Louisiana vs. Southeastern

[HoustonCajun]

_ More like we whooped our own asses. 9 hits and 1 error a piece. I'm not too worried. If we give up 13 free base runners we'll lose every time. _

Success should be defined as winning the conference and/or going to a regional. UL's best baseball years were from 1997 - 2000 with 4 straight regional appearances including a super regional in 1999 and a CWS appearance in 2000. In the 9 years since then, we went to regionals 3 times and won only 1 SBC championship. The other years were mostly mediocre.

An interesting comparison is to basketball over the past 10 years. Both had 5 seasons of nearly .500 records with no post season appearances. In basketball, the 5 year period from 2000 to 2004 (Coach Evans) had 2 NIT and 2 NCAA appearances with 4, 20 win seasons. From 2005 - 2009 under Coach Lee, UL failed to have 1 winning season. In baseball, UL's record has been mostly up and down with no consistency one way or the other. There were 4 seasons hovering around .500; 2001 28-28, 2003 30-30, 2008 30-29, 2009 27-30. There were 3 good seasons in a row from 2005 49-17, 2006 39-20 & 2007 45-17 while 2002 had a 39-23 record and 2004 had a 34-23 record. There were 3 regional appearances spread out over that period in 2002, 2005 and 2007 with only the one SBC championship. Somewhat similar results but spread out much differently.

Who would have thought that our baseball program would be outrecruited and outplayed by Southeastern and that UL would lose to them 3 years in a row. Congrats to them for being a Top 30 team and undefeated. Based on our first 7 games, poor pitching, poor hitting and poor fielding are not a good combination. Are we in for a repeat of the past 2 seasons? It is too early to tell, but this weekend series with USM at home should be a good indicator. A look at the Top 25 teams each year has some pretty consistent teams year in and year out and they are not all BCS schools. I think many of us think of UL baseball as being at a much higher level than it actually is, especially over the past 2 years and starting this year. Will UL ever be able to return to the consistent baseball power it was during that 1997 - 2000 period? If not, why not? What will it take to get us there?

[raginsaints]

A new hitting coach? We have the best pitching in the conference every year.

[USLJim]

_ Wow, SLwho really wants this one dont they? Using their ace followed by their closer. Hmmm. Our worst pitching outing of the year against an average hitting team, SLU doesnt strike me as a top 30 team. Gotta keep their rpi up I guess. Oh well. Game aint over yet! _

Who cares that it is their ace, we should be hitting him and not making errors and hitting batters and hitting batters with bases loaded. WHO CARES IF THEY PITCH THEIR ACE. If we were playing them a weekend series, we would face there #1, 2, & 3, so they used him as a mid week starter, we need to hit all their pitchers. GEEZZZZ, USING THEIR ACE. Give me a break,

[LifeTimeCajun]

The one thing that keeps coming to my mind...as mentioned for the most part we have had very consistent pitching over the years. not sure about this but I think The NCAA allows every staff to have 2 guys to go out and recruit. So whose going out and getting our pitchers? And who is going out and getting our hitters? Is it that coach robe recruits our pitchers or do the staff do all recruiting and they really really get coached up by robe and turn out what we've had over the past years? Just seems we are always consistant on the pitching side of things, but lack on the hitting side

igeaux.mobi

[cjr3888]

_ The one thing that keeps coming to my mind...as mentioned for the most part we have had very consistent pitching over the years. not sure about this but I think The NCAA allows every staff to have 2 guys to go out and recruit. So whose going out and getting our pitchers? And who is going out and getting our hitters? Is it that coach robe recruits our pitchers or do the staff do all recruiting and they really really get coached up by robe and turn out what we've had over the past years? Just seems we are always consistant on the pitching side of things, but lack on the hitting side

igeaux.mobi _

Coach Schef was our lead recruiter (I think) while he was here. He left for Kansas and Coach Trahan, who recruited ULM's top classes, was hired in his place. We are still in the transition period where Schef's players are leaving and Trahan's players are coming in.

[GoneGolfin]

_ Success should be defined as winning the conference and/or going to a regional. UL's best baseball years were from 1997 - 2000 with 4 straight regional appearances including a super regional in 1999 and a CWS appearance in 2000. In the 9 years since then, we went to regionals 3 times and won only 1 SBC championship. The other years were mostly mediocre.

If your criteria for "best years" requires consecutive regional appearances, then yes ... '97-'00 is the only four year string in the program's history. But I would submit that many on this board today would moan about '97 and '98 ... because the Cajuns went 0-4 in regional games these two seasons and were blown out in three of those four games.

The 2002 (regional finals), 2005 (regional win), and 2007 (regional finals) teams were very good. So was the 2006 team ... I felt the NCAA robbed them of a bid that year. I consider the 2005 - 2007 teams to be quite successful. I also think that the 2007 team is at minimum one of the top three the Cajuns have had.

Who would have thought that our baseball program would be outrecruited and outplayed by Southeastern and that UL would lose to them 3 years in a row.

It is early to be making that judgement. I do not think SLU had a better team in '08 (not that the Cajuns had a good season, but neither did SLU). SLU had a decent team last year and swept a midweek series. But it would have been interesting to play them in a weekend series (our top three against theirs). I am not convinced that SLU would have won 2/3 last season in such a situation.

