Kendal22

Very true. I'm a fan of the purple hats with the orange bill.

In a preseason top 10 matchup here in Nashville, Oklahoma State evened up the series with Vanderbilt. The Commodores lost one of the best starting pitching duos in college baseball history in Kumar Rocker and Jack Leiter. Tim Corbin will find a way to piece his staff together as the season goes along, he always does. Christian Little and Patrick Reilly were expected to be the next starting pitchers in line but neither were in the rotation this weekend. Chris McElvain and Nick Maldonado have started on Friday and Saturday against OSU. Maldonado is making a move similar to MSU's Landon Sims in that he is moving from a closer role to the rotation at least for this opening weekend. IU's Sunday opponent next weekend, Stanford, opened with a 1-0 over Fullerton Friday night before falling 11-0 to the Titans on Saturday. Didn't realize Stanford was ranked 6th in the D1 baseball poll. Ole Miss had 11,600 fans in attendance for an early season game against Charleston Southern. Pretty impressive.

Side note - Clemson has some of the best uniforms in college baseball. So great they don't even bother wearing gray pants on the road.

19-4 Clemson is the final. Tough loss but a win tomorrow would still be huge to end the weekend on a high note. This isn't the Jack Leggett Clemson teams of years gone by but there is still a lot of talent on that Tiger roster. IU should take care of business against Miami (Ohio) and have a few days to prepare for a potent Arkansas team that will be motivated after taking a loss to Illinois state.

Long Beach takes a series in Starkville winning 13-3 today. Mississippi State will be fine but certainly a tough way to start the season. Building off of a wildly successful 2021, Tennessee is 2-0 with a pair of convincing wins over Georgia Southern. With the loss of expected ace Blade Tidwell, the Vols got welcome news in finding out that Vanderbilt transfer Ethan Smith is eligible to pitch this year. Smith got the win today after an inning of work. The Missouri transfer Halvorsen will also be a big boost for Tennessee once he's healthy. He was the Tigers' Friday night guy last season and opted to transfer to Tennessee rather than signing with the Phillies after being drafted in the 19th round. Conference rival Michigan bounced back from a heartbreaking walkoff loss to Texas Tech to soundly defeat Kansas Sate. These games are part of the annual opening weekend event at Globe Life Field in Texas. D1 baseball has been talking up Iowa's Adam Mazur after a stellar showing on the Cape last summer. Mazur had a nice outing in Iowa's season-opening victory. Big Ten favorite Nebraska dropped the first two games to Sam Houston State. The Bearkats are a very strong program, which just speaks to the depth of the teams in the South and highlights the early-season advantages held by Southern teams.

Arkansas bounced back today to beat Illinois State 5-1. Mississippi State trails Long Beach State 8-3 entering the 4th in Starkville. Over the past 7-8 years, I've become a big Ole Miss baseball fan. They improved to 2-0 today with an 11-1 win over Charleston Southern. I'm taking my first trip to Oxford in April for the Saturday game of the Mississippi State series. Should be an unbelievable atmosphere with 8-10 thousand fans at Swayze Field.

Thanks for starting this thread. Looking forward to the season.

Next week's Friday night opponent, Arkansas, was defeated at Baum-Walker Stadium 3-2 by Illinois State. After Peyton Pallette's injury, Connor Noland stepped into the Friday night role to go 5 IP, 5 hits allowed, and 2 earned runs. The Razorbacks were held to just 4 hits on the night. Defending national champion Mississippi State was also held to 1 hit in a 3-0 loss to top 25 Long Beach State. Landon Sims adjusted well to a starting role striking out 13 over 7 IP.

Sure would be nice to beat Stanford next weekend after what happened in 2014.

Good test early in the season. Hoosiers probably have had limited time outdoors which certainly hampers them and other Northern schools early in the season. Steal a game or two the next two days and it will be a huge RPI boost down the stretch.

Definitely not easy. They had some bad breaks on pitching injuries last year and had an excellent roster in 2020 that got short-changed due to the pandemic.

Georgia baseball has to be the biggest enigma is college baseball. No reason why they shouldn't be a top 10 program annually with the Perfect Game complex and suburban Atlanta right in their back yard.

I understand what you're saying here Scott. There's lots of people out there that still arrange their day around IU basketball, myself included. Unfortunately, for those that are not die-hards, there are so many more options for entertainment now than there used to be. This isn't aided by an on-court product that has been subpar for the better part of 25 years.

John Rhys is also a baseball player. He saw a good bit of action for the Rebels last spring as part of an outfield platoon and a late-game pinch runner. Would be intriguing to Jeff Mercer as well.

I'll be thrilled with anyone winning but Vandy. Ole Miss-Vandy is maybe the most underrated rivalry in the SEC.

I wouldn't count out Tennessee though, they might be the best all around team. Just so tough to beat Vandy with their starting pitching. Where Vandy could be susceptible is their number three starter spot. They never really found anyone consistent in that spot. However, their mid week guy is a 17 year old touching 97.

With Arkansas eliminated, have to believe Vandy is now the heavy favorite in Omaha. Terrific 1-2 punch with Rocker and Leiter and a sound offense that provides just enough support. Can't wait to see how Kumar handles that potent Arizona lineup. Should be a great game.

I don't disagree at all. The Old Guard at LSU is said to really like Bianco though. He's an LSU guy and knows the ways and tradition of the program inside and out - should sound familiar to IU fans!

Surprisingly, Vitello's name has not come up for the LSU job. Rumor is that the job will go to either Mike Bianco of Ole Miss or Cliff Godwin of East Carolina. Bianco played at LSU in the late 80's for the legendary Skip Bertman and later assisted under Bertman. He's guided Ole Miss for the past 20 seasons building an incredible program. Godwin served as Bianco's hitting coach for the 2014 Ole Miss team that finished third in Omaha before heading to Greenville, North Carolina to take over the program at his alma mater. I am an Ole Miss baseball fan and have followed the program closely for many years now. Despite the lopsided game 3 loss to Arizona in the Super Regionals, this season may have been Mike's best coaching job. He overcame the loss of Gunnar Hoglund (expected to be a first round pick next month) to Tommy John while his top hitter played the last month of the season on one ACL. Not to mention the loss of a top reliever very early in the season. Despite building a program that has been the model of consistency (17 NCAA tournament appearances in 20 years, 7 Super Regionals, and 1 College World Series), a growing segment of the Ole Miss fan base has grown dissatisfied with Mike's ability to guide the team to Omaha consistently. Given the incredible fan base support, top notch facilities, and talented rosters, this isn't entirely an irrational point of view. Thus, I could see the chance to coach his alma mater as being very appealing to him. At LSU, Bianco would have some built in scholarship advantages that are not available to him at Ole Miss. Not all baseball programs are on equal footing with regards to scholarship money, but that is for another post. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out. If Mike does indeed head to Baton Rouge, I'd expect Ole Miss's first call to be to Louisville coach Dan McDonnell. McDonnell previously assisted Bianco at Ole Miss. The second call would be to Cliff Godwin.