Congratulations to UCLA

[Raising Heel]

Bruins win their first ever NCAA Baseball Championship. UCLA went undefeated in the postseason (10-0) which is obviously pretty impressive. (Pretty sure the Pac-12 doesn't have a conference tournament.)

Had to have helped that the Bruins never put themselves in position to play an elimination game. Heels faced four of those (FAU, South Carolina, LSU, and NCSUcks) before finally losing to the Bruins. Pressed our luck a few too many times.

I read that the baseball championship was the 109th NCAA championship for UCLA, which leads all schools. Wow.

 

[DiehardUNC2003]

Just goes to show you what getting hot late in the season and timely hitting can do for a team.

 

[BD42]

I don't care what anybody says including Fox,those two long inning games vs clemson and moou hurt more than anyone wants to admit it.Our starting pitchers struggled throughout the NCAA tourney.

 

[UNC71-00]

Originally posted by BD42:

I don't care what anybody says including Fox,those two long inning games vs clemson and moou hurt more than anyone wants to admit it.Our starting pitchers struggled throughout the NCAA tourney.

I thought the FAU game where Emanuel threw 50 pitches in relief on very short rest was the one that really caused problems. No telling what happened to Moss- I don't think he was tired, just faced better hitters later in the season. And Hobbs was great against State at the end- he only had one shaky outing in the post season (vs the Cocks), but don't think that was due to fatigue.

What I would really like to see is Fox scheduling games against top tier opposition in the early season. He seems to take the Coach K route which as we know, rarely works out in the end. Play the good teams early and often I says.

Oh and congrats UCLA. Nice run in the post season.

 

[TarHeelNation11]

I agree with 71-00, the FAU game seemed to be a turning point for KE. Could obviously be a coincidence, but it just seemed like he was a bit fatigued for the rest of his appearances after that game. And like Raising point out, it's a pretty safe bet that all those elimination games took a mental toll on the players and coaches. I mean that's just humor nature. UCLA got to play "care free" (or as care free as you can get in the postseason) in all non-elimination games.

Also....

Originally posted by DiehardUNC2003:
Just goes to show you what getting hot late in the season and timely hitting can do for a team.

Agreed, but this is the exact reason why I'm not a fan of playoffs in general. The playoff system awards teams who get hot at the end. Often times, it does not award the team that has consistently been the best all season. You see it all the time in the NFL (e.g. Giants x 2). Why play so many games during the regular season, then let a small sample size at the end determine the champion? Just my opinion

 

[Raising Heel]

Originally posted by UNC71-00:

What I would really like to see is Fox scheduling games against top tier opposition in the early season. He seems to take the Coach K route which as we know, rarely works out in the end. Play the good teams early and often I says.

We tried to do this, actually. We played a February series with Stony Brook, which was a CWS team last season. We also played St. John's early, who knocked us out of the Chapel Hill Regional last season. Neither of those teams were very good this season, though.

We also had an early March test by traveling to Houston to play Rice, Cal, and Texas A&M. Swept all three of them, which was impressive considering Rice and Tamu had a home crowd advantage and both went on to become 2 seeds in the NCAA Tournament.

I think what really hurt UNC the most this year was how top-heavy the conference was. We didn't play the best teams (NCSU, Virginia, and an unscheduled game against FSU) until late in the season. We basically beat up on Wake Forest, Boston College, a disappointing Miami team, etc. and were able to convince enough people we deserved the #1 seed in the tournament. I disagreed and thought we should have been maybe Top 5, but oh well. Who knows how things might have turned out if we had ended up in a different bracket....