A Sea Of Red

Here's a quick look at how some of our Big South brethren are doing in non-conference play:

• Liberty .................................................... 16-2
  Campbell .................................................. 13-3
  Gardner-Webb ............................................ 9-5
  High Point ................................................ 10-7
  Coastal Carolina .......................................... 7-6
  Radford ..................................................... 7-8
  VMI .......................................................... 6-7
  UNC Asheville ............................................ 7-9
  Presbyterian .............................................. 7-10
  Charleston Southern ................................... 5-10
  Winthrop .................................................. 2-13

A Couple of Observations:
* Campbell looks like they are going to be a legitimate challenger in their 1st season in the league.
* CCU has faced a brutal schedule of games all at home. It is tough to get a read on them right now.
* The league as a whole (with the exceptions of CSU & WU) has shown fairly well against some strong competition.

The Blue Hose started 0-8 on the season but are now 8-10....had one run losses to #2 South Carolina and #10 Georgia. The loss the Georgia was a walk-off...

we're gaining some momentum though it has been against average competition at best. Zebedis, the all world freshman from last year, has been out for 3 weeks with a pulled hamstring....he'll be back for the Liberty series this weekend though

As for the rest of the conference, Coastal is the team to beat until otherwise proven.

lol he didn't mention that in the other 2 games of the UGA series they were out scored 17-1.

Presby was picked low in the conference but their body of work is not bad so far. 6 early losses to fairly high RPI ranked teams but alot of wins lately including one at a pretty good Kennesaw State team today.

sporter wrote:Presby was picked low in the conference but their body of work is not bad so far. 6 early losses to fairly high RPI ranked teams but alot of wins lately including one at a pretty good Kennesaw State team today.

For what it i worth, Kenneaw beat UVa earlier in the year.

Just posted this on our site. This is as of this morning.

Looks like another great conference season again....

Team/Record/RPI/SOS
LU/20-3/90/273
Camp/18-3/72/271
HPU/13-9/87/183
VMI/6-13/282/280
UNCA/13-9/211/261
GWebb/13-8/213/288
CCU/13-6/56/174
RU/10-10/119/173
Presby/9-13/168/189
CSU/7-14/247/246
'throp/6-15/208/133

4 teams with RPI's under 100. (CCU, LU, HPU, Camp)
5 teams with RPIs over 200. (GWebb, throp, UNCA, VMI, CSU)
4 teams with SOS in the bottom 10% of D1. (LU, VMI, Camp, GWebb)

Overall record of 128-103
Avg RPI: 159
Avg SOS: 224

6 teams with fewer than ten losses approaching the halfway mark in the regular season...

I'm guessing you left out "10" ?

We lost at home to D-2 Mars Hill, then turn around two days later and win at #4 UNC. I don't know what to tell you to expect to see up there this weekend....

Campbell hasn't beaten any winning teams so it's hard to judge if the team is good as their record says it is.

therealbodoyle wrote:I'm guessing you left out "10" ?

Yeah...I was in a hurry

CCU & UNC tied in 10th, PC beat Clemson

I find it very interesting that CCU (16-7) is ranked ahead of Liberty in the polls and has a worse record. Could it be that they get RESPECT for playing a tough schedule; while Liberty (23-5) gets a lot of wins against cupcake teams; as well as losses against those cupcakes. I just think it is better to have quality losses against good teams, than to win against weak teams.

I am not putting this team down for their good start and record; just thinking how the people that vote for these polls must look at the teams that they are voting for.

trott: I think you hit the nail on the head. I compare CCU Baseball and Gilmore to Izzo and Michigan State. They will not have an eye-popping record at the end of the season (most likely), but they will be prepared for the post-season and not star struck when they have to play tough teams. It seems to keep getting harder and harder for CCU to play quality OOC games though. Other than Clemson and UNC there isn't really a yearly matchup; that and good ol' KK adding more and more crap teams to the Big Suck gives everyone fewer open dates for OOC games (thanks KK!!!).

With you guys, it reminds me of Syracuse basketball in the first half of any given year recently. They start out 15, 16, 17, 20-0 with wins over an Ivy league school, beat up on a MAC team, and maybe a win over a decent Butler/Gonzaga type of team (for you guys, that would be your win over UVA), but then, for no apparent reason, crap down their pants against a team like Presbyterian (like Cincy did this year) (for you guys that would be your Bryant loss).

Now granted both Michigan State and Syracuse hoops teams have more talent than CCU and Liberty do on their baseball teams, but you get my drift.

As for last night, we should have won that dang game. ARGH!! With one out in the 9th, they hit a hard liner at our LF who completely misread it (he was a defensive replacement) and it flew over his head for a single. Next batter made an out - shoulda been the end of the game right there. In the 10th, the UNC runner never should have made it to 3rd b/c our SS bobbled a routine grounder. Oh well, the team is ridiculously young with only 3 seniors (I believe). Live and learn!

I would actually say our Siena loss was by far the worst last I checked Bryant was 12-12, siena only has a couple wins.... but I get your drift

soft schedules came in with JB. It is an image world. Outspend and survive by out spinning that we have upgraded. if teams under achieve convince JLFjr you need to build more facilities.

truthorconsequences wrote:soft schedules came in with JB. It is an image world. Outspend and survive by out spinning that we have upgraded. if teams under achieve convince JLFjr you need to build more facilities.

uhm. look at last year's baseball schedule and try and use that same argument.

I'm actually somewhat sympathetic to your argument, but it's incorrect for baseball.