(03-17-2013 08:23 PM)bobreinhold1 Wrote:  McCanna only threw 87 pitches so the Harvard at bats didn't last long.

Nor did the green beer in the Roost. Happy B-Day Mort!

(03-17-2013 03:05 PM)westsidewolf1989 Wrote:  Great to get the sweep. 8-2 since Minute Maid and averaging nearly 6 runs per game during that time. Should continue to be that way for the next five games, with winnable games against SFA and UTSA (although UTSA looks to be pretty strong yet again) and then a road series against a Southern Miss squad that appears to be pretty bad in comparison to their usual teams that they send out.

Boyd's World ISR has UTSA as the slightly better team than Rice based on the results so far as they have the same record but against a tougher strength of schedule (#107 to our #177). Most of our other opponents are ranked extremely low - after Houston at #26(!!), the next best weekend series opponent is Memphis, currently sitting at #80 and it only gets worse from there.

Even if we start rattling off a lot of wins with good margins of victory, I'm not sure if that will say much about our chances in the postseason against tougher teams.

(03-18-2013 09:42 AM)NicevilleWRC Wrote:  

(03-17-2013 03:05 PM)westsidewolf1989 Wrote:  Great to get the sweep. 8-2 since Minute Maid and averaging nearly 6 runs per game during that time. Should continue to be that way for the next five games, with winnable games against SFA and UTSA (although UTSA looks to be pretty strong yet again) and then a road series against a Southern Miss squad that appears to be pretty bad in comparison to their usual teams that they send out.

Boyd's World ISR has UTSA as the slightly better team than Rice based on the results so far as they have the same record but against a tougher strength of schedule (#107 to our #177). Most of our other opponents are ranked extremely low - after Houston at #26(!!), the next best weekend series opponent is Memphis, currently sitting at #80 and it only gets worse from there.

Even if we start rattling off a lot of wins with good margins of victory, I'm not sure if that will say much about our chances in the postseason against tougher teams.

And you say this why? Of the 4 games we've played against truly elite teams (Stanford, UNC), we're 2-2, and could very easily have been 4-0 with any bit of luck. Regardless to the competition, we simply have to continue to improve, and play a better, more consistent brand of baseball. Given how inexperienced we are in our lineup, I think that is realistically possible. No question, we're going to end the season with the worst RPI we've had in over a decade, but we can still put ourselves in a good position (albeit not likely hosting) provided we once again win 40+ games and win the conference title.

At the risk of being a Debbie Downer here ....

We appear to have a downside scenario here that we haven't had in recent years. Given our current RPI - as well as the mediocrity of CUSA - we run a real risk of missing the tournament all together should we stumble through parts of our conference schedule.

Of course, the upside - and the more realistic scenario - is that we appear to have a less challenging conference slate this year, which should make it easier to rack up wins and give ourselves some breathing room.

But ... we are in (recently) unchartered territory in regard to overall tournament metrics.

Teykl named C-USA Hitter of the Week. Hopefully he can continue this streak so we can have both him and Hoelscher in the lineup in a few weeks.

(03-18-2013 10:10 AM)waltgreenberg Wrote:  

(03-18-2013 09:42 AM)NicevilleWRC Wrote:  

(03-17-2013 03:05 PM)westsidewolf1989 Wrote:  Great to get the sweep. 8-2 since Minute Maid and averaging nearly 6 runs per game during that time. Should continue to be that way for the next five games, with winnable games against SFA and UTSA (although UTSA looks to be pretty strong yet again) and then a road series against a Southern Miss squad that appears to be pretty bad in comparison to their usual teams that they send out.

Boyd's World ISR has UTSA as the slightly better team than Rice based on the results so far as they have the same record but against a tougher strength of schedule (#107 to our #177). Most of our other opponents are ranked extremely low - after Houston at #26(!!), the next best weekend series opponent is Tulane, currently sitting at #80 and it only gets worse from there.

Even if we start rattling off a lot of wins with good margins of victory, I'm not sure if that will say much about our chances in the postseason against tougher teams.

And you say this why? Of the 4 games we've played against truly elite teams (Stanford, UNC), we're 2-2, and could very easily have been 4-0 with any bit of luck. Regardless to the competition, we simply have to continue to improve, and play a better, more consistent brand of baseball. Given how inexperienced we are in our lineup, I think that is realistically possible. No question, we're going to end the season with the worst RPI we've had in over a decade, but we can still put ourselves in a good position (albeit not likely hosting) provided we once again win 40+ games and win the conference title.

I say it because we will likely look better over the coming weeks and it will be hard to separate how much is due to playing weaker competition and how much is actual, inherent improvement to the team. Unless I'm missing something we play exactly 1 game against a Top 50 team between now and the Houston series at the end of April, with most of our games vs teams in the 70s. Therefore our upcoming games will not be representative of the postseason competition, so our level of play probably won't be representative either (because it will look too good in the interim).

I'll also note that A&M and Cal are both ranked higher by ISR than Stanford, so that's another win and loss added to our record vs the Top 50. Ultimately that's the problem: we're 0.500 against the Top 50 teams we've played so far. To achieve our final goal of winning a championship, or even getting back to Omaha, we have to do much better than 0.500. Yes, while there's some promise that we may have been unlucky in going 3-3 and 6 games is a small sample size anyway, the problems in winning those games (we can't score) are the same problems in our other games (i.e. 16 scoreless innings against Hawaii).