If you believe this, can you please explain why we have just gone 0-3 against creighton, Omaha, and Rutgers?
Either this team has zero talent, we have horrible coaching, or both.
WE ARE the team others hope 'to get theirs' against.
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2018 RPI Tracking
- Thread starter ShortSideOption
- Start date
If you believe this, can you please explain why we have just gone 0-3 against creighton, Omaha, and Rutgers?
Either this team has zero talent, we have horrible coaching, or both.
WE ARE the team others hope 'to get theirs' against.
Actually, it was Kansas State.
ShortSideOption
Guest
You baited this one so juicy for me that I love it! This is an excellent question to explain exactly what i'm talking about. So we are 0-3 in 2018 against these teams. Freaking disgusting. But let's use your barometer some more, what's Darin Erstad's records against these teams prior to 2018:
UNOmaha: 8-0
Rutgers: 6-1
Creighton: 11-4
Darin Erstad is 25-5 against these teams in his career prior to 2018, so should we now assume all of the years DE has been our head coach prior to 2018 we had awesome talent and outstanding coaching? You can't look at baseball game by game, series by series, or year to year, you have to look at the entire body of work. It's why it is tough for me to have the conversation with some people, because they are nowhere to be found after our baseball team brings home a conference title less than a year ago or our head coach wins coach of the year, but all over the message board when things aren't going well. We need to own the teams you referenced, i'm not mad if we struggle against them for a singular year.
If Erstad doesn't figure out what's wrong quickly, we are on the verge of not making the conference tournament when we are hosting in Omaha. That will turn the heat up on him and almost force his hand to make some changes. Not making the conference tournament at Nebraska should NEVER happen, I don't care what injuries you have. But years like this happen, especially in the B1G.
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No doubt
You swoon over those numbers and I say 'meh'. I don't think we should win every game against those teams, but I think it should be very rare to lose a series to any of them. This year we will be lucky to win a series against k-state, creighton, Omaha and Rutgers. That should never happen.
You love that Erstad was coach of the year last year -- me too but only because it means we won the conference. Last year I was happy, but even then felt like we were paper tigers. Both tourneys proved that feeling correct. I think a lot of people would have said the Iowa coach was coach of the year, but protocol makes it likely to go to conf winner.
You think we're on the verge of not making the tourney??? Do you even listen/watch the games? That is flat out lock we won't make the tourney.
Nebraska 3-8-0 .273 16-20-0 .444 7-8-0 4-9-0 5-3-0 2-8-0 L3
Northwestern 1-11-0 .083 9-21-0 .300 2-7-0 6-12-0 1-2-0 1-9-0 L4
Penn State 1-11-0 .083 8-22-0 .267 3-9-0 5-7-0 0-6-0 1-9-0 W1
Well, at least we are slightly better than a couple of teams....
Northwestern 1-11-0 .083 9-21-0 .300 2-7-0 6-12-0 1-2-0 1-9-0 L4
Penn State 1-11-0 .083 8-22-0 .267 3-9-0 5-7-0 0-6-0 1-9-0 W1
Well, at least we are slightly better than a couple of teams....
Actually, there were plenty of us here griping following last season (not just me). Even with the conference title. Because it was yet another thud in the postseason.
Certainly, there is no such thing as a bad conference title, but there should be some perspective. The Big Ten almost always is mediocre or worse. Last season, was no exception. No top 25 teams in the final poll. No teams advanced past the regionals. No teams finished higher than #34 (Indiana) in the RPI. Nebraska's RPI at 2017 season's end was #54. And that's pretty reasonable. So if roughly the 54th best team in the nation can win the Big Ten regular season crown, I'm not going to overly tout it.
Top 50 RPI:
2017: Indiana 34, Michigan 40, Maryland 44, (Nebraska 54)
2016: Ohio State 36, Michigan 38, Minnesota 50, (Nebraska 53)
2015: Illinois 12, Iowa 28, Maryland 31, Indiana 35, Ohio State 44, Nebraska 48
2014: Indiana 9, Nebraska 32
2013: Indiana 12, Nebraska 31, Illinois 36, Michigan St 42
2012: Purdue 16, (Nebraska 85)
Fact is, Nebraska's RPI in 2018 is highly likely to drop for the 5th consecutive season.
What I see is one season in seven years when Erstad won a regular season title. In a season where there were zero top 25 type teams in the Big Ten.
