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D1 Baseball Predicts Iowa 5th in B1G in 2021. On May 6, 2019 IOWA ranked #24 (was Great Season despite 1-7 Finish). 2020 Season Cut Short by Covid

I don't believe that they match the #1 1 seed with the #16 2 seed. I think Nebby got sent to Arkansas as a 'favor' due to location. Fayetteville is the closest regional site geographically by about 2 hours from Lincoln. I would guess pretty much all Husker fans would have gladly driven the extra 2 hours to go to South Bend...

@Franisdaman they don’t “rank” outside the top 16 as far as worst #2 in National #1 regional and so on.

@whatsup13579er ive read tickets are a bitch to get. All session are mostly available to Arkansas season ticket holders and boosters. THEN of any remain for single session they go on sale in person, 90 minutes prior to games that day.
 
@Franisdaman they don’t “rank” outside the top 16 as far as worst #2 in National #1 regional and so on.

@whatsup13579er ive read tickets are a bitch to get. All session are mostly available to Arkansas season ticket holders and boosters. THEN of any remain for single session they go on sale in person, 90 minutes prior to games that day.
Haha. Hey Nebraska congrats on winning the B1G. As your reward we're going to put you in the #1 overall regional because it is closest to Lincoln but good luck getting tickets because the host team is taking them all.
 
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Haha. Hey Nebraska congrats on winning the B1G. As your reward we're going to put you in the #1 overall regional because it is closest to Lincoln but good luck getting tickets because the host team is taking them all.

That is how it sounds, my assumption is most regionals then probably work like that. No idea what the demand would be. Obviously Iowa was in Houston in 2017, so too far. I didn’t even consider 2015 despite Springfield being fairly close.
 
If I was Gary Barta (and I’m not for the record) I would meet with Coach Heller and propose this.

The first three series of the year need to be true road games.
Say...

@ UCLA
@ Florida
@ Baylor

Make one of them a four game series. If you can at least go 3-7, and make up ground to finish top six in the conference you’re RPI and SOS should be there every year. Mix in a road midweek game @ Mizzou.
Thinking about this a little more, Iowa has done a pretty good job in the non-conference.

2020 they had Pitt, SDSU, Arizona, San Diego, NCST, UNC, and Duke in pre-season tourney's. CS Northridge (3), Kansas (2), Bradley (2), Mizzu

2019 Hawai'i (4), Ok State (3), Evansville (3), CS Northridge (4), UC Irvine (3) Bradley (2)

2018 UNLV (3) UAB (3), Evansville (3), Bradley (2), Mizzu, Ok State (3)

Getting Ok State for a home and home was an awesome scheduling job. I'd argue to get more series like that they should try to set up some 2 for 1s. Have Iowa go to a perennial top 25 team twice and them come to Iowa City once in a 5 year span. And I agree do more one offs with Iowa traveling to an ACC/SEC/Big12/PAC12 school early in the season. I'd like to see them get away from scheduling the Big West teams. Those seems to be hit or miss.

Bradley is usually a solid midweek game and it makes sense being so close. I'd like to see Mizzu, Kansas, Creighton, ND, other Valley teams etc. on the schedule more and W Illinois, N Illinois, UIC, Milwaukee, etc. on the schedule less.

I think Iowa has raised its level enough that it could realistically schedule some of these higher tier games.
 
I don't believe that they match the #1 1 seed with the #16 2 seed. I think Nebby got sent to Arkansas as a 'favor' due to location. Fayetteville is the closest regional site geographically by about 2 hours from Lincoln. I would guess pretty much all Husker fans would have gladly driven the extra 2 hours to go to South Bend...
Fayetteville is 6.5 hours from Lincoln and South Bend is 8.5 hours.

Nebraska is ranked #19 by D1Baseball, so they almost were a top 16 team. Tough spot to send them to.
 
@Alum-Ni

Questions for you.

Did the Selection Committee select the 64 teams & then rank them 1 thru 64?

And then did they say that, in each of the 16 Regionals:

1 Seed: Teams Ranked 1-16
2 Seed: Teams Ranked 17-32
3 Seed: Teams Ranked 33-48
4 Seed: Teams Ranked 49-64

I am totally guessing, but if this is the case, in Arkansas' Region, since they are the number 1 overall seed, did #1 Seed Arkansas get:

Team Ranked #32, Nebraska, the #2 Seed in Arkansas' Region

Team Ranked #48, Northeastern, the #3 Seed in Arkansas' Region

Team Ranked #64, NJIT, the #4 seed in Arkansas' Region

And if so, how in the hell is the B1G Champion considered the 32nd best team of the field of 64?
From what I understand, the selection committee does not seed all the teams....only #1 thru #16. After that they can place teams wherever they want, and geography plays a big part in that (as do "storylines" of matchups I'm sure.)
 
