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Post by aleutianhoya on Apr 27, 2015 8:35:55 GMT -5
Nice blurb on the front page about the baseball team's pursuit of a .500 record this year, which would be its first positive finish since 1986. DFW doesn't mention that the team is also in position to potentially end another incredible drought -- the Hoyas have failed to so much as qualify for the Big East postseason tournament since that same year. You'd think the two would go hand in hand, but the relative strength of the league versus the strength of the nonconference schedule can vary. And the league has shifted membership (and members that sponsor the sport) often, so the number of schools competing and the number of teams included in the postseason has shifted repeatedly. The only constant has been that the Hoyas haven't qualified for the postseason.
The recent conference reconfiguration really killed the Big East. It hasn't been a particularly strong conference since the early 1980s, but now it's downright bad, ranked 17th among conferences this year. N.D. and Louisville were consistently excellent programs. And Cincy, UConn, and at times W.Va. were very good. Creighton is a pretty good program, but the overall strength of the new league is terrible.
So....all the better for the Hoyas' chances! They're tied for third (and fourth) with Seton Hall currently and the top four qualify. They still have half their conference schedule remaining, however, and two of the three series are against schools also currently among the top four. So...anything can still happen. And if you qualify for a four team double-elimination tournament, anything can happen there too....
Here's hoping they get both monkeys off their back this year.
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Post by Problem of Dog on Apr 27, 2015 13:06:59 GMT -5
The new Big East is atrocious and this team isn't any better than year's past really.
Wilk will be the coach until he decides not to be, which is a shame.
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Post by reformation on Apr 28, 2015 9:34:23 GMT -5
Is baseball still a scholarship sport. If so does anyone know how many they get.
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Post by aleutianhoya on Apr 28, 2015 9:47:59 GMT -5
Is baseball still a scholarship sport. If so does anyone know how many they get. "Still" is a loaded term. The NCAA permits 11.7 scholarships to be split among all players on the roster for Division I baseball teams. For at least the past 20-25 years, Georgetown has been nowhere near that maximum. For at least as far back as the 90s (and I think well into the 80s), the program gave out essentially one true scholarship (with other money used to buy out a handful of other player's need-based aid). In more recent years, the support has increased. I know there were five scholarships as of five or so years ago, and the plan had been to move to eight, but I don't know if that ever happened (and if it did, when it did). In any event, Georgetown is nowhere near the maximum level of support. I'm sure the same is true of some of the other Big East schools with whom we presently compete, but a lot of the programs in the "old" BE provided maximum support, so that obviously created an enormous competitive disadvantage. Competing with essentially no scholarships (as we did for many years) would be like Columbia playing in the Big East basketball league. More recently, competing with five (or even eight) scholarships would still be hard against teams with 11. It'd be doable given our academic advantages, but there'd still be very little room for recruiting error, and injuries to scholarship players would be crippling. I don't know enough about all of the details to have an opinion on Coach Wilk's performance, but for sure, any assessment would need to at least take into account the amount of scholarship and other budgetary support. |
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Post by Problem of Dog on Apr 28, 2015 13:19:56 GMT -5
Look at the man's record. When you play Coppin State and Maryland-Eastern Shore as your mid week games and play exclusively northern schools in conference play and you can't manage ONE winning season, that's pretty pathetic.
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Post by The Man on Apr 28, 2015 13:37:37 GMT -5
Baseball does have some scholarship money about the equivalent of 2.5 full. They try to spread it around. Its easy to criticize a team that isn't winning but I think its important to look at the # of schollys of the teams they compete against. In the old big east they had the lowest # of scholarships. It would stand to reason that teams with the full compliment of scholarships would beat the teams that don't. Its more of an issue with injuries - lose a couple of players on a fully funded team and you still have decent backups. Lose a few of your best players at Georgetown and you are stuck with kids that aren't nearly as talented as the competition. One only needs to look at the Georgetown Soccer programs to see how a team can go from also ran to top of the nation if they have the funding. The job is a lot tougher for a Wilk or a Conlan (softball) when they have the lowest budgets which is still the case in the new big east. It is a great year so far for Baseball and nothing to laugh at. They beat UVA - last years runner up. They are beating teams that are better funded. That in and of itself is hard to do. So good for Baseball - I don't care who they play. The kids try hard, they play hard and they are finally winning. No need to belittle the hard work. A good coach will schedule teams that they can beat and teams they can't. We had other teams (field hockey) schedule teams that were the best in the country and we got our butts kicked and everyone quit. A Coppin State and a UMES are decent teams and we can beat them. So great for us.
