95 COMMENTS

  1. Trevor Morrison is going to be the starting second baseman this year. This is surprising because most thought he would hold his position. And this isn’t really a prediction because d1 baseball has Trevor listed at the #5 second baseman in the country. So they know something. But it also means Madrigal and Grenier have been very impressive to come in and take the starting job. Odd man out is Donahue who could see time in the OF or DH.

    My prediction is they’ll make the trip to Omaha. I think most people will be impressed by Larnach once he’s healthy.

  2. How’s the pitching looking? I am very confident in the defense and the batting, just because we had very little attrition on that front and excellent production with more talent coming in. But losing A-Mo is gonna be hard to replace because he was so damn good last year. Rasmussen and Eckert are two good weekend guys, but we need one more, and I’m not sure who that will be.

    • Who will be the Sunday starter is a question mark but won’t necessarily be a weakness. Martinek and Heimlich will be the Sunday and weekday starters. The 7-9th inning guys should be set with Pomeroy, Englebreckt and Hickey. Britton and Parnow should be the first lefties out of the pen.

      While the staff won’t be as good as last year, it’ll be deeper. Casey will have more trustworthy options in the bullpen.

  3. best time of year to be a Beaver fan. Just imagine: this is how fans of Bama, Michigan, Notre Dame, SC, and regrettably, yes Oregon, feel when the end of August and the start of football season rolls around. The season inevitably has its ups and downs, and heaven knows Mike Parker does calling the games, but with Casey in charge you know the team is going to be competitive, accountable, and fun to watch. My sense is that they get to a Super Regional at a minimum, though Omaha is in reach. How much fun would it be in Nebraska with a winner knowing Mike Riley is only 80 miles away!

    • Yeah, I’m looking for good things from Heimlich. Eckert and Engelbrekt too.

      I do wonder about Pomeroy. He is a Jr now and I hope he is over his control problems. He passed the “eye test” for me in his limited appearances last time around, BWDIK. At 6’5″ he could be a real intimidator, if he doesn’t go the way of Cole Brocker.

  4. I would like to see a guest appearance by Drew Eubanks at one of the games. Maybe throw out the honorary first pitch. Do they even do that in College?

    • Because I trust their “BPI” or whatever the heck else they yanked out their ass trying to stay relevant more than I care about the standard RPI. Yeah. Sure.

      Still need a strong finish either way.

      • BPI and KenPom are good metrics to show how good a team is but the point of at-large berths for the NCAA Tournament come down to who has accomplished the most, not who has played the most efficiently. Committee cares more about what you and your conference has accomplished and thus value RPI more. Teams who have won less vs the top 50 by a wide margin than OSU are considered “In” by ESPN and that’s baffling. I can’t help but think guys like Lunardi are projecting OSU further down than they should be because of their recent history but not their play.

        For example, he has Florida State in the field. They have TWO wins against the RPI top 50 and 7 losses. OSU is 6-5 against the RPI top and neither team has lost to a team outside the top 100. OSU has won more games vs the top 100 overall. FSU has the 60th SOS and OSU has the 9th. Yet FSU is in and Lunardi doesn’t even have Oregon State in the last four out. The committee has curious decisions at times but I have a feeling they’ll use a little more common sense than Lunardi and his ESPN peers right now. A win vs Oregon will put this team in nice position for the final 2 weekends regardless though.

        • I certainly hope you’re right GoBeavs90. Lunardi missed on two teams last year, UCLA & Indiana. 66 out of 68 is pretty solid but then again, you really only have to pick the last 10-12 teams in the field.

    • The talk of just how good the PAC12 is sometimes leaves out the conference’s substantial winning record (something like 110-35) versus other conferences.
      Scotty is right, “Still need a strong finish either way.”

      • Outside of the west coast, the PAC does not get much cred. It’s AZ, UCLA, and to a lesser extent, Oregon for the rest of the country. I have a suspicion the conference will be underrepresented in the Dance relative to expectations.

        • Agreed. A lot of it is the time zone difference; really important for west coast teams to do well when they play in the east. Many opine that Utah’s post season fate is enhanced by their win over Duke in large part because it was played in NYC.
          Beavs loss vs Kansas comes to mind.

        • The problem we face is that all the expectations are being set by everyone outside the West Coast. We on the West Coast, of course, will parrot it as much as we can so as to try to make it true.