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From what I understand, the selection committee does not seed all the teams....only #1 thru #16. After that they can place teams wherever they want, and geography plays a big part in that (as do "storylines" of matchups I'm sure.)

interesting; hopefully what I typed to you made sense

If Nebraska gets eliminated in the Regional, I am sure we will hear more of "the B1G is a weak baseball conference and the B1G Champion getting eliminated right off the bat PROVES IT" narrative.
 
The Big Ten leadership needs to proactively take baseball and softball much more seriously if they want the NCAA to take the league more seriously.

I feel bad for the coaches and players at Nebraska, Indiana and Iowa. They all got screwed by the incompetent leaders of the B1G.

I hope Nebraska, Maryland & Michigan all somehow make it to the CWS & while doing so, they give the Selection Committee & the B1G a big middle finger.
 
I feel bad for the coaches and players at Nebraska, Indiana and Iowa. They all got screwed by the incompetent leaders of the B1G.

I hope Nebraska, Maryland & Michigan all somehow make it to the CWS & while doing so, they give the Selection Committee & the B1G a big middle finger.
I like Maryland's chances to at least reach a Super....they are pretty darn hot right now
 
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I like Maryland's chances to at least reach a Super....they are pretty darn hot right now

Baseball is a funny game though. Not unheard of to make a run to finish season and qualify for post-season play only to lay an egg.

That written, I feel like Maryland and Nebraska have a better chance to reach the Regional finals than Michigan. Just not sold that UM is that good this year.
 
Michigan’s Erik Bakich speaks out against how the conference scheduled.

The Big Ten, we did this to ourselves,” Bakich said Monday to a group of reporters. “I don’t blame the selection committee. I wouldn’t have blamed the selection committee one bit if we were not included. They already have a tough enough job, and we as a conference made their job even harder by not having any information to compare the Big Ten teams to in terms of playing those measurables against nonconference opponents.”

He called the decision an “uncontrollable” the Big Ten teams had to deal with.

“Nobody wanted a 44-game conference-only schedule,” Bakich said of the conference coaches. “And we all knew that could negatively affect our opportunities to play in the postseason because you couldn’t evaluate our teams against outside competition. And coupled with finishing third in the conference not knowing if three teams were going to get in, or two teams, yeah, all those things led to some tense moments. I sure am glad we got in, though.”

Bakich said that as soon as it was decided Big Ten football teams would play a conference-only schedule last fall, he and the other baseball coaches in the league knew they would face a similar reduction in their schedules.

“We were reduced from 15 weeks to 13 weeks and our main argument was at least let us play four games a weekend in those 13 weeks so we can get to more games instead of 44,” he said. “Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.”




 
Michigan’s Erik Bakich speaks out against how the conference scheduled.

The Big Ten, we did this to ourselves,” Bakich said Monday to a group of reporters. “I don’t blame the selection committee. I wouldn’t have blamed the selection committee one bit if we were not included. They already have a tough enough job, and we as a conference made their job even harder by not having any information to compare the Big Ten teams to in terms of playing those measurables against nonconference opponents.”

He called the decision an “uncontrollable” the Big Ten teams had to deal with.

“Nobody wanted a 44-game conference-only schedule,” Bakich said of the conference coaches. “And we all knew that could negatively affect our opportunities to play in the postseason because you couldn’t evaluate our teams against outside competition. And coupled with finishing third in the conference not knowing if three teams were going to get in, or two teams, yeah, all those things led to some tense moments. I sure am glad we got in, though.”

Bakich said that as soon as it was decided Big Ten football teams would play a conference-only schedule last fall, he and the other baseball coaches in the league knew they would face a similar reduction in their schedules.

“We were reduced from 15 weeks to 13 weeks and our main argument was at least let us play four games a weekend in those 13 weeks so we can get to more games instead of 44,” he said. “Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.”




That's pretty tame as far as criticizing the B1G is concerned. He probably has the most clout in the B1G when it comes to baseball?
 
