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Baseball: Hartford @ Oregon State

By
angry
-
118

Tonight's game was rained out. Monday's game was moved to Sunday as part of a second double header. Here is the updated start times for the weekend:

Date Opponent Location Time (PT)
03/04 Hartford (Rained out) Corvallis, Ore. ————–
03/05 Hartford (Double Header) Corvallis, Ore. 12:05 p.m.
03/05 Hartford (Double Header) Corvallis, Ore. 1:05 p.m.
03/06 Hartford (Canceled) Corvallis, Ore. ————–

Hartford has yet to play a game this season, but they aren't projected to be good. They're a young team comprised of 11 freshman (offset somewhat by 7 seniors). Their most experienced pitchers are sophomore Anthony Mannuccia and junior Mike Thatcher, who are slated to start games 1 and 2 versus Oregon State.

Expect the Beavers to take all 4 games. Hartford has been battling the elements and playing mostly indoor scrimmages. The Beavers, meanwhile, have competed in 8 meaningful games and have been practicing outdoors for months. That is a big advantage. Hartford also has to deal with the fatigue of cross country travel.

What I am looking for are some easy wins. The Beavs have been grinding games out, but at some point they need to put weak opponents away early. Anything less than a sweep should be considered a disappointment.

Ducks in Hot Water? (Update: 3/3/2011)

By
angry
-
105

UPDATE: http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/football/news?slug=cr-oregon030311

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=6179423

—————————————————————————————————-

Original Post:

Normally I prefer to focus on my Alma mater's problems, but John Canzano's rumors in the Oregonian are too juicy to ignore.

http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregonian/john_canzano/index.ssf/2011/03/canzano_blog_oregon_football_d.html

Could this be the news we've all anticipated?

I don't want to be one of those Beavers who prefers a Ducks loss to a Beaver win. They are deranged people (like Great White Hunter ;) ). But, seriously, this real life drama should be good. I am going to sit back, kick up my feet, and fire up a bag of popcorn…

It's hard to guess who the article is implicating, but from the day Lache Seastrunk signed I wrote that something was awry. The last minute change of heart when Oregon wasn't really on his radar going into the final week? Come on. Then they steal De'Anthony Thomas from USC's backyard at the last minute? If I were a betting man I'd guess it's one of these two (if not both) signings that boils these particular Ducks in hot water.

Okay, that's enough Duck chatter…back to the Beavers. James Rodgers had his second surgery last week. He's well behind schedule and will likely sit out the entire 2011 season. Personally, I don't think he ever suits up again for the Beavers. Now Quizz's dash for the NFL makes even more sense. Speaking of Quizz, he ran a 4.67 and 4.64 at the combine. That's not going to help his stock. But, there's going to be a GM or two who realizes he can block, protect the ball, receive, and cut like Barry Sanders. He'll go in the 4th or 5th round. Stephen Paea set the combine bench pressing record, and many national papers wrote "Oregon DT Stephen Paea…"–we finally  have a player do something well, and the Ducks get publicity for it. Watch them land a 5-star DT because of it. Gotta love the Oregon State marketing machine. Ah, to be a Beav…

11 Pac-10 Officials Fired

By
angry
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9

From the Seattle Times:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/huskies/2014380815_officials03.html

[…]there will be 16 new officials in the conference next year, hired away from the Big 12, Mountain West and WAC to replace those who were dismissed (along with the 11 who weren't invited back, another retired).

[…] Adding 16 officials will give the new Pac-12 a total of 49, or seven seven-man crews, Pereira said. An additional crew was needed with the conference expanding from 10 to 12 teams for 2011, adding Utah and Colorado.

The Big 12 has fantastic officiating–probably the best in the nation–so let's hope the majority of these guys come from that conference. The Mountain West crews are decent, though I'll never forget the phantom PI down in Salt Lake City. WAC officials, generally speaking, are horrible. 

The Pac-10 said they will not name names, but I sent an email asking anyway. It can't hurt. Maybe Kirk has one too many and accidentally hits "reply + send". We'll see what happens with that. Rumor is Jay Stricherz was let go, but the source is a triple-chinned-oaf-who-posts-in-his-underwear-from-his-mother's-basement-on-a-third-tier football-forum. Plus Jay has that whole Keith Richards thing going on where he just never seems to go away.

Baseball: Uconn, Texas A&M (CC), Indiana, Texas (SA)

By
angry
-
223

Here is the schedule for the weekend. The Connecticut game has been moved back a half hour and now has a 12:30pm start time.

