Setting aside that we increased the odds of us hosting to a whopping 1%, the big news out of this weekend is that we just might have found a No. 3 starter. Yeah, we're 90% done with the regular season, but, hey - better late than never.
What did Hughes do to stop being a huge loser? Any super stat heavy insight?
He's still a loser who's made the NCAA tourney 3 times in a 25 year coaching career. But, I don't think too many people thought this team would be in NCAA contention, so he deserves credit for that.
As for this year, the high-level differences (in my opinion) are:
-Less bad pitching (we're No. 2 in Big 12 play in ERA despite only having about 5 guys you always feel pretty good about - the rest, not so much; maybe the assistant high school pitching coach we hired in the offseason knows a thing or two)
-Plate discipline (we still strike out a ton - everybody does - but we're 4th in the country in walks, which is important because we're last in the Big 12 in BA)
-Home vs. away (Greg has mentioned our home/away splits have been atrocious in recent years; they're still probably pretty bad, but we're 13-9 away from home this year - last year we were 6-17, 2021 was 3-12, 2019 was 8-17 - if you can just go .500 on the road and then win consistently at home, you'll be in the NCAA conversation every year)
-Big 12 sucks (if this isn't the worst year ever for the league, it's got to be pretty close; by RPI, the Big 12 is third, but by non-conference win %, it's 4th - but the league is far, far, far below both the SEC and the ACC - more than usual)
Stir that all up and here we are...
