Baseball Swept In Doubleheader At UT Arlington

[NewsCopy]

The 20th-ranked Louisiana Ragin' Cajuns baseball team came up empty handed in a doubleheader against UT Arlington falling 10-2 and 9-3 on Sunday at Clay Gould Ballpark to get swept in a series for the first time since 2013.

The rest of the story

UL SI

[Cajun90]

After four years that isn't the type of record you want to break. They get the week off of baseball. Should have a pretty good idea what we have for a baseball team come Friday. Hope I'm wrong but this sure is starting to feel a lot like 2001.

[cajundiehard]

It's amazing how fast the game can turn on you. I, and I'm sure most of us, were feeling pretty good after Texas heading into UTA... Then Cajuns ran into a buzz saw. Probably just realizing what hit them.

Gut check.

[Turbine]

It's amazing how fast the game can turn on you. I, and I'm sure most of us, were feeling pretty good after Texas heading into UTA... Then Cajuns ran into a buzz saw. Probably just realizing what hit them.

Gut check.

It has ceased to amaze my how often good winning streaks are followed by slumps. (across all sports) And it's not unique to UL.

[cajundiehard]

RPI at 55 after the sweep. Not too bad, but definitely with some ground to make up to earn an at large. 2.5 games behind UTA with 3 games left.

UTA has @ Arkansas State, Coastal, @ Texas State.

Cajuns 1.5 back of South Alabama who has Little Rock, @ App, Troy.

Cajuns tied with Coastal who is @ ULM. @ UTA, App

Shouldbe interesting down the stretch if Cajuns can get it back together.

[whataburger]

RPI at 55 after the sweep. Not too bad, but definitely with some ground to make up to earn an at large. 2.5 games behind UTA with 3 games left.

UTA has @ Arkansas State, Coastal, @ Texas State.

Cajuns 1.5 back of South Alabama who has Little Rock, @ App, Troy.

Cajuns tied with Coastal who is @ ULM. @ UTA, App

Shouldbe interesting down the stretch if Cajuns can get it back together.

Not too bad of a drop. Problem is, we really couldn't afford a drop at all. Plus, it's gonna be hard to make up 3 games against a team we don't play again (until maybe in the conference tournament.) We really need a regular season championship to ensure we are not sweating bullets during regional selections. I am really afraid we'll be fighting for our regional lives in the conference tournament, needing to win it to get into the postseason.

[cajundiehard]

Close to it. Not sure if an RPI in the 40s would be good enough without a regular season championship.

Cajuns need to sweep remaining conference games to have a chance. South Alabama has the easiest road, IMHO... but they screwed the pooch last year getting swept at Troy to allow the Cajuns to claim the title, so it's possible.

[cajunfan79]

we sat out a year with RPI in low 40s, not good enough.

[babysitter]

You guys really think we'll have to win the Sunbelt Tournament to make a regional ? ULM on the road is a sweep. If that doesn't happen, we don't deserve to even be in the tournament. Texas St. at home is a possible sweep. They've struggled with pitching for a while now. Ga. Southern certainly aren't world beaters by any stretch. A sweep there wouldn't surprise me either. Over the next 9 conference games I feel we can afford no more than one loss. If that happens, we'll be right there. Now, from an RPI standpoint we absolutely have to take care of McNeese and La. Tech. Keep in mind that we have 8 straight home games out of 11 games coming up. That's huge. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if this team does all of the above. One game at a time !

[Cajun90]

For reference. We have failed to make the post season eight times since 1999 which is the first year of the 64 team field. Of those eight years most were pretty cut and dry with fairly poor records and thus fairly low RPI values.

The one year in question would be 2006 when we finished 39-20 with an RPI of 46. Strength of schedule that year was poor at 111 including conference games and a very poor 136 OOC.

Right now our SOS (warren nolan) is 88. There are only 9 teams in front of us with a weaker SOS.

[cajundiehard]

I'm not giving out hope for an at-large. We all saw that they CAN win 9 straight. I was thinking going into UTA that we would be OK with 1 loss each to UTA, GA Southern, and Texas State. Well - we used up all our losses, so need to sweep remaining weekends. Difference is that we now have to make up 2.5 games vs. UTA and 1.5 vs. South Alabama... and I think South has the easiest row to hoe.

