#19 MSST loses to Southern Miss
Auburn beat #24 Troy
St Mary's takes down #21 UC Santa Barbara
#13 Wake Forest drops to UNC-G
Liberty over #12 NCST
UTRGV won by 10 over #20 DBU
Texas State beat #19 okie lite

It's baseball, so the only major take aways

- rough week for Oklahoma State. They're 1-3 on the week.
- Sips play RGV on tax day, hope RGV keeps this energy going.
- Auburn is a team I could see turning the corner and making a regional this year

On one hand, I loved that we went undefeated in non con last year.

But I think it was also major tactical error because it happened, in large part, because our lame duck coach chose to lean on veterans and refused to develop younger players. Tuesdays are for the boys. The freshmen. Particularly on the mound. And yet he trotted out our main weapons again and again.

In retrospect it seems likely he did that because he saw no need to develop for the future. But it prevented us from finding that extra piece of two that would have prevented us from burning Asch in a multi inning appearance in Game 1 vs UT.

I'm absolutely fine with dropping a few mid-week games in order to develop depth and figure out whether your freshmen can actually play. Because with this year's starting lineup they're not getting much experience on the weekend. And that means they likely transfer if they don't see a path forward.

Sean98 said:

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On one hand, I loved that we went undefeated in non con last year.

But I think it was also major tactical error because it happened, in large part, because our lame duck coach chose to lean on veterans and refused to develop younger players. Tuesdays are for the boys. The freshmen. Particularly on the mound. And yet he trotted out our main weapons again and again.

In retrospect it seems likely he did that because he saw no need to develop for the future. But it prevented us from finding that extra piece of two that would have prevented us from burning Asch in a multi inning appearance in Game 1 vs UT.

I'm absolutely fine with dropping a few mid-week games in order to develop depth and figure out whether your freshmen can actually play. Because with this year's starting lineup they're not getting much experience on the weekend. And that means they likely transfer if they don't see a path forward.

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It also probably set unrealistic expectations for the casuals.

I mostly agree, but winning on Tuesdays is still very important. Winning doesn't prove much, but losing against a terrible team at home will absolutely start tanking RPI, which affects postseason seeding.

Yep. I also think if he had put Kaufer into Tuesday games perhaps Appel wouldn't have been so hurt at the end of the year and Max may have stayed.

Not to say we couldn't have gone undefeated if we had played some younger players, but we'll never know.

This is true, losing to bad teams at home certainly hurts the RPI. There were several games last year when we were up big and still went straight to Asch that we "probably" still win without him, or at least use him less. Specifically a few times we were up 4+ or so.

Now Asch was absolutely insane and almost certainly just had the best year by a reliever in our history, but getting innings for another reliever or three would have been really nice.

It made absolutely no sense why Appel was playing every inning of every midweek game by the time conference play rolled around. Especially when he became dinged up. I remember a lot of people on here questioning it at the time. Kaufer seemed improved at the plate last year too in his limited action.

Same goes for Gavin, Schott, etc and all the other guys that were dinged. No reason why Kent or Jack Bell couldn't have played more during the midweek.

Sean98 said:

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On one hand, I loved that we went undefeated in non con last year.

But I think it was also major tactical error because it happened, in large part, because our lame duck coach chose to lean on veterans and refused to develop younger players. Tuesdays are for the boys. The freshmen. Particularly on the mound. And yet he trotted out our main weapons again and again.

In retrospect it seems likely he did that because he saw no need to develop for the future. But it prevented us from finding that extra piece of two that would have prevented us from burning Asch in a multi inning appearance in Game 1 vs UT.

I'm absolutely fine with dropping a few mid-week games in order to develop depth and figure out whether your freshmen can actually play. Because with this year's starting lineup they're not getting much experience on the weekend. And that means they likely transfer if they don't see a path forward.

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Let's make this POTD.

Schloss didn't like Kaufer like he didn't like Chestnut. No idea why.