Date Opponent Location Time (PT)
02/25 Connecticut Corpus Christi, Texas 12:30 p.m.
02/26 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi Corpus Christi, Texas 4:00 p.m.
02/27 Indiana Corpus Christi, Texas 9:00 a.m.
02/28 UT-San Antonio San Antonio, Texas 10:00 a.m.

And here are the pitching matchups:

Date Opponent OSU Opponent
02/25 Connecticut RHP Sam Gaviglio (0-0, 0.00) LHP Elliott Glynn (0-1, 5.79)
02/26 Texas A&M-Corpus Christi LHP Ben Wetzler (0-0, 0.00) RHP Brett Carnline (0-0, 4.15)
02/27 Indiana LHP Cam Booser (0-1, 3.86) LHP Joey DeNato (0-1, 5.40)
02/28 UT-San Antonio LHP Josh Osich (0-0, 10.80) TBA

As you can see, the Beavers should have the pitching advantage.

Connecticut, despite opening their season 1-2, is ranked #14 by Baseball America. None of the other three teams are ranked, and all are projected to be poor to average teams, so expectations should be for the Beavers to take 3 games this weekend. 2-2 would be an acceptable yet minor disappointment. These games will be played over 4 days, unlike last weekend, so lineups and rest should not play a factor as they did last Saturday night.

Obviously the bats need to come to life. That almost goes without saying. But also keep an eye on base running. The Beavers were 0-3 on stolen base attempts last weekend. Garrett Nash was picked off, and several runners (e.g. Jordan Poyer) made bad judgment calls. Casey made some questionable calls (stealing with Carter Bell, a bunt with 1 out, etc), and the third base coach had two of his runners thrown out at home. Both were problems last year that need to cease starting today. Keep an eye on these things. My opinion is the coaches made those calls out of frustration and desperation to engineer runs. It's still bad coaching, though.

The pattern last year was that when the pitching did well the hitting lacked and visa versa. The team could not string together a series of good hitting, pitching, and defense. It's early, but the results so far have shown that same, unsettling pattern. I can see a game where we finally score 8 runs but give up 9. Then again, this year's team has better chemistry (and it appears to have better pitching, especially in the pen), so maybe they only give up 7 in those types of games and steal some victories.

Anyway, here's to a 3-1 weekend with no disappointment.

Basketball: California @ Oregon State

By
angry
-
40

When researching this game, I came across some interesting notes.

  • Jared Cunningham now has the all-time single season record for steals (74) by a sophomore, besting Gary Payton's record of 72. With three games left to play, and then the conference tournament, he could theoretically challenge Payton's school record.
  • Devon Collier has 19 blocked shots as a freshman. He should top Gary Payton's freshman record of 20 in this afternoon's game.

When a team has both a freshman and sophomore in the same sentence with Gary Payton, it's hard to make an argument that a lack of talent is causing the Beav's woes. Stats like this will put more pressure on Craig Robinson if he continues to lose games. Add the fact that OSU actually looked like a DI team when in the man to man, and it is becoming obvious the problem is coaching philosophy rather than talent. Many fans have thought this, but the sample is now large enough where we have numbers backing it up.

I'm only willing to forgive such err if the coach learns from mistakes. Said another way, we better see a heck of a lot more man defense today. The players have lobbied for it; fans recognized zone as an albatross months ago; and, even the media has arrived, albeit unfashionably late, to the anti-zone party. Look, there is no denying zone worked well last year, but that's because Seth Tarver was a disruptive, defensive talent. Omari Johnson is not half the player. Craig Robinson's inability to recognize his roster's strengths and adjust his philosophy to maximize those strengths has become a glaring weakness. His assumption that the team would be in foul trouble (if they played man to man) is just that, while the reality of opponents shooting close to 50% against the zone is also just that.

Could the the guys play a full 40 minutes of man defense and get obliterated? Certainly. This is the Beavers, after all–anything is possible. Playing man doesn't guarantee anything except they won't be playing that horrendous zone, and that's a plus in my book.

Bottom line: what I'd like to see this afternoon is more man defense. In order to salvage what is left of the season, fans need a reason to get excited about the conference tournament and believe the team has a shot at upsets. Playing tough man defense and winning 2 of 3 down the stretch would go a long way toward buoying our spirits and giving cause for optimism come March 9th.

TV: FSN

Radio: KPAM

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