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ShortSideOption
Guest
I certainly don't swoon over Creighton, UNOMaha, or Rutgers wins, I was just using your barometer to prove how silly your anger was because we beat the brakes off those guys regularly. It's tough to have a realistic conversation with someone that says "you love that Erstad was coach of the year, me too but only because it means we won conference" and that Erstad may have only won it because "protocol makes it likely to go to the conference winner". Is that really what we are hanging our hats on to diminish what we did last year? That our coach only won as a default due to winning conference?
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ShortSideOption
Guest
I would agree, the postseason BS needs to be fixed. But my point with all of this is 3 years out of the last 4 we have gotten to the NCAA tournament. In our 100+ year history, we have only gotten to super regionals 4 times, that was in a 6 year window where first round MLB draft picks grew up 5 minutes from campus but we got them to come to Nebraska. Instead of blowing the whole thing up like a couple are asking us to do, why not say "Erstad needs to make some changes." Moos could very easily say "Darin, thanks for bringing the first mens conference title in a major sport in a decade. But we are having trouble in the post-season and had a dud of a season in 2018, what do you need from me? More assistant salary pool? What?" It just doesn't make sense for me to blow it up, but I certainly agree there needs to be changes.
To let you know how dumb it is to use RPI as your measuring stick, our best RPI year per your stats there we didn't even make the NCAA tournament. Should we strive for 31st in RPI and a sub .500 record like we had in 2013 just so a message board fan can't say "we have a lower RPI each year?" Getting to the tournament and conference titles are what matter. Not an RPI number.
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However, that 2013 team had more success in the conference tournament than any team in the Erstad era. I believe, the only time we've appeared in the Big Ten tournament championship game. NU also finished 2nd in the regular season Big Ten standings. The reason NU didn't make the NCAA Tournament was because they got beat up with a very difficult non-conference schedule (the full-season SOS was #16). In other words, I don't believe the #31 RPI is as "dumb" as you suggest. That 2013 team was likely better than some Nebraska teams that have made the NCAA Tournament. And for the conference regular season and tournament combined, I could debate it was the best season Nebraska has had in the Big Ten.
I'm not big on the "first men's conference title in a decade," as you already know. One, because it happened in a crappier-than-usual year in Big Ten baseball. But especially, I don't like the idea of "well, all of our other men's teams have generally sucked over the past decade, so it's nice that baseball showed a season where they sucked less than the rest of the sports" The fact that the football program has been below standards for too long now shouldn't be applied to prop up the 2017 baseball team. Any more than if the football team was winning conference titles should that be used against the baseball program.
Anyhow, I don't believe I've ever strongly suggested firing Erstad. But he certainly isn't above harsh criticism. And changes are likely worthy (assistants).
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The time for thinking about the post season is over. At this point, I would suggest to the players that the remainder of the season will determine what type of people they want to be.
When they are knocked down, and out, are they going to lay there? Are they going to accept being losers?
Or, are they going to pick their asses up, get to work, and attack in the next game. Just win the next pitch. Just win your next at bat. Just win the next inning. Just win your next game. Just win the next series.
That's the only way to get out of this funk and turn around the negative energy.
Baseball is a living, breathing metaphor for life. It's not always pretty, rarely perfect. The only question they should be asking themselves is:
"Who are you?"
ShortSideOption
Guest
Nebraska fell to 121st after going 1-4 last week. Pretty gross considering who we played. We have 14 games left and are currently 17-21 on the season. We have Crayton who is 34th in RPI then Nevada comes to town who is 52nd. At this point with our pitching being in the 200's for ERA at 5.34 and our team batting average at .264 i'm not expecting a ton of good this week.
ShortSideOption
Guest
RPI is usually only any indication of anything when you are trying to figure out if you are going to make the tournament and what seed you are. Not how good your team is or isn't. I would agree our 2013 team was pretty good, and we've changed our scheduling since that whole situation happened. But the whole "Ya but it was a down year for B1G baseball" or "He only won coach of the year because we won conference" is such an odd line of thinking to me. What were we supposed to do? Not capitalize on it? Conversely, why don't we give Nebraska and Erstad credit when the only team that was beating us was Indiana teams with Schwarber and other first round picks on it?
It's a crappy year, but we've been really consistent throughout Erstad's tenure here. I'm not letting 2018 get me down, especially when after the first weekend series I was telling people we weren't going to have the season we were expecting to have and we just needed to "hang on."
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