          History has proven that Conference A with all the same numbers puts all its .500 teams in the dance. And its .444 teams get looks depending on how they finish. We really do have a lot of good teams and a ton of talent this year. And it sure doesn’t hurt the conference when you watch the NBA AS weekend and see a bunch of Pac players winning stuff.

          I think it has to do with the Warriors being so good. A lot of people on the East Coast are staying up later to watch their games. There are enough people doing so that some are sincerely complaining that the NBA should do something about the scheduling so people on the East Coast can watch them.

          So… yeah… no East Coast bias….

          But all those people who do that are hoops junkies. They get bored with commercials, and they have DVRs. They will flip and find college games so they don’t have to listen to the squirrel chirps that emanate from their TVs while there is no action on the court. And they’ve discovered teams and conferences they thought existed only in myth.

          At least, I hope that’s what’s happening.

    • The thing that I take is that this CW on Saturday is a HUGE game. A road win there would go a long, long way in getting us in. Still need to sweep washington schools at home, and a win in LA would lock it down. If we don’t win another one on the road, we still have a road, its much harder, but we would need a deep conference tourney run.

      • Another factor is looking at all the other bubble teams. Who’s moving up and down? South Carolina took a pretty bad loss the other night to Mizzou( 189 RPI)

      • ESPN completely contradicting themselves after Duke beat UNC at Chapel Hill tonight. On the postgame one of the analysts says and I quote “If winning on the road in conference play were easy, everyone would do it”.

        Interesting. Translation: Winning on the road is only difficult in the SEC, ACC, B1G and Big-12.

  5. Based on the travel report, here’s my guess at the starting lineup,

    1. Madrigal – SS
    2. Morrison – 2B
    3. Grenier – 3B
    4. Harrison – 1B
    5. Nobach – LF
    6. Ice – C
    7. Donahue – DH
    8. Kwan – CF
    9. Gillette – RF

    I could see Harrison and Grenier flipping spots. The OF other than Nobach is a huge guess. Gillette had the most at bats of the guys who played last year so I put him in. Maybe Hamilton figures somewhere in the OF too.

    • Starting rotation is the biggest concern for me. Rasmussen is very good and he’s been reportedly rushing it up there near 100 on the gun. He’ll be the team’s best pitcher.
      The depth is the concern behind him though. Interested to see Jake Thompson. He had some good moments as a freshman, what he did last year can be thrown out cause he was never close to being healthy. He looked bad early on but so much of that was that he had no velocity with his injuries. I feel like Jake is better suited as a #3 instead of a #2. Eckert has very meh stuff. Makes more sense as a long reliever and I think Heimlich might be better as a setup guy who gets lefties. Felt like righties hit him pretty decently. Don’t really have a #2 guy in the rotation and that’s a concern. Hopefully some guys step up and lock down spots behind Rasmussen.

      The outfield is interesting with no Cary for a bit with his tommy john surgery. Nobach should be a lock for LF, but until Cary is back, it should be interesting how Casey handles the other 2 spots. One thing I wonder if we might see is Trever Morrison playing in the OF. He’s a great athlete and he could handle all 3 spots imo. He has a good arm and could transition to the OF. Donahue is the classic 2B and I expect him to play there. Grenier and Madrigal will handle 3B and SS and DH should be Gillette. He never really impressed me as an OF, makes more sense to have him DH.

      I think this offense eill be really good. Beavers, even when they were great with Conforto and co, didn’t quite have the versatility this lineup will have. More depth top to bottom and not as reliant on guys like Harrison to drive guys in will make this team very dangerous. If they get some guys to step up in the rotation, they’re a team who can make it to Omaha.

  6. My best lineup. Probably not very good.
    1.Madrigal-SS
    2. Greiner- 2B or 3B
    3. Harrison- 1B
    4.Nobach-LF
    5.Morrison-2B or 3B
    6.Ice-C
    7.Hamilton-DH
    8.King-RF
    9.Kwan-CF
    Thoughts?

    • My head hurts after reading that. So……he told his white players not to be afraid of black players? I dont….was it because he said they won’t bite? I’m not seeing anything racist. Someone help me here. I’m thinking there is a lot of missing information in the article.

      • Just as confused here as well. Consider…………

        Lincoln’s star basketball player, Jonah Pemberton, a basketball scholarship hopeful African-American player, came to his coach’s defense through an interview with the Willamette Week published on Tuesday.

        Pemberton was one of Adelman’s props during the locker room episode. Pemberton, a junior point guard, downplayed Adelman’s entrance into the locker room, telling the Willamette Week “it wasn’t weird in any way,” and that no player was forced to touch him and another African-American player.