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Post by Problem of Dog on Apr 28, 2015 21:49:44 GMT -5
Baseball does have some scholarship money about the equivalent of 2.5 full. They try to spread it around. Its easy to criticize a team that isn't winning but I think its important to look at the # of schollys of the teams they compete against. In the old big east they had the lowest # of scholarships. It would stand to reason that teams with the full compliment of scholarships would beat the teams that don't. Its more of an issue with injuries - lose a couple of players on a fully funded team and you still have decent backups. Lose a few of your best players at Georgetown and you are stuck with kids that aren't nearly as talented as the competition. One only needs to look at the Georgetown Soccer programs to see how a team can go from also ran to top of the nation if they have the funding. The job is a lot tougher for a Wilk or a Conlan (softball) when they have the lowest budgets which is still the case in the new big east. It is a great year so far for Baseball and nothing to laugh at. They beat UVA - last years runner up. They are beating teams that are better funded. That in and of itself is hard to do. So good for Baseball - I don't care who they play. The kids try hard, they play hard and they are finally winning. No need to belittle the hard work. A good coach will schedule teams that they can beat and teams they can't. We had other teams (field hockey) schedule teams that were the best in the country and we got our butts kicked and everyone quit. A Coppin State and a UMES are decent teams and we can beat them. So great for us. Coppin State may be the worst team in the country. |
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Post by The Man on Apr 28, 2015 23:16:41 GMT -5
Baseball does have some scholarship money about the equivalent of 2.5 full. They try to spread it around. Its easy to criticize a team that isn't winning but I think its important to look at the # of schollys of the teams they compete against. In the old big east they had the lowest # of scholarships. It would stand to reason that teams with the full compliment of scholarships would beat the teams that don't. Its more of an issue with injuries - lose a couple of players on a fully funded team and you still have decent backups. Lose a few of your best players at Georgetown and you are stuck with kids that aren't nearly as talented as the competition. One only needs to look at the Georgetown Soccer programs to see how a team can go from also ran to top of the nation if they have the funding. The job is a lot tougher for a Wilk or a Conlan (softball) when they have the lowest budgets which is still the case in the new big east. It is a great year so far for Baseball and nothing to laugh at. They beat UVA - last years runner up. They are beating teams that are better funded. That in and of itself is hard to do. So good for Baseball - I don't care who they play. The kids try hard, they play hard and they are finally winning. No need to belittle the hard work. A good coach will schedule teams that they can beat and teams they can't. We had other teams (field hockey) schedule teams that were the best in the country and we got our butts kicked and everyone quit. A Coppin State and a UMES are decent teams and we can beat them. So great for us. Coppin State may be the worst team in the country. They are last in RPI. But they beat UMES! A win is a win is a win. |
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Post by Problem of Dog on Apr 29, 2015 22:01:06 GMT -5
Coppin State may be the worst team in the country. They are last in RPI. But they beat UMES! A win is a win is a win. Yes, but if you call the last place RPI team "decent," then what does that make everyone else? Is no one bad? Does everyone get a trophy? |
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Post by aleutianhoya on Apr 30, 2015 7:28:36 GMT -5
They are last in RPI. But they beat UMES! A win is a win is a win. Yes, but if you call the last place RPI team "decent," then what does that make everyone else? Is no one bad? Does everyone get a trophy? I won't call them decent -- they're bad. Fair enough. No argument from me. But if you look at the schedule, all we're really doing is playing mid-week (and early season) games against virtually every local team. We've got: GW, UMBC, Navy, UVa, UMES, George Mason, and Coppin State. Not exactly the Baltimore Orioles. But aside from Maryland (and they're good this year), it's basically every team in the immediate area. We played a game with Virginia (and won!), although they're not their usual elite selves. We're not going to schedule non-local teams in mid-week games -- the travel costs are prohibitive, and the travel itself is problematic. Sure, you could replace some of those teams with some area Colonial/A-10 schools (JMU, etc.) that are a step up, but I don't have any problem with a program (in this case, our baseball program) scheduling out-of-conference games against local teams it can beat, given its near biblical lack of success. I also don't necessarily disagree that this year's team isn't demonstrably better than the team the Hoyas have had the past handful of years. One huge difference is that the league stinks. So, those in-conference games aren't any tougher than the midweek games. Nowhere did I (or anyone) argue that the baseball program was doing "great," but reaching .500 for the first time in two generations is a positive. Once you can consistently do that (if you can build on this), then you can look to challenge yourself a bit more. Again, I'm not defending the Coach -- perhaps someone else would have been able to consistently do that over the past decade with the schedule we've had -- but it's not obvious that this is true. |
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Post by aleutianhoya on May 15, 2015 8:05:14 GMT -5
The Hoyas' fate will be sealed today and tomorrow. With two games remaining on their season, they are one game under .500 and in a three-way tie for the fourth and final playoff spot with Butler and Villanova, seeking their first conference play-off bid in more than a generation.
The Hoyas play a doubleheader today against third-place Seton Hall. Win both and they're in. Win one (or none) and they'll need a loss or two from both Butler and Nova. To that end, they do hold the tiebreaker over both of the teams they're currently tied with, so they'd simply need to match results.
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Post by aleutianhoya on May 15, 2015 15:07:13 GMT -5
And the Hoyas give up four in the bottom of the ninth to lose to Seton Hall 6-5 in the first game of a double-header. They'll now need to win the second game and get some help from Xavier beating to Butler to have any chance to make the Big East Tournament.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on May 15, 2015 15:10:41 GMT -5
And the Hoyas give up four in the bottom of the ninth to lose to Seton Hall 6-5 in the first game of a double-header. They'll now need to win the second game and get some help from Xavier beating to Butler to have any chance to make the Big East Tournament. Another tough loss. Lost in the bottom of the ninth with two outs. |
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Post by aleutianhoya on May 15, 2015 21:29:31 GMT -5
The Hoyas needed to win and get some help....and they got it! Defeated Seton Hall 5-2 and then had Xavier beat Butler and Creighton beat Villanova. They finish tied for fourth and win the tiebreaker.
First Big East Tournament appearance in thirty years. They remain a game under .500, DFW, but there are still games to play....
Its a four-team double elimination format except that the championship is a one game winner take all game. So really anything can happen.
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DFW HOYA
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Post by DFW HOYA on May 21, 2015 18:31:35 GMT -5
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