Quote Originally Posted by Todd4State View Post
You win with pitching and defense and I have yet to see a team win a NC with a bad pitching staff. I have seen some win with an average or worse offense
Top notch pitching and D gets you to the dance. But, when you are in the dance where everyone has top pitching, the variable becomes the BATS. Your pitching can carry you against teams with shitty pitching, but when everyone has good pitching like in the tournament its the teams that can score runs that will prevail.

Since the BBCOR bats came about... Runs per game of CWS teams, and us
2011
Cal 333 61 5.46
UF 455 72 6.32
UNC 452 67 6.75
USC 419 69 6.07
TX 349 68 5.13
A&M 405 69 5.87
Vandy 459 66 6.95
Virginia 471 68 6.93
Mississippi St. 380 63 6.03
2012
Arizona 478 65 7.35
Arkansas 351 68 5.16
UF 393 67 5.87
FSU 459 67 6.85
Kent St 445 67 6.64
USC 351 69 5.09
Stony Brook 471 67 7.03
UCLA 394 64 6.16
Mississippi St. 287 64 4.48


We were right there in producing runs in 2011 and nearly made it to the CWS. Last year we were over half a run per game lower than the lowest CWS teams Arkansas and South Carolina. Both of those teams also had team ERA's below 3.00 but they could score. Look at the teams who "don't belong" Stony Brook and Kent State. How did they make it? 7.03 and 6.64 runs per game. Look at Samford who took us out in 2 games. In this format you have to score runs to advance. That is the variable. The last 2 champions have scored over 6 a game