Dawg83

State’s season is officially over with the NIT loss to Virginia, and my gosh was it a boring end to a frustrating season. And with that, we’ve now reached what is likely the end of Ben Howland’s time at MSU. I expect the announcement within the next day or two. As someone who was critical of Howland for several years, I have to admit that he leaves the program in better shape than he found it, and he does deserve some credit for that. At the end of the day, one NCAA Tourney in seven years just isn’t going to be enough for almost any program. Especially with some of the talented teams he underachieved with. And for whatever reason (and I think there are a lot of them, some his fault and some not) he was never able to make the fans care. Not even his one NCAAT team drew great crowds most of the time, I remember being at the Kentucky game that year and seeing 2-3K empty seats in the building, and that game was on a Saturday and I think both teams were in the Top 25. Let’s see who the hire ends up being, there have been several pretty intriguing names thrown around from the mid major head coaching ranks but hard to evaluate until something is final, which I would expect sometime next week.

Eh it’s only your third loss and it’s on the road in the midweek. Wouldn’t worry too much about it. However, would like to reiterate my point about there not really being one dominant team in college baseball this year. Just the SEC feels wide, wide open, and the national scale is no different.

Both schools could do better. Stans isn’t the coach he was 15 years ago and Kennedy would just be Howland 2.0 with worse recruiting. Side note, it’s kind of funny that people consider Howland to be as old as father time when in reality he’s only two years older than Stansbury. And I would still be very surprised if Howland is not let go within 24-48 hours of State’s NIT run ending.

They are kinda due for a no Omaha year anyway. It’s not realistic to expect it every single season, no program does that. Having said that, this team is no more dead in the water than the 2017 or 2018 teams were early on. And one of those teams made it to Omaha and the other made it to a Super Regional. I think State will get KC Hunt back fairly soon, if he can find his fall/preseason form then that will help tremendously at this stage. The starting rotation has actually been fine even with all the injuries, the biggest issue has been the bullpen. You’ve had to elevate some of your best pen arms to starters and now you’re scrambling to replace what those guys were in the pen.

OM actually up to #1 in the latest D1 poll. State still at #23. Both teams open SEC play on the road, Ole Miss is at Auburn and State is at Georgia. If there is a single dominant team in college baseball this year I’m not seeing it to this point. I thought it had a chance to be Texas but they just lost two games to a not great South Carolina team and have had some injury issues now. On one hand it feels a little gratuitous to put OM at #1 after playing a pretty soft schedule to this point, but on the other hand I’m not sure anyone else has a great case,

State sweeps a winless Princeton team, Ole Miss takes 2 of 3 from Oral Roberts. Now onto conference play where we will really see who is legit and who is not. Initial takes from me are that Ole Miss is about what I expected. Elite offense, pitching can be up and down. I’ll be shocked if they aren’t a Regional host and in contention for a Top 8 seed/SEC title. State is kind of a mystery. Really bad start, dealing with some key injuries, but still plenty talented. Somehow they’ve lost Sims and Hunt and are still getting good starting pitching for the most part. Offensively they are going to be hot and cold, bullpen is kind of a mess right now, need some guys to step up. I see them more as a 2 seed in a road Regional, middle of the pack in the league team. But as always capable of getting hot in June.

I just think the circumstances are a lot different now. The SEC was BAAAAD that year. If I recall it was going to be a 2 bid league until State won the tourney and made it 3. And I don’t think any of those teams were higher than an 8 or 9 seed. State got in as a 13. This year you’re gonna have to go through more of a murderer’s row. The SEC has four Top 15 teams at the moment and you’d probably need to beat 3 of them in the span of 3 days. Just seems incredibly unlikely.

I suspect we are in the final days of Howland at MSU, barring a miracle run this weekend. Actually think they have a pretty good chance to win the first game but can’t see them making it past Saturday under the best of circumstances. What an odd 7 year experiment this has been. I have been pretty critical since about Year 3, and yet I’m not totally sure what the trajectory of the program post-Howland looks like. I absolutely believe there is a ton of room for improvement but there’s also room to get a lot worse. You kinda went down that road already after Stansbury. It’s really important that Cohen nails the next hire, and frankly his track record on that front has been VERY hit or miss.

