Michigan Baseball Slow Clap
Michigan Baseball's amazing run concluded today with a 13-4 loss to national 3 seed Louisville in the Championship of the NCAA Louisville Regional.
Michigan began the season looking like they might be in a dogfight just to make the B1G Tournament. They lost their season opening series to Long Beach State, were swept by Davidson and had embarrassing losses to Akron, EMU and Tennessee Tech.
This team exceeded expectations in the B1G regular season, finising in a 3rd place tie and at one point having a shot at an at-large bid.
However, losses to bad teams like Northwestern and the dagger to Michigan's RPI in a shutout loss at Horizon League Illinois-Chicago all but shatter any NCAA Tournament hopes.
This team then closed the regular season by upsetting #13 Oklahoma State on senior day after being blown out in the first two games of the series. This launched them on a run where they would upset FOUR NCAA Tournament teams including #4 Illinois who had won 27 of their previous 28 heading into the game.
Michigan captured their first B1G Tournament Championship in seven years and rendered all those bad losses in the regular season irrelevant by securing the B1G's automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
Michigan then demolished regional 2 seed Bradley on Friday, 10-5, in a game considered an upset and would drop a tough 4-3 game to regional host and No. 3 overall seed Louisville on the road. Michigan beat Bradley today 4-3 in a game where they needed to use several pitchers and had nothing left in the tank for the doubleheader with Louisville.
This Michigan team deserves to be applauded and recognized for their accomplishments this season as they have put this great program--Michigan's oldest--back into the NCAA Tournament.
Every season under Erik Bakich the win total and B1G Conference finish has gone up. The Maize and Blue are going to have their best season in a long, long time next year IMO.
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A big O!
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Before Magic, Bird, Jordan and LeBron, there was "The Big O" . . . one of the greatest ever, but he rarely gets mentioned these days.
Indiana getting there in 2013 gave me a lot of hope. They were the first B1G team since Michigan in 1984 to get back to the World Series.
Illinois has a great chance to get there this year and I hope they do.
In Bakich's intro presser in 2012, he talked about wanting to catch about to Softball.
When the team won the B1G Tournament, "we can do it too, Softball!" was heard during the celebration.
But I don't get the location of the World Series for Baseball or Softball.
I think it's an America's Heartland thing--Mom, apple pie, Tom Brokaw, bat/ball sports. And really, what else do those states really have? They need this...
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commending the Michigan Baseball Team for having a good season. We saw a lot of overall progress since the start of the season, and if the trend continues, we'll soon have a team that'll be a perennial contender in the B1G with frequent trips to the CWS. There's no doubt that Coach Bakich has done a good job and has this program pointed in the right direction.
BTW, 4 Michigan players made the 11-man Regional All-Tournament Team. Receiving honors were:
C- Kendall Patrick
1B- Carmen Benedetti
2B- Jacob Cronenworth
and
DH- Cody Bruder
Congratulations!
Now the challenge comes, can the coaching staff continue to produce successful seasons. For Baseball that would be top 3 in Big Ten regular season or better. Always being looked at as a contender for the BIG tournament title. And finally when they get onto the Road to Omaha, they continue to make noise. If things continue then hosting a Regional is the next step because they have the respect of the NCAA selection committee.
Thank you for the post.
Regarding the pitching, it didn't help that Michigan's #2 starter, Ryan Nutof, has been in the hospital since Thursday with the flu (noted in this Michigan Daily writeup). I'm not making excuses, just saying Michigan had more pitching depth than was apparent this weekend.
I love them.
M baseball has the 4th best record in the NCAAs Division I.
This team seems like they've only gotten better under Bakich and this run confirms that, in my opinion. A battle hard fought indeed and I think they come back bigger and more bad, if you will, next season. The future does indeed look bright for Michigan baseball.
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I love their jerseys.
Four of the five Big Ten teams made their regional finals - with Indiana being the exception. Iowa, along with Michigan, was eliminated in the regional final. Maryland plays their rubber game against overall #1 UCLA right now. Illinois has two chances to knock off Wright State this afternoon and host their Super Regional series.
Nice to hang a banner that we probably weren't supposed to / expected to hang. Particularly when we didn't hang banners in sports where we had expectations of doing so back in the start of the season (men's hoops, hockey).