better. We've overcome a lot of things not going our way during the year- injuries, guys not stepping up, losing first round pick hitters, people not stepping up and etc. And yet we somehow managed to finish strong. The games that we have lost since the meeting- we lost to Daniel Mengdon of Texas A&M a top 100 MLB draft prospect, we lost two games (A&M and Alabama) that Preston Brown started, and then the other two we lost- one was to a good Jacksonville State team where our catchers let us down and then we lose a game where Lindgren had some control issues against Tennessee. I hate to criticize a player, but if we don't start Preston Brown, we probably win the West. We have to shut him down. He's not healthy. He's not going to be healthy this year. I think the catching issue has for the most part been corrected finally thanks to Cody Walker. Aside from Preston Brown, it's good to see the coaches take action during a critical part of the season and get things for the most part fixed. People can criticize the lineups and the fact that Cohen rarely has the same one this year- but the bottom line is if you do not perform, you will not play.
This has been a tough season IMO simply because of everything that has gone wrong- but I am excited about the future and what it holds for us because of the talent that we are bringing in.
On being paired up with the Ole Miss Regional:
I figured that this would happen eventually, and it probably won't be the last time we are paired up. I knew it was more and more likely once I saw how the committee was pairing up all Texas teams at Rice. The NCAA committee doesn't care about how many people you bring to your regional- even if we brought 15 K to Starkville for every game, that would be a blip in the NCAA budget. What they DO care about are TV ratings. They know that rivalries generate that. Pairing up rivalries is something that is not uncommon for the NCAA to do.
The biggest thing I don't like about it is the SR would be in Oxford, but it is what it is. Take care of business next time Diamond Dawgs.
On our regional:
Going with the theme taking care of our own business- I don't know that necessarily losing to Holy Cross and Arizona killed us as much as not beating LSU and winning the series with Ole Miss and Texas A&M. Losing to Holy Cross didn't help us- but we had opportunities and not once did we do what we had to do. I hope that this is a lesson that our players have learned and will correct next year. In fact, I expect them to.
Some of our fans wanted to go to ULL really bad- and now you have gotten your wish. But you shouldn't be surprised that they aren't allowing us to take over the place. The best solution I can come up with is for us to host so that we can have all the tickets that we want.
On the regional draw:
I think we got a reasonable draw considering how we did and our RPI. Probably in part because the committee wanted us paired up with Ole Miss. ULL is one of the best teams in the country. DO NOT UNDERRATE THEM especially at home. They have a team that Skip Bertman would be proud of. We're going to have to go deep into our staff and stay in the winner's bracket because I don't think we can beat them two in a row. Hopefully I am wrong about that. San Diego State is very respectable- and ESPN is going to give them a lot of love on the broadcast because of Tony Gwynn and the fact that they are the underdog. I expect to see someone talking about the crappy announcing. We should be OK against them- especially with Fitts and Lindgren. Should we lose, having Jackson State is a huge help for us. We won't have to use Ross on them unless they pull off a monumental upset on road. We could probably throw Preston Brown and be OK against JSU, although I'm not advocating that. But with all due respect to JSU, having them in our regional basically makes this a three team regional. Should we win, Ross is a good pitcher to throw against ULL. He won't provide them any help with his velocity and he can keep them off balance with his movement. Hopefully he is on. Pitching Fitts first should allow us to use Lindgren more than once in this regional. Brandon Woodruff could be the wild card for us. Luke Laster will obviously pitch first though.
On us going to Louisiana:
I think that Louisiana is one of the best kept secrets as far as baseball talent goes. LSU is a powerhouse, and there are always at least 1-2 mid majors that are very solid. I want us to recruit Louisiana as much as we recruit Alabama and Memphis as far as out of state talent. Will Clark is from NOLA. Brian Wiese was from Baton Rouge. Chase Vallot if we get him is from Lafayette and we see how highly thought of he is. And then we are getting Kyle Breaux from Louisiana and he is a candidate for Team USA. LSU can't keep them all. Ole Miss has had a lot of luck in Louisiana as well. I hope Cohen and his staff use this time to establish some relationships for recruiting the Pelican State even more. If we can add 2-3 players from there in addition to what we get from Mississippi, we can find some impact guys.
How we finished the season:
Since the shaved beard meeting, we have done better. The hitting is still inconsistent- but improved. The biggest thing I see is that the general team attitude is better. We've overcome a lot of things not going our way during the year- injuries, guys not stepping up, losing first round pick hitters, people not stepping up and etc. And yet we somehow managed to finish strong. The games that we have lost since the meeting- we lost to Daniel Mengdon of Texas A&M a top 100 MLB draft prospect, we lost two games (A&M and Alabama) that Preston Brown started, and then the other two we lost- one was to a good Jacksonville State team where our catchers let us down and then we lose a game where Lindgren had some control issues against Tennessee. I hate to criticize a player, but if we don't start Preston Brown, we probably win the West. We have to shut him down. He's not healthy. He's not going to be healthy this year. I think the catching issue has for the most part been corrected finally thanks to Cody Walker. Aside from Preston Brown, it's good to see the coaches take action during a critical part of the season and get things for the most part fixed. People can criticize the lineups and the fact that Cohen rarely has the same one this year- but the bottom line is if you do not perform, you will not play.
This has been a tough season IMO simply because of everything that has gone wrong- but I am excited about the future and what it holds for us because of the talent that we are bringing in.