A Couple Notes On USC Baseball

WYATT

USC, with its nine-game winning streak and 24-17, swept UCLA for the first time since 2005. The Trojans are also on course to post a winning record for the first time since 2005. And make the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2005.

Before the season, USC coach Dan Hubbs said the key to the team was quality pitching. Staff ace Wyatt Strahan has thrown 20 straight scoreless innings while No. 2 Brent Wheatley is 4-1 with a 2.82 ERA.

2 thoughts on “A Couple Notes On USC Baseball

  1. USC baseball, while improving, probably isn’t an NCAA tourney team yet. They need a very strong showing in the PAC-12 tournament and a strong finish to overcome a still pretty pedestrian 47th in the RPI. The combination of a weak conference (UCLA is currently 103rd in RPI, so the sweep doesn’t look all that great to the computers) and too many home games (the RPI over represents road wins and as a warm weather team, USC needs a higher winning percentage than their northern counterparts to make the tournament) is hurting the team. In short, their chances improved dramatically after this weekend (they rose about 30 spots in the RPI) but still have work to do.

    On the positive side, the conference right now only has four guaranteed teams–Oregon, Oregon State, Washington, and Arizona State. The PAC 12 usually gets six teams in….so USC is in a good position. But they need to keep winning.

  2. The best is sweeping the Bruins – imagine if it had been the reverse with all the resident trolls today rationalizing or ignoring that collapse yesterday for the sweep leading 4 – 0 at home, going into the 9th.

    Haden is pushing for the NCAA to allow full scholarships for baseball instead of the current ‘fraction’ awards. The Northwestern University players pending decision to unionize is making the NCAA very nervous in acting with their usual ‘executive orders’ of denial.

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