First Week of the Season Review

by **CaseyGarrisonforPrez** » February 17th, 2013, 8:32 pm

Missouri State: Decent 2-1 start for the presumptive Valley champs. I expected huge things from Tate Matheny and he has yet to deliver hitting south of the Mendoza Line. Fortunately for the whole team we will face a couple of squads next weekend in E Illinois and Alcorn State who pitch and play defense like the Maginot Line.

Illinois State: Impressive series win over a middle of the pack CUSA team in Memphis. Good start although there was shoddy defensive play on Sunday (4 errors). Illinois State will continue with mediocre competition this next weekend with Austin Peay.

Evansville played a trio of one run contests this weekend and were on the short end twice. UALR is not exactly great so this was not the start I expected from my pick as the Valley sleeper team of the year. Coach Carroll and company will have a tall order next week taking on the Hogs in Fayetteville.

Wichita State: Truly awful start. Getting swept by a Northern school in Pitt that isn't even fully funded with the 11.7 schollies that Wichita supposedly has. Unacceptable. Wichita plays a game ORU team midweek then faces the Delaware Blue Hens for a 4 game set on the weekend. The new team goal should just be to minimize the humiliation that is sure to come.

Creighton: Wow! How 'bout a sweep of Dallas Baptist to start the season? Very nice. Very, very nice. Coach Servais sure knows how to find a bunch of seemingly average JUCO kids and turn them into gold. Great first weekend has CU on a lot of national radars. They will continue next weekend with some tournament at Lamar. Keep carrying that Valley banner Creighton...err while you still are in the conference.

Indiana State: 2-2 against substandard competition down in Alabama. Not that encouraging. IPFW, the feaking Mastodons roughed up all world pitcher Manaea. Ruh-roh. He needs a better outing at the Auburn tournament next week to improve his draft stock and Indiana State needs some wins to improve their team stock.

SIUC: Lost two of three to CUSA also ran UAB. Not sure what to think of the start to be honest. They will stay down south for 5 more games. They need to grab some W's.

Bradley: Swept by Arky State. And they gave up double digit runs all three games. Going to be a long year up in Peoria I am afraid. The Braves can show some spine and bounce back next week with a tournament in Nashville. At least the Braves can enjoy a truly underrated American city if they stink up the joint yet again.

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by **shoxrox** » April 14th, 2013, 9:14 pm

So Casey, how well is first-place MSU doing? Isn't this the year where the Bears were gonna finally host a regional?

by **CaseyGarrisonforPrez** » April 14th, 2013, 9:27 pm

shoxrox wrote:So Casey, how well is first-place MSU doing? Isn't this the year where the Bears were gonna finally host a regional?

21-10 with an RPI of 77 probably leaves us a rung or two down from hosting a regional since only the top 16 teams get to do that. It's been a bit of a disappointment. Sure. I thought we could do big things but the bats just haven't come to life the way I anticipated. I think that we will have to go on an amazing tear to snag an at large. More realistically we will need to win the whole thing in Normal, which we have the best chance to do since we have the most complete team in the Valley. So a mixed bag.

I will say this much though, the fact that a WSU fan is crowing now that they are finally in first place at 21-16, RPI of 168 by the way tells me everything I need to know about the state of affairs. At one point nothing less than Omaha was acceptable in Sedgwick County, now being in first place in the MVC by a game emboldens the masses. Very telling.

by **martymoose** » April 14th, 2013, 10:57 pm

No, what's really telling is that even with their worst season ever, WSU is still in 1st place in the Valley ahead of the mighty Bares. Damn the Valley sucks.

by **iSASO** » April 16th, 2013, 9:01 pm

This truly 'Bears' repeating. At 21-17, it's worst team in 37 years, WSU still leads the Valley just as it generally has over the past 37 years. Let that sink in for a second before you respond.

Wichita State stinks to high heaven, this forum is a vast, empty wasteland yet the league standings appear to be the same as they were 5, 10, 15, 20 or more years ago.

WSU fans really don't care anymore and because of this, other Valley fans are off the hook for caring too, hence the lack of a single game thread present. Beyond awful.

by **CaseyGarrisonforPrez** » April 20th, 2013, 6:56 pm

We are back in first, where we belong I might add, after the Fighting Gene Stephensons dropped today's game to Evansville.

by **shoxrox** » April 21st, 2013, 12:02 pm

CaseyGarrisonforPrez wrote:We are back in first, where we belong I might add, after the Fighting Gene Stephensons dropped today's game to Evansville.

Only took til the last week of April. Not bad for the clear-cut, prohibitive league favorite.

by **CaseyGarrisonforPrez** » April 21st, 2013, 3:37 pm

shoxrox wrote:
CaseyGarrisonforPrez wrote:We are back in first, where we belong I might add, after the Fighting Gene Stephensons dropped today's game to Evansville.

Only took til the last week of April. Not bad for the clear-cut, prohibitive league favorite.

Congratulations on your series win over Evansville. Hey now when I add Missouri State's RPI rank (#87) plus Kansas's (#53), and K-State's (#45) it equals a greater sum (185) than Wichita State's own RPI (#181). Being third best in the Sunflower State can be lonely. At least you are better than Bethany, Friends U, and Kansas Wesleyan. I mean probably.

by **shoxrox** » April 21st, 2013, 4:39 pm

As you've so eloquently pointed out, WSU's worst season in modern history is still tied for first with one of MSU's dream teams that was expected to cakewalk to an at-large bid and host a regional.

Bummer when things get put into perspective like that.

by **iSASO** » April 21st, 2013, 8:15 pm

Missouri State
Host
Regional

Is it possible to put those four words in the same sentence?