Iowa baseball won 2 of 3 over Bucks this weekend

[rchawk]

Took two of three at the Illini last weekend. Split with Indiana before that.

Iowa is 5-3 in the Big Ten, 19-10 overall.

Link: http://hawkeyesports.com/boxscore.aspx?id=11221&path=baseball

 

[Blair Sanderson]

 

[Harbinger273]

Hawks rounding in to shape mid season here. Great to see them perform well against this solid competition.

 

[bojihawk44]

Sitting at number 40 in the RPI now, one spot behind Illinois.

 

[EvilMonkeyInTheCloset]

Bau.

 

[anon_gjzkhykcp9iuj]

Nice! Heller has been such a welcome addition. He has made Hawkeye baseball relevant and fun to follow.

 

[katman15]

Our Baseball staff does an amazing job!!

 

[luvmyhawks]

It’s a great time for Iowa baseball. Would be great to see a few runs and potentially make it to the cws one of these years. As much as I despise Nebraska, it was pretty cool when they made it.

 

[anon_gjzkhykcp9iuj]

It’s a great time for Iowa baseball. Would be great to see a few runs and potentially make it to the cws one of these years. As much as I despise Nebraska, it was pretty cool when they made it.

That would be quite the experience. I imagine it would merit a little trip out west.

 

[anon_i8nzeu2gbf0ba]

The College World Series is the most underappreciated major college sports event in America. Every single game draws 20,000 to 30,000 people for about 10 straight days.

One problem is the domination by good-weather schools, although some inroads have been made by northern schools in recent years. The 100 percent artificial turf fields, like the one in Iowa City, are helping. If colleges ever went to a summer schedule, baseball would blow up with northern schools no longer at a weather disadvantage.

In the meantime, Heller deserves great credit for making Iowa baseball a thing.

 

[BigOHawk]

The College World Series is the most underappreciated major college sports event in America. Every single game draws 20,000 to 30,000 people for about 10 straight days.

One problem is the domination by good-weather schools, although some inroads have been made by northern schools in recent years. The 100 percent artificial turf fields, like the one in Iowa City, are helping. If colleges ever went to a summer schedule, baseball would blow up with northern schools no longer at a weather disadvantage.

In the meantime, Heller deserves great credit for making Iowa baseball a thing.

Michigan leads the B10 right now, however due to scheduling disparities, much like B10 basketball, it doesn't tell much of the story. Wolverines have had a pretty pedestrian schedule while Iowa has tangled with Indiana, OSU, Illinois and Minnesota to follow. I can still hear the "Let's Go Hawks" chants bouncing off the walls of TD Ameritrade during the B10 Tourney title game in '16, it was pretty amazing! I can't imagine Omaha if Iowa ever made it to the CWS, it would be a black and gold mob scene for sure!

 

[Crazy Hawk]

The College World Series is the most underappreciated major college sports event in America. Every single game draws 20,000 to 30,000 people for about 10 straight days.

One problem is the domination by good-weather schools, although some inroads have been made by northern schools in recent years. The 100 percent artificial turf fields, like the one in Iowa City, are helping. If colleges ever went to a summer schedule, baseball would blow up with northern schools no longer at a weather disadvantage.

In the meantime, Heller deserves great credit for making Iowa baseball a thing.

Michigan leads the B10 right now, however due to scheduling disparities, much like B10 basketball, it doesn't tell much of the story. Wolverines have had a pretty pedestrian schedule while Iowa has tangled with Indiana, OSU, Illinois and Minnesota to follow. I can still hear the "Let's Go Hawks" chants bouncing off the walls of TD Ameritrade during the B10 Tourney title game in '16, it was pretty amazing! I can't imagine Omaha if Iowa ever made it to the CWS, it would be a black and gold mob scene for sure!

If I get the chance I’ll post the video I took of that chant. It was awesome!

A funny story from that game. When I waited in line for beer the beer lady said they originally did not contract to sell beer at the championship game.m but when Iowa made it they knew they couldn’t miss out on the money. Since they didn’t have a contract they had to pour the beer into plastic cups when serving.

 

[DodgerHawki]

The College World Series is the most underappreciated major college sports event in America. Every single game draws 20,000 to 30,000 people for about 10 straight days.