SLU is off to a nice start this season. But there is a lot of baseball left. Robichaux experimented with some pitchers last night (giving them their first playing time) and were easily the difference in last night's game with double digit free passes. SLU went with its ace on short rest (four days rest) and its closer (threw last Friday and Sunday). Again, I think we need to evaluate what happens by the end of the season (at minimum, much more info than we have) ... and I would not mind seeing a weekend series with our top guys on the mound against SLU. Our weekend starters are going to be tough this season. Hopefully we can get one of the first two from USM this weekend and have a chance to take the series on Sunday.

I should also note that from time to time, the smaller state schools do have better teams (really good ones). This is simply an indication of the high school talent in the state and surrounding states. For example, we were on the bubble in 1989 for a bid (49-13 team) into a 48-team field. Guess who beat us out for an at-large bid? Nicholls State.

Congrats to them for being a Top 30 team and undefeated. Based on our first 7 games, poor pitching, poor hitting and poor fielding are not a good combination.

You are exaggerating. Last night was a poor pitching performance ... in a game where all four were pitching for the first time this season ... on the road ... and two of them were making their inaugural division I appearances. The pitching for the other six games this season has been nothing short of stellar. It is the defense that has been disappointing this season. The hitting has been OK, not poor.

Brian

[ManAboutTown]

_ The one thing that keeps coming to my mind...as mentioned for the most part we have had very consistent pitching over the years. not sure about this but I think The NCAA allows every staff to have 2 guys to go out and recruit. So whose going out and getting our pitchers? And who is going out and getting our hitters? Is it that coach robe recruits our pitchers or do the staff do all recruiting and they really really get coached up by robe and turn out what we've had over the past years? Just seems we are always consistant on the pitching side of things, but lack on the hitting side

igeaux.mobi _

How the hell have we gone from Lucroy, Tatford, Hawkins, Gisclair to Goulas, Switzenberg, Guillory and Griffin? I mean, was coach shef that important? Why the hell can't we hit the damn ball since 2007? We beat SLU by almost 20 that year! Now we shallack ourselves to the tune of 3 straight loses to them?! Through out all the excuses you want; we should NEVER lose to SLU 3 times in a row, at anything, ever, period. I get that we lost a few bats, but my goodness.. Whipple was a good, not great player; Smith, imo, overachieved early in his career. I know that I'm just frustrated, but it seems every year since the regional we start off having to say "well, its just the beginning of the year.. to early to tell.. the seasons not over yet".. hogwash. When we started 17-2 a few years back, do you guys even remember what we were saying?!? CWS bound!! And we were a few outs away that season.. I mean, look - we are what we are. We're an average team, with great pitching.. Just like we always are. Every now and then we luck out with guys like Luc and Hawk and Dallas and Danny and BJ, but its not consistent! We're consistently not bad lately.

I love this team, and I want to be on ESPN in JUNE AGAIN!!!

[CajunRed]

_ Who cares that it is their ace, we should be hitting him and not making errors and hitting batters and hitting batters with bases loaded. WHO CARES IF THEY PITCH THEIR ACE. If we were playing them a weekend series, we would face there #1, 2, & 3, so they used him as a mid week starter, we need to hit all their pitchers. GEEZZZZ, USING THEIR ACE. Give me a break, _

I agree. If you use the "its their ace" argument, that's means we will probably lose each Friday game because we can't hit the opposition's ace?

We should have hit the guy and didn't much. Four runs in a midweek game will not win many. Pitching was high school... and I mean single A.

[GoneGolfin]

_ I agree. If you use the "its their ace" argument, that's means we will probably lose each Friday game because we can't hit the opposition's ace?

No. It also means that they need to hit your ace (or in our case, our two aces) as well.

This team is not going to score a bunch of blowouts and will not average eight runs/game. I expect the Cajuns to pitch well. They can probably hit just enough. But they need to dramatically improve the defense.

Brian

[cajun2bag]

_ Success should be defined as winning the conference and/or going to a regional. UL's best baseball years were from 1997 - 2000 with 4 straight regional appearances including a super regional in 1999 and a CWS appearance in 2000. In the 9 years since then, we went to regionals 3 times and won only 1 SBC championship. The other years were mostly mediocre.

An interesting comparison is to basketball over the past 10 years. Both had 5 seasons of nearly .500 records with no post season appearances. In basketball, the 5 year period from 2000 to 2004 (Coach Evans) had 2 NIT and 2 NCAA appearances with 4, 20 win seasons. From 2005 - 2009 under Coach Lee, UL failed to have 1 winning season. In baseball, UL's record has been mostly up and down with no consistency one way or the other. There were 4 seasons hovering around .500; 2001 28-28, 2003 30-30, 2008 30-29, 2009 27-30. There were 3 good seasons in a row from 2005 49-17, 2006 39-20 & 2007 45-17 while 2002 had a 39-23 record and 2004 had a 34-23 record. There were 3 regional appearances spread out over that period in 2002, 2005 and 2007 with only the one SBC championship. Somewhat similar results but spread out much differently.

Who would have thought that our baseball program would be outrecruited and outplayed by Southeastern and that UL would lose to them 3 years in a row. Congrats to them for being a Top 30 team and undefeated. Based on our first 7 games, poor pitching, poor hitting and poor fielding are not a good combination. Are we in for a repeat of the past 2 seasons? It is too early to tell, but this weekend series with USM at home should be a good indicator. A look at the Top 25 teams each year has some pretty consistent teams year in and year out and they are not all BCS schools. I think many of us think of UL baseball as being at a much higher level than it actually is, especially over the past 2 years and starting this year. Will UL ever be able to return to the consistent baseball power it was during that 1997 - 2000 period? If not, why not? What will it take to get us there? _

We have won 2 SBC Titles in the mentioned timeframe...2005 and 2007 =)