Michigan’s Erik Bakich speaks out against how the conference scheduled.

The Big Ten, we did this to ourselves,” Bakich said Monday to a group of reporters. “I don’t blame the selection committee. I wouldn’t have blamed the selection committee one bit if we were not included. They already have a tough enough job, and we as a conference made their job even harder by not having any information to compare the Big Ten teams to in terms of playing those measurables against nonconference opponents.”

He called the decision an “uncontrollable” the Big Ten teams had to deal with.

“Nobody wanted a 44-game conference-only schedule,” Bakich said of the conference coaches. “And we all knew that could negatively affect our opportunities to play in the postseason because you couldn’t evaluate our teams against outside competition. And coupled with finishing third in the conference not knowing if three teams were going to get in, or two teams, yeah, all those things led to some tense moments. I sure am glad we got in, though.”

Bakich said that as soon as it was decided Big Ten football teams would play a conference-only schedule last fall, he and the other baseball coaches in the league knew they would face a similar reduction in their schedules.

“We were reduced from 15 weeks to 13 weeks and our main argument was at least let us play four games a weekend in those 13 weeks so we can get to more games instead of 44,” he said. “Unfortunately, that didn’t happen.”





The Michigan softball coach was very outspoken, too.

But nothing will happen. The shitty decisions were made, even though teams like Western Illinois (!!!) had NO PROBLEM traveling to Louisville for nonconference games.

What's done is done. It was a 100 year pandemic. And there will be ZERO consequences for the decision makers.
 
The Michigan softball coach was very outspoken, too.

But nothing will happen. The shitty decisions were made, even though teams like Western Illinois (!!!) had NO PROBLEM traveling to Louisville for nonconference games.

What's done is done. It was a 100 year pandemic. And there will be ZERO consequences for the decision makers.
It's frustrating that through a 1+ year pandemic, the leadership was able to make mistake after mistake under the guise of an "abundance of caution" and there will be literally zero consequences.
 
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It's frustrating that through a 1+ year pandemic, the leadership was able to make mistake after mistake under the guise of an "abundance of caution" and there will be literally zero consequences.

Yep and a lot of these players put their lives on hold to come back for 1 more season only to find out they would only be playing 44 games when everybody else was playing 56.

At that time, of course, they found out that there would not be a nonconference & that there would be no conference tournament, even though all of the other Power 5 Conferences were allowing both.

We had a rookie Commissioner. He represented the wishes of the coaches and Athletic Directors when he met with the B1G Presidents. And the Commissioner failed the coaches and athletic directors. Miserably.
 
Talked with Coach Heller today. Told me the original schedule for this season had a series at UC Irvine. Home series vs Connecticut and San Diego State. Tournament with Arizona St, Utah and California. Didn’t mention any midweek games, but I’d assume Missouri was in there. He was pretty upset that all of that was canceled.
 
Talked with Coach Heller today. Told me the original schedule for this season had a series at UC Irvine. Home series vs Connecticut and San Diego State. Tournament with Arizona St, Utah and California. Didn’t mention any midweek games, but I’d assume Missouri was in there. He was pretty upset that all of that was canceled.

Oh man, that’s a great non conference schedule!
 
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Oh man, that’s a great non conference schedule!
Next year has tournaments in Corpus Christi, Charleston and Frisco (A&M, Wichita St and Wash St). I don’t know who will be in the first two tournaments.

Central Michigan comes to Iowa for a series and then midweek vs Missouri, South Dakota St, Illinois State, Bradley, Milwaukee, WIU
 
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Next year has tournaments in Corpus Christi, Charleston and Frisco (A&M, Wichita St and Wash St). I don’t know who will be in the first two tournaments.

Central Michigan comes to Iowa for a series and then midweek vs Missouri, South Dakota St, Illinois State, Bradley, Milwaukee, WIU

The first two have to have host schools? Not always the case but usually. I assume A&M-Corpus Christi.

The South Carolina is the one that intrigues me. Iowa hasn’t gone there in recent memory that I know of? College of Charleston? Charleston Southern? Citadel?

Central Michigan will be a bear. Their pitching staff is legit.
 
Talked with Coach Heller today. Told me the original schedule for this season had a series at UC Irvine. Home series vs Connecticut and San Diego State. Tournament with Arizona St, Utah and California. Didn’t mention any midweek games, but I’d assume Missouri was in there. He was pretty upset that all of that was canceled.
This makes me hate Kevin Warren even more. Ugh. Outside of Utah, those are all NCAA quality teams.
 
