A new article has been posted on www.latechsports.com:
Following a 36-20 season in his first year at Louisiana Tech, head baseball coach Lane Burroughs announced the squad’s 2018 schedule Wednesday.
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Discuss it here.
A new article has been posted on www.latechsports.com:
Following a 36-20 season in his first year at Louisiana Tech, head baseball coach Lane Burroughs announced the squad’s 2018 schedule Wednesday.
More...
Discuss it here.
2 straight years we release early
!
I don't get it. Three-game series against SIU-Edwardsville and Houston Baptist don't help you earn an at-large bid. Can't believe our coach didn't learn his lesson from last season. Refusing to try to add good games to replace cancelled Arky State and ULM games likely cost us an at-large bid last season. Saw it a mile away and called it last year. Similar thing again this year. As a bubble-type program, we can't afford to throw away two OOC weekends against trash programs. That is not how you elevate our program.
Houston Baptist finished 119 in the rpi last year - not great but better than Pepperdine
Now SIUE, I get the angst about - they finished 229 - might as well play Jackson St
Outside of that I think it's a good schedule -
I know most don't like the Grambling series - but I do, builds goodwill
I think NWSt will be better this year so that should be a decent series
The juco? who knows but beating them at anything keeps them shut up
''Don't be a bad dagh..."
Seems to be a common theme around here.
Midweek is what it is. We're pretty much always stuck with the same midweek schedule based on location, and those games don't mean as much except for bragging rights. We have no Arkansas or Mississippi State midweek this year, but I'm glad we got LSU.
Pepperdine is a perennial NCAA Tournament team that just had a down year last season. It gives most of our guys a once in a lifetime opportunity to visit Malibu and play in a beautiful venue. That's a great series.
But sweeping SIU-Edwardsville and Houston Baptist would do absolutely nothing for us. Any win vs. a team RPI 100+ is meaningless for our NCAA resume. More empty wins like we've grown so accustomed to in MBB. And fans don't want to see us play against those small college programs. One of those two? OK, we can handle buying one weak home series but not two.
As a bubble-type program in C-USA, we have very little margin for error, and throwing away half our OOC weekends on SIUE/HBU is a big mistake. We can't take our program up to the next level wasting three-game series like that.
Tech needs regular series against Southeastern, Tulane, & UNO
The schedule isn't terrible. I really like that Frisco field.
I've been working on a spreadsheet with the goal of putting every 2018 game in for each CUSA school. Just put Tech's schedule in.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets...OmM/edit#gid=0
I wish the SIUE series was against a higher RPI team- also a more regional team. I understand that the northern teams are looking to play down south early, so if we are going that route, be picky.
Going off of last year's RPI - http://warrennolan.com/baseball/2017/rpi-live
Local teams of Interest - (30) SE Louisiana; (32) S Alabama; (37) Sam Houston St; (52) Dallas Baptist; etc
Northern teams that play down south: (34) Indiana; (39) Yale; (43) UConn; (40) Michigan - played at Lipscomb last year; (46) St John's - played at 3 tourneys/classics in the Carolinas last year; etc
I wouldn't mind setting up a classic similar to Frisco at J. C. Love - you can set up as a tourney or 3 games. Get a regional sponsor (Super One Bulldog Classic) and Cox Sports to televise
Tech; ~ 100 RPI Big 12/SEC school; ~ 50-100 RPI Northern School; ~ 50-100 Southland/Sun Belt school
There are exceptions, but generally the neutral sites pull in the best fields. Tough to pull in a decent field unless you are an elite program.
USM used to have the Hattiesburg Coca-Cola Invite tourney and the fields were usually pretty average. Had Louisville (before they became a powerhouse), SIU, and NWST one year. Think we had McNeese, MoState, and Mercer another year. That was about as good as it got.
Cox already broadcasts a tourney BTW. Cox Diamond Invite in Pensacola. I expect USM to play in that this year. When we went in 2016, it was USM, Troy, Auburn, and Michigan State. Year before it was USM, Nicholls, UNF, and St Louis.
First year I played at Tech we had a tourney at the Captain's field. Can not recall all the teams but I know OK State and I believe Illinois was there. My third year we had an all Louisiana tournament with Centenary, NSU and Grambling. Round Robin type tournament for both.
Just Funkin' Win...