        They way I understood the article, Adelman accused his white players of being racist. He wasn’t berating his team because they were losing to an opponent of all black players. And the parents of his players got all butt hurt at him? Diversity training? What’s the saying? There’s 3 sides to every story………..

    • Wow. We’ve really become soft. That is unreal.

      There was a kid on my JC basketball team who was so intimidated by black basketball players, it was ridiculous. He could have used this type of coaching…

    • His actions do speak to what you consistently label as white guilt. And he was probably correct in substance but wrong in delivery.

      I think the delivery is borne of some substance, and that’s the real reason he’s being leveraged out. Friends in Springfield always hinted that his cologne smelled of napkin, if you know what I mean.

        • There is that. Gophers are finishing a home and home with them this year in Minneapolis. FWIW, friends who went there last year had a nice time. They are building a new stadium which is supposed to open in 2017. Oldest bro went there for a couple years. Goph’s had to come from behind to beat them in Ft. Collins last year, the same day we got spanked by Michigan. It will be their coaches second year, so in the same boat as da Beav’s. Coach is the ex OC at UGA

        • Well said.

          But I think the SEC are feeble precisely because they don’t schedule semi-tough OOC games, so I’m not sure it’s fair for me to get on OSU for doing so. If we’re being honest and looking at it cunningly, it’s really not in OSU’s best interest to schedule anything but cupcakes at this point.

  7. Gina’s “exit interview” with TJ Woods. Woods outlines how the play calling is going to work as Co-offensive coordinator with Kevin McGiven………….

    Obviously, I’ll be focusing on the run game and he’ll be focusing on the pass game, which is both of our specialties at the end of the day. Then, we’ll collaborate and put the whole package together, and then he’ll go out there and call it on game day, because it’s very hard to have two guys in that setting. You don’t want to have a two-headed dragon, if you will. But at the same time, I’ll still be highly involved in the in-game adjustments and the tweaks to the schemes that we’re running to get us in the best possible situation to be effective on offense.

    http://www.oregonlive.com/beavers/index.ssf/2016/02/tj_woods_oregon_state_co-offen.html

    • Gina: “How do you evaluate your offensive linemen returning this season? You lose Josh Mitchell and Isaac Seumalo but still have a lot of experience coming back.

      I feel good. I think that the biggest difference for us is we’re experienced, and while we had guys that were experienced last year, a lot of those guys weren’t experienced at playing well in Division I football.”

      A remark aimed at the previous coaching staff, or a reference to player inexperience? Both?

      More on player strength:

      Gina: “What do you most want your players to accomplish between now and the start of spring practice?

      I want them to equip themselves with enough tools to be a dominant, Division I Pac-12 football player. And when I say that, that means, first and foremost, getting stronger. That’s been well-documented since we’ve been here, but this is the time.”

    • I wish she’d stop calling these exit interviews. It freaks me out every time wondering why someone quit. Just call them debriefings or something correct.

  8. with less than 3 weeks left in the conference regular season……………

    The Pac-12 has 3 teams undefeated at home (Oregon, USC and Cal),
    and 3 teams that have only lost once at home (Arizona, Utah and Colorado)

    All 12 teams have a winning record on their home floor

    That last statistic is kind of skewed as it includes non conference games but it’s still pretty impressive and shows just how hard it is to win on the road in conference or out of conference.

    Beavs sit at 36th in RPI after today’s games

    http://warrennolan.com/basketball/2016/rpi-live

      • There should be plenty of plastic surgeon’s down there in beautiful SoCal = tons of human fat for harvesting. Try hiring someone to pull off the heists instead of doing it yourself Mr. Durden. It’ll free up extra time. Proper delegation is the key to life balance/time management.

  9. Interesting article

    5. The Pac-12 is going to get some teams into the tournament this season that don’t seem to belong.

    That’s because the RPI, the metric the NCAA relies on to help sort through the dozens of NCAA tournament resumes at the beginning of the selection process, seems to skew toward the West Coast this season. I’m not going to even attempt to explain what goes on inside the black box that is the RPI Machine — if you want an explanation, click here — but I will share with you what seems like some anomalous Pac-12 teams’ RPIs. Oregon ranks fourth in RPI this season; you think Oregon has the nation’s fourth-best NCAA tournament resume or is the nation’s fourth-best team? (I think the Ducks are good, and coach Dana Altman is great, but no, I don’t think they are close to having the nation’s fourth-best resume.) An inconsistent Utah team ranks 16th. Cal, a team that has won all its home games but only has one victory on the road or at a neutral site, is 23rd. This is a conference with a glut of pretty good teams in it — six in the RPI top 25 — but, in my opinion, nothing close to a great team. Call me on my Midwest bias if you want (is there such a thing?), but remember that I picked Arizona to win it all last season.