This makes me hate Kevin Warren even more. Ugh. Outside of Utah, those are all NCAA quality teams.

Iowa has also had some trips that are worthy of a vacation and baseball. They’ve been to San Diego, Las Vegas, Hawaii. If that series was at ASU that would be another. Now Charleston is coming up.

I am curious if there are any true road series in the non conference. That’s where you pad that RPI. Tournaments you at best get one road game.
 
Here is how the OOC teams finished the season:

UConn 33-17 (23 RPI)
UC Irvine 40-16 (32 RPI)
Arizona State 32-30 (40 RPI)
SDSU (30-16) (69 RPI)
Cal (29-26) (90 RPI)
Utah 17-33 (205 RPI)

A series at UC Irvine would've been a huge RPI booster being a 40 game winner. UConn and SDSU both 30+ game winners as well.

Barta/Heller should set up a series at ASU to make up for missing that preseason tourney.
 
Here is how the OOC teams finished the season:

UConn 33-17 (23 RPI)
UC Irvine 40-16 (32 RPI)
Arizona State 32-30 (40 RPI)
SDSU (30-16) (69 RPI)
Cal (29-26) (90 RPI)
Utah 17-33 (205 RPI)

A series at UC Irvine would've been a huge RPI booster being a 40 game winner. UConn and SDSU both 30+ game winners as well.

Barta/Heller should set up a series at ASU to make up for missing that preseason tourney.

I would strongly considering flying down to Phoenix for an Iowa/ASU series.
 
Here is how the OOC teams finished the season:

UConn 33-17 (23 RPI)
UC Irvine 40-16 (32 RPI)
Arizona State 32-30 (40 RPI)
SDSU (30-16) (69 RPI)
Cal (29-26) (90 RPI)
Utah 17-33 (205 RPI)

A series at UC Irvine would've been a huge RPI booster being a 40 game winner. UConn and SDSU both 30+ game winners as well.

Barta/Heller should set up a series at ASU to make up for missing that preseason tourney.
Heller says he does the scheduling on his own.
 
Heller says he does the scheduling on his own.

It is probably best that way.

Edit, it makes me wonder if it’s always been that way? During the Dahm days it seemed like Iowa played Western Illinois seven times during the year. Always a weekend series then midweek games. Also played Austin Peay and Arkansas Little Rock a lot.

I think Iowa and Creighton would be nice for a midweek, but I don’t see that happening soon. Last time Iowa went there the game was on all day until about 30 minutes prior then it was cancelled. It was a ridiculous decision, heck it didn’t even storm like they predicted although it had rained earlier. I had heard Heller was not happy to say the least.
 
This makes me hate Kevin Warren even more. Ugh. Outside of Utah, those are all NCAA quality teams.

Kevin Warren didn't make the decision. If you are going to be angry about the response to COVID, be angry with the university Presidents and Chancellors and the medical representatives from all 14 schools in the B1G.

Honestly, the effort to make Warren the "scapegoat" for all of this continues to puzzle me.

And, FWIW, take your pick regarding leading legal advocates . . . I'm thoroughly convinced that none of them would have been able to convince the B1G Presidents and Chancellors and the respective medical representatives from changing their course.

Is it fair to question the decision-making process? Sure.
Is it fair to question the end decision? Sure.
Is it fair to lay the blame at Kevin Warren's feet? Not in my opinion. And I don't believe that it is even close. Postings on this site suggest that he was chomping at the bit to cancel all things B1G and somehow convinced the Presidents, Chancellors and medical representatives to go along with his "guise." That's just plain silly. Anyone paying any attention at all knows how much athletics means to each and every B1G school. They market the hell out of B1G athletics. They fundraise off of B1G athletics. They know that, when athletics are up and running and doing well, donations to every single corner of the university go up. Anyone suggesting that any school of the B1G was using COVID as some sort of "guise" or "excuse" because they wanted to cancel sports is, IMO, way off-base.
 
Baseball is a funny game though. Not unheard of to make a run to finish season and qualify for post-season play only to lay an egg.

That written, I feel like Maryland and Nebraska have a better chance to reach the Regional finals than Michigan. Just not sold that UM is that good this year.

Duke down 5-1 to Liberty right now, and they were one of the hottest teams in the nation.
 
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