Guess we need to get that RPI into the 30's to feel we have a decent shot at an at-large without a conference championship.

[GoneGolfin]

For reference. We have failed to make the post season eight times since 1999 which is the first year of the 64 team field. Of those eight years most were pretty cut and dry with fairly poor records and thus fairly low RPI values.

The one year in question would be 2006 when we finished 39-20 with an RPI of 46. Strength of schedule that year was poor at 111 including conference games and a very poor 136 OOC.

The Cajuns' RPI ranking at selection time in 2006 was #55.

That year came down to some stolen bids (which is a crucial element to projecting at-large bids) and South Alabama scheduling that game against #6 Florida State after the Sun Belt Tournament ... having PJ Walters throw a ridiculous number of pitches ... beating the Seminoles (includes an RPI bonus) ... and moving up to #38 in the rankings. The committee made a decision to take the Jags over the Cajuns ... one that was driven by that 17 spot differential. This was despite the Cajuns having an advantage in all of the relevant metrics other than RPI ranking ... including finishing 2 1/2 games ahead of South Al in conference play (2nd place behind Troy) and eliminating the Jags from the conference tournament and splitting the season series.

Brian

[ManAboutTown]

I respectfully disagree- a little. I believe we are a "win-the-tournament-or-win-the-regular-season-title-(a long shot at best)-and-get-to-the-final-day of-the-tournament-or-stay-at-home" team.


What a burger.

You're asking .600 WP team to basically sweep the last 2 conference series in order to win the regular season title, and win .833% of its final games to even be in the top 50 RPI.

Georgia Southern is playing well, can hit, will feature a few soft tossing junker lefties, and has a very very good closer. I'm not saying we can't win the series, but I'll be shocked if we sweep. They are coming here to win, period.

I am not sold on our ability to compete when it really matters. I am also very worried about our overall health. I am also acutely aware that Nick Lee is crucial to this team's long term success and he is lost in the wilderness right now. We keep relying on the same guys to deliver and eventually, those guys will be human.

While the SBC is not as top heavy as it has been in past years, it is very competitive and wide open coming down the stretch. South Al has gotten much better, as has Geo Sou, UTA and even Troy.

I'll go on record as saying I do not believe this team will be playing in June. I also believe that staying home this year might be a good thing for this program because there have been hangers-on, etc that need to be replaced. I'm talking players and coaches. Just my opinion.

[Cajun90]

The Cajuns' RPI ranking at selection time in 2006 was #55.

That year came down to some stolen bids (which is a crucial element to projecting at-large bids) and South Alabama scheduling that game against #6 Florida State after the Sun Belt Tournament ... having PJ Walters throw a ridiculous number of pitches ... beating the Seminoles (includes an RPI bonus) ... and moving up to #38 in the rankings. The committee made a decision to take the Jags over the Cajuns ... one that was driven by that 17 spot differential. This was despite the Cajuns having an advantage in all of the relevant metrics other than RPI ranking ... including finishing 2 1/2 games ahead of South Al in conference play (2nd place behind Troy) and eliminating the Jags from the conference tournament and splitting the season series.

Brian

Yeah in my hurry i pulled srpi data from year end and not selection time.

[GoneGolfin]

The Cajuns' RPI ranking at selection time in 2006 was #55.

That year came down to some stolen bids (which is a crucial element to projecting at-large bids) and South Alabama scheduling that game against #6 Florida State after the Sun Belt Tournament ... having PJ Walters throw a ridiculous number of pitches ... beating the Seminoles (includes an RPI bonus) ... and moving up to #38 in the rankings. The committee made a decision to take the Jags over the Cajuns ... one that was driven by that 17 spot differential. This was despite the Cajuns having an advantage in all of the relevant metrics other than RPI ranking ... including finishing 2 1/2 games ahead of South Al in conference play (2nd place behind Troy) and eliminating the Jags from the conference tournament and splitting the season series.

I should also note that in 2006, #57 San Diego (3rd place in the WCC) and #51 San Francisco (1st place in the WCC) both made the field as at-large teams.

Brian