    10. Want to crack the RPI-centered code? Schedule tough.

    The selection committee loves to see teams test themselves. That’s why things like the ACC-Big Ten Challenge or the Big 12-SEC Challenge are huge positives in the eyes of the committee. These are big games that bring attention to the sport and that tell us something about a team’s ability to win in March. And the NCAA tournament selection committee will never punish a team for losing a difficult nonconference game; in fact, a good nonconference strength of schedule, win or lose, is one of the many metrics that can help a team get into the tournament.

    http://www.foxsports.com/college-basketball/story/ncaa-tournament-committee-selection-sunday-process-bubble-teams-021616

    • Maybe it’s my imagination, but the media is knocking RPI super hard now that the Pac-12 is donating it. If it were the ACC or SEC, we’d be hearing yet again about how tough those teams are and the “gauntlet” they run.

      • Correct you are. The Pac scheduled tough OOC this season. If it were any other P5 conference they’d be putting out their chests with how tough they are. That ESPN article lauded the Pac for going 3-14 against top 25 RPI teams OOC. The fox sports article I linked said the selection committee doesn’t penalize for losing tough ooc games but looks favorably at that. Also the Pac is lauded for teams not winning road games in conference. Yet here was ESPN again after Duke won at chapel hill the other night saying if winning on the road is easy in conference play everyone would do it. That said I think the Pac will get screwed again on selection Sunday. I say 6 teams get in. If any team from a P5 conference not named the Pac-12 had Oregon’s record, sos and rpi, they’d be talking about a number 1 seed.

  10. Cal finally wins a road game in Seattle, Stanford destroys Wazzu and Utah holds off UCLA at Pauley tonight. With Stanford’s win they are now tied with the Beavs for 8th. UW’s loss puts them only 1/2 game ahead of Beavs and Tree for 7th. Realistically, 6 teams are fighting for the top 4 spots to stay out of the conf tourney opening round games. UO, Arizona, Utah, USC, Cal and Colorado. Beavs will probably finish somewhere between 7-10. I’d prefer to see an opening round match up with Stanford.

    • Watched that game last night, and a little of the Utah – ucla game. The games in conference seem very similar. One team will have a stretch where they play and look great doing it, but then the other team responds. Most of the teams in the Pac12 all suffer from the inability to close games out. Whether its missed FT or turnovers or poor rebounding. I think because of the conferences parity is why you see this happen, they all have the same MO’s young talent and Seniors who still struggling with their development. I also believe that new coaching staffs have an effective, as the new programs haven’t quite learned all the teams tendencies. The coaches are learning the league just as much as the players. UW and Cal are both athletic but also have glaring weaknesses. It will be interesting to see how it finishes out in three weeks.

      The CW game is a big opportunity for the Beavs. We will need to show improvement to win this game, but a win would go a long ways to giving the team confidence in finishing out strong.

  11. OT: Why college sports is still great. It still means something to the guys putting it on the line.
    Goph’s upset #6 Maryland to end a Jay John-ish O for the B1G season.
    Joey King Cried Tears of Joy After Minnesota Upset Maryland for …
    The Big Lead › 2016/02/18 › joey-king-…
    11 hours ago – The Golden Gophers finally got in the win column by knocking off the No. 6 Terrapins, 68-63. Senior forward Joey King scored 15 points off the bench and gave an emotional post-game …

    • Thanks for the link.
      Having Ice, with his experience, in there with Drew should be a big positive. Yeskie mentioned the other day that even the umps respect and compliment Ice on his handling of the game. It will be interesting to see how often Casey moves KJ behind the plate this season.

      NOON START TODAY: links to audio and stats on the OSU Athletics site. AM620 in PDX.

  12. Starting lineup –

    1. Donahue – DH
    2. Madrigal – 2B
    3. Morrison – SS
    4. Harrison – 1B
    5. Ice – C
    6. Nobach – LF
    7. Anderson – RF
    8. Grenier – 3B
    9. Kwan – CF

    Surprised Grenier is so low in the lineup and Morrison is in the 3 hole. Guessing Anderson gets the nod as a lefty bat.

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