One problem is the domination by good-weather schools, although some inroads have been made by northern schools in recent years. The 100 percent artificial turf fields, like the one in Iowa City, are helping. If colleges ever went to a summer schedule, baseball would blow up with northern schools no longer at a weather disadvantage.

In the meantime, Heller deserves great credit for making Iowa baseball a thing.

Northern schools have made inroads with the turf and in investing money in baseball so teams can work out effectively indoors during winter/cold. Still tremendously hard to compete with the southern schools when they have greater population and weather for boys to play baseball outside year round from a young age. The number of players drafted every year from California, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Florida is staggering compared to Midwest/Big 10 footprint.

Summer schedule would help a bit, but it wouldn't change that there are way more good high school players for the southern schools to pick from.

 

[BigOHawk]

If I get the chance I’ll post the video I took of that chant. It was awesome!

A funny story from that game. When I waited in line for beer the beer lady said they originally did not contract to sell beer at the championship game.m but when Iowa made it they knew they couldn’t miss out on the money. Since they didn’t have a contract they had to pour the beer into plastic cups when serving.

I just remember deciding to drive down 1 hour before the game with no ticket. As soon as I parked, I thought I was doomed, there were literally ticket lines a block long on both sides of TD Ameritrade, the ticket office was completely understaffed and I thought I'd miss a few innings for sure. I was walking and a random guy asked if I needed a ticket. Sure, I said, "how much?" Nothing he said, just a free extra! Yes!
Found my seat and I saw people still coming in during the 2nd inning, guy saved me about 90 minutes of waiting in line. It was really hot that day and didn't get the result we wanted but gave our Hawks and Heller a taste of Omaha post season baseball!

 

[GT Hawkaholic]

People probably don't realize how close Iowa was to making the world series last year.

They should have won the 2nd game vs. Texas A&M and then they would have had 2 chances to seal up the regional victory with a rested staff vs. Houston or Texas A&M. Both of those teams would have been playing their 4th or 5th games at that point in the tournament just to get back to Iowa.

If they'd won that A&M game, I fully expect that they would have won the Regional and if you remember, Davidson pulled a massive upset of UNC as a 4 seed. That means, Iowa would have hosted a best of 3 super regional over Davidson and had a great chance to win that and move on the the CWS. Hell, If Iowa gets over the hump and makes it under Heller, there will be droves of people that flock to Omaha and it'll be some kind of atmosphere.

The only thing holding back popularity to some extent is a lack of television exposure.

 

[anon_i8nzeu2gbf0ba]

I believe ESPN has been covering every game of the College World Series for years, but it's still vastly under-reported by most media. After all, as I noted earlier, every game for about 10 days draws between 20,000 and 30,000 people. That kind of event should not be ignored.

BTW: When Iowa made its only CWS appearance in 1972, the Hawkeyes lost to #1 ranked Arizona State, which had the incredible record of 60 and 4, in its opening game. Iowa outhit ASU 8-3, but a weird third inning and, as usual, a horrible umpiring call doomed the Hawkeyes to a heartbreaking 2-1 loss. And even then, the tying run was thrown out at the plate by inches in the 9th inning, and another runner was stranded at third when the final out was made. The attendance for that game in the old ballpark was SRO of about 14,000 which, at the time, was the second largest single game attendance in CWS history.

 

[StormHawk42]

Considering the location and the extreme rarity, if Iowa ever got to the CWS, I wouldn’t care what amount of money it would cost, I would have to go.

 

[BigOHawk]

Considering the location and the extreme rarity, if Iowa ever got to the CWS, I wouldn’t care what amount of money it would cost, I would have to go.

This. It's a quick drive to TD Ameritrade for me and I was simply blown away by the Hawk fans who showed up to see OSU two years ago, I think walk up ticket sales were somewhere around 8-10,000 that day which is incredible considering past history of Iowa baseball, low media coverage and a holiday weekend.

The CWS is one of the pinnacles of college sports and holds a great place in Omaha's history, everything is first class, the ballpark is where is really should be (old timers still want the Blatt back) and it's interesting 80% of the crowds and activities are confined to a few block radius of the stadium, the Old Market thought it was going to cash in big time but too many things to do closer to stadium.