2017 ACC Baseball

FredJacket

FredJacket

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Weekend #1 behind us. Pretty much saw "chalk" on the scoreboard. Lou and Clem both out of gates undefeated having played at home against inferior opponents. Road teams only won a total of 5 games (out of 21 games) all weekend (GT, NCST, UVA, BC, VT with one road win each).

From the "Too Early to Even Mention" Department... ACC tourney would have PITT and ND failing to make the field as of today.
 
FredJacket

FredJacket

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Weekend #2 upcoming:
UNC @ Ga Tech: Big series for both teams. UNC's 1st ACC road trip. Ga Tech needs to assert itself with more wins than losses in their 'tough' home ACC schedule. (I'm sure we'll get into more details with this series when someone initiates a dedicated UNC thred)
BC @ Louisville: Expect Louisville to continue rolling. Rank #1 now nationally in several polls.
UVA @ Clemson: UVA with another tough road trip in conference. Probably the "series of the weekend" as far as matchups go.
FSU @ VT: Significant advantage to FSU.
MIA @ NCST: Could be interesting. Last time these teams met, Miami did some of that HR bat-flipping that NCST did not appreciate. Both teams have under-performed so far this season.
ND @ Pitt: Winner of Friday's game will record their 1st conference win. Loser will still be winless.
WF @ Duke: Advantage WF.

Coastal teams have their work cut out for them. Still quite early, but probably an opportunity for Ga Tech (with some wins) to move toward top of the Coastal. Only UNC @ GT features a divisional series. The rest of the schedule is cross-divisional.
 
FredJacket

FredJacket

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ACC Action - Weekend #3

Ga Tech @ WF: Broken record....but huge series. Ga Tech needs to make up ground already sitting at 2-4. On paper, these two teams are similar (Offensive numbers at top of conference; but pitching staffs below average in the ACC).

CLEM @ BC: Geez, BC starts season @LOU, @FSU, then Clemson. BC not even playing on their home field for this "home" series. I'm fine with BC sucking at baseball... seems natural, really.

FSU @ ND: Advantage FSU (although they lost series to VT last weekend including a stunning 17-0 loss on Sunday...anomaly?)

LOU @ NCST: Road test for Louisville who lost their 1st game this week to Cincinnati. Go Pack!

Duke @ UVA: Coastal matchup #1. My Wahoo daughter has invited me to join her for Saturday's game. Can't wait!

Miami @ UNC: Coastal matchup #2. Who knows what will happen here? I could see UNC sweeping them with that pitching staff... as a GT fan with a severe case of "pitching envy", I will likely say this about UNC every weekend. :sneaky:

VT @ PITT: Coastal matchup #3. Snoozer.

I suppose I want all 3 of those coastal series to be 2-1 (no sweeps) affairs. Too early to scoreboard watch all that much.
 
FredJacket

FredJacket

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Here are the conference RPI rankings as of today (3/28):
1) Big12
2) SEC
3) PAC12
4) ACC
5) American Athletic

Not sure what any of that really means, ultimately. My sense is the ACC is not quite meeting expectations top to bottom (see Miami & UVA). Non-conference record is 140-67 (.676)... it was over .750 last year.

At this point I'd put ACC baseball teams in these buckets:
Elite (likely to host a regional post-season): Louisville, Clemson, UNC, FSU
Quality (can win quite a few