Not that GeorgiaPerhaps spent from the five game winning streak they strung together down the stretch to win the Big Ten regular season crown, the baseball Buckeyes were bounced with a quickness from the conference tourney over the weekend, despite any type of home field cooking out of shiny Huntington Park.
Regardless of their showing, the 40-17 mark they had put up pretty much ensured an NCAA tournament berth and Monday they were awarded a three seed in the Tallahassee regional where they will face #2 Georgia in the opening game of the double-elimination tournament on Friday at noon on ESPNU. Top-seeded Florida State will take on Marist in the second game.
You don't need me to tell you that the Buckeyes will have their work cut out for them, because unlike football and the hope that cyclical forces will correct the current balance, there are no such dreams in college baseball. Southern teams dominate the sport.
Still, the matchup with Georgia is interesting for a couple of reasons. First, it's an SEC school and any time you can beat one, you have to cherish it. Then, for a baseball program that makes the NCAA tournament with the same frequency the basketball team does, this is the 10th consecutive odd-numbered year they have achieved that feat, so we have to roll with that. Finally, the Buckeyes are no stranger to playing games in the state of Florida. They played their first 21 games of the season in the state, winning 18 of them, including a 7-1 win over Miami. So as long as they're still upset with us for shortening the baseball season, maybe we have a shot.
On the recruiting front, the Buckeyes have offered Moeller quarterback Andrew Hendrix, so this can either mean the staff learned from the Guiton reach last season or Nick Montana is finally close to making his decision and that decision does not include travel tickets to CMH. Hendrix has great size (6-3/220) and now has offers from about a dozen BCS schools. Video here.
The Miami Herald caught up with Lamarcus Joyner and aside from providing a bit of background on the Frankenstein nickname, confirmed that he'll be on hand for the USC game. The Trojans join the Buckeyes in his top six, so, like, win, please.
Comments
people are saying possible montana silent verbal to ND. i'd be shocked and supremely irritated at the idea of a recruit somehow thinking playing football at ND with weis is preferable to playing for Tress at OSU if i hadn't gone to a catholic high school and understand the hardon some of these kids and parents get for catholic colleges.
actually i'm still irritated
Seeing that the Softball Super Regionals took place last Thursday and Friday for the Buckeyes, you might want to fine tune that paragraph. The Buckeyes had the lead in each game before UGA came back to win both games and have advanced to the WCWS in Olahoma City.
Let's hope the Baseball Bucks have a better outcome against UGA and advance to the CWS in Omaha in a couple of weeks. GO BUCKS!!!
Grrrrr...I'm gonna go ahead and swallow my outrage at the possibility suggested by bups, given that this isn't the place to vent my flabbergastedness that anybody anywhere at any time thinks that Catholic=good. Please, if you think I'm wrong about that, just leave it alone - it should be enough for me to say that I know what bups is talking about, but I can't for the life of me UNDERSTAND it. Especially if it leads a kid to choose Weis - that's either delusion or masochism at work (see - I started to get into it anyway! Damn! I'll stop now).
I don't follow recruiting all that closely - or, more exactly, I don't give it all that much credence. Read up on Justin Zwick and Troy Smith if you want to know why. For my purposes it's enough to know that Tressel & Co. think a kid is worthy of an offer; I never worry that we're not gonna have sufficient talent.
I love the fact that they offered Hendrix.... Montana may be good, but a good team can win with a slightly above average QB (see Craig Krenzel).... I hated that Tress was gonna wait on Montana?? Why?? He is not even in college yet and no one knows how good he is gonna be regardless of all the media hype (see Ron Powlus, Jimmy Clausen, Justin Zwick, Austin Moherman, etc... these were all Top star QB's that had all the glitz and glamour and never worked out (we'll see on Clausen). Recruit your team and dont put your eggs in one basket... I think the OSU staff relearned that lesson this past recruiting season. If Montana wants to come and is willing to compete for the starting job, I say great! If he wants assurances that he is going to be the starter regardless, then bye bye Nick, Jr. Tressel must have gotten some advance notice of a decision that will not be in OSU's favor and I agree with previous comments that it would be a head scratcher if he chose ND as bad as they have been under Weis, unless Pappa Joe knows that Weis is out on his big fat ass at seson's end and he knows who the replacement may be--Urban Meyer anyone??
Ouch. Suppose that's what we get for trying to discuss a sport we don't cover.
I know there are exceptions, but there IS a direct correlation between good recruiting and winning. Sure, not every recruit pans out, but statistically speaking, 5 sters get you 10 wins. Do the research.
I love Ohio State football. But, sometimes it may not be the best fit for a certain recruit. Plus, Weis did turn Brady Quinn into a first round draft pick.
It comes down to this:
Would you rather:
A) Run a spread type offense, with a mobile QB.
B) Run a standard offense, with a drop back gun slinger.
C) Have everything perfectly the way you want it at all times for the rest of your life.
It's Andrew Henxdrix, not Alex*
Can you tell it was a holiday weekend? Our editorial department had too many brats and beers yesterday.
Weis turned Quinn into a first round draft pick that can't even separate himself from Derek Anderson, there is a reason that he dropped so far in the first round
Do you know that because of your reply, I've now decided to follow recruiting obsessively, NOT trust Tressel to not put all his eggs in the Montana basket, and begin to worry about OSU's talent? AND to do my research? Thanks for setting me straight - I never would have guessed that lots of 5-stars (or "sters") are a good thing.
Easy big fella, that definitely was not intended to offend you in anyway, and if it did, I am terribly sorry. I like to believe that I don't know it all, so, that being said, Im open to all opinions and ideas. Once again, any offense was truly unintentional.
Hell, I'll take both A & B. Let's hope that LiC can pull it off this year. Well, at least some version of both, or a least..............
The Cavs will not make the finals.
well don't get me wrong, ND is a great college with great academics, but a lot of Catholic parents hear "public school" and scoff and laugh. i had pretty much this exact same conversation this weekend; my mom's side of the family is EXTREMELY Catholic and one of my cousins is about to go college and is exploring his options, so of course i suggested he go up and take a visit to OSU.
this of course was laughed at, because his mom wants a school with "a good college of business and college of education" which is hilarious mostly because OSU outranks every Catholic college in the nation in both of those graduate programs. but whatever. they're hell bent on the kid going to xavier or UD whether he'd love OSU or not.
ps, i actually told them about the rankings and they said (and i quote) "HAHAH YEAH BUT WHO MADE THE RANKINGS, OHIO STATE?!?" so i said "no, us news and world report, the guys who do it every year" "AHAH WHATEVER"
eeeuugghhh
Yeah, umm, I am Catholic, but I would push my Family members to go to Ohio State or where ever they are HAPPY at, I would encourage church attendance but never would I push religion as a basis for college.
i don't think it's so much a religious thing for them as it's a "they're completely convinced of the superiority of Catholic universities" thing
it's dumb, but that's what happens when an entire family of 11 people all went to Catholic schools
[...] on Friday, I suppose it’s high time I took a moment to take a gander at the Buckeyes. Inasmuch as they’re looking forward to facing us, we’d better get ready to tangle with [...]