College Baseball and Pac-12

[Loyal Coug]

The Pac-12 puts 6 teams in, including #1 overall seed UCLA, and they ALL lose in their regionals.

Earlier I stuck up for Marbut's record by noting how strong our conference was, with 6 teams in. Never mind.

 

[Coug95man2]

Yeah… I saw that as well. Not really sure if our conference sucked that bad or there was just rampant belief that the Pac12 would just kick ass and no one had to really work hard… I don't know but either way, not good.

 

[Coug1990]

Here is a name for the new coach, Marty Lee. He is the top assistant at Oklahoma State for the last three years. Before that, he was an assistant at Oregon State for eleven years, including their championships. He was the primary recruiter for both OSU programs and has had many top 10 recruiting classes at both schools.

He is ready for the next step in taking over his own program.

http://www.okstate.com/sports/m-basebl/mtt/marty_lees_803912.html

Edit: I saw a tweet about this from writer Aaron Fitt. I see BX saw the same tweet and wrote an article about this.

 

[CougPatrol]

Yearly conference evaluations aren't reliable. Was the Pac-12 bad this year, or is the parity in the regional tournament just that good? Doesn't really matter. Nobody who knows anything about baseball would dispute the fact that the Pac-12 is one of the best conferences in the Nation, year in, year out.

It was probably time for Marbut to go, but he wasn't a colossal failure either. It's a very tough league. We start training when there's snow on the ground and the temps are below freezing. Like all WSU teams, we face significant hurdles with building a baseball program.

 

[Brent H.]

Yearly conference evaluations aren't reliable. Was the Pac-12 bad this year, or is the parity in the regional tournament just that good? Doesn't really matter. Nobody who knows anything about baseball would dispute the fact that the Pac-12 is one of the best conferences in the Nation, year in, year out.

It was probably time for Marbut to go, but he wasn't a colossal failure either. It's a very tough league. We start training when there's snow on the ground and the temps are below freezing. Like all WSU teams, we face significant hurdles with building a baseball program.

Bailey and Brayton never seem to have that problem. When I was a kid I asked my dad "what sports are we good at?" First response, baseball. Hire the right coach, build the facilities and you will see success. Marbut didn't have the facilities, his attitude didn't help with recruiting much either n

 

[Glad Cougar]

I absolutely thought the world of Bobo Brayton, but you can't compare today's baseball world with the past when WSU did so well. First of all, the conference was broken into two in Bobo's day and WSU commanded the Nor-Pac. They didn't have to play the USCs, UCLAs, Arizona State, and Stanfords of the world. Heck, for a few years, University of Portland and Portland State were placed into the Nor-Pac. That did wonders for the winning percentage. I'm not saying Marbut would have had anywhere close to Bobo's success, but the Cougs of my generation only had to worry about Jack Riley and OSU. I do agree that the right coach can improve on what Donnie was able to do, but it won't be as easy as it might have been 30 years ago.

Regarding the Pac-12 misfortunes in the NCAA regionals, baseball of all sports is often a crapshoot in a short series. If the better team happens to run up against a hot pitcher, for instance, that one loss can be a killer. That's why two wild card teams in MLB last year played for the World Series title. Did anyone really think over the course of the full season that KC and SF were the two best teams? Same principle at play in college baseball. Teams like Virginia Commonwealth can pull off a couple of upsets and advance.

Anyway, I'm curious to see who gets the WSU job. Marty Lees would be an excellent choice, IMO.

Glad Cougar

 

[cr8zyncalif]

Just my $0.02. The regional format means that if you want to advance, at the minimum you have to have two absolutely killer pitchers who can go the distance or close to it, plus a good closer who can pitch 3 innings when required. If you land in the loser's bracket, you had better have a 3rd pitcher who is near the ability of your two killer pitchers. Think of it as a 3 game series that you have to win. If you don't have that minimum required pitching, then you won't get out of the regionals. And we haven't discussed fielding, offense or coaching strategy/game management.

I thought the PAC this year was a mediocre hitting league. That helped the pitching statistics. Only a couple of teams had what might with a straight face be called a dominant pitching staff. Notice I didn't say only a few had dominant pitchers…every team in the league had one pitcher who was both reliable and able to pitch a lot of innings. Some had two. But darned few had three, along with a closer who could carry the last third of a game.

Just as defense wins championships in basketball, pitching enables college baseball teams to advance out of the regional tournament. And this was not a sterling year for pitchers in the PAC. A good year? Yes. But not great, and the 6 advancement failures underline that.