State split the two games in Biloxi with Texas Tech. Thought they played really well in the first game, less so in the second but I think you can live with 1-1 in those two. Four games until SEC play and all are at home against Princeton and Binghamton. Feels like that needs to be a 4-0 stretch to start making up for the bad start. And then you start conference play in Athens next weekend and we’ll see how the heck that goes.

The issue is this pitching staff was already short on proven arms and now injuries are adding up.

State lost another late lead to drop the series. Now 6-6 on the year with two games against Texas Tech coming up. Yeesh. State’s offense has gotten the most attention early on but this bullpen is the biggest issue they have. Again, still very early and still lots of time to right the ship, but you’ve kinda dug a hole for yourself early on.

I do think State is finding its footing a little offensively. It can be a pretty potent lineup when most of them are dialed in. I also think this team lacks the pitching depth that previous teams had. And that’s before the Sims injury. At the moment I lean more toward State being a dangerous 2 or 3 seed this year than a national seed type team. But there’s more than one way to win in the postseason, which State has done.

State blew a 10-2 lead in that game. Didn’t score after the 4th inning and then had a bullpen meltdown late. Thought some strange pitching decisions were made down the stretch and it cost them the game. I get that it’s early and roles are still being defined but there are some arms on this team that have been featured in key roles and I’m not sure they will be for much longer.

I have been saying that State’s offense is boom or bust. They had been a bust and this weekend they are bringing the boom. Just hammering Tulane pitching through a game and a half.

The Sims situation makes you sick, and you hope he’s ok, but still a dominant win for State that they really needed. This Tulane team had been playing really well. I’m sure the next two games will be more of a struggle, but always good to win Game 1 on the road.

I am no doctor but it looked like it could be significant. Definitely could change State’s ceiling for this season if it is. At the time he got hurt, he was perfect through 3.2 inning and had struck out 10 of 11 batters.

Oh crap. State cruising against Tulane and Landon Sims just left with an arm injury. In the middle of looking as good as he’s ever looked. Cuss word. Cuss word. Cuss word.

It’s a very boom or bust lineup. Right now it’s been almost exclusively bust. But you’ve got dudes who have hit well before and some newcomers that are still adjusting. I think they’re bound to get going eventually. People also forget that State wasn’t a great hitting team last year even with a championship team. Allen and Jordan were the only everyday guys that hit over .300. That team just had a major clutch factor and got some big time pitching performances along the way.

It’s very early (as in Howland isn’t even gone yet) but the early names that are being thrown around for State are Chris Jans (New Mexico State), Matt McMahon (Murray State) and Bob Richey (Furman). I don’t think there will be mutual interest between State and Sean Miller, which is fine with me because I think there’s a lot of Bob Boyd/Ben Howland potential if you hired Miller. The most likely scenario is that State pursues a quality mid major head coach. I think Jans or McMahon would be really interesting hires if you could get them. Richey is the name that’s been floating around for several months, he hasn’t done a ton at Furman but seems to be a good coach. Beyond that, who knows. Maybe Bucky McMillan at Samford gets a look? Historically this has not been an easy job to hire to. In the modern era it’s been a lot of promoting from within, hiring older coaches currently out of a job, or in Rick Ray’s case, any random dude who would take the job.

Yeah, perhaps I’m wrong but I just think there’s too much talent for State to not get going eventually. Is it possible they just have an OK regular season and have to play on the road in a Regional? Absolutely. But recent history (2016 - 2021) suggests that this program knows how to turn it on at the right time.

D1 used to just be a scores site and they hired away the best writers from all the other sites about 6-7 years ago and became what they are now. They simply have the most amount of guys who have been around the sport the longest.

D1 and Baseball America are the only ones I pay attention to.

Funny enough Sacramento State is 7-0 and now ranked in D1’s Top 25. State dropped to 9, Ole Miss up to 2. State will really be tested in the next 9 or 10 days with USM/Tulane/Texas Tech all away from Dudy Noble. OM will have its first semi-test of the year this weekend with a road trip to UCF.

I was hyping up Long Beach State after last weekend and then they went and got swept at home by Sacramento State. LOL.

State won the Saturday and Sunday games convincingly after a rough Friday. Starting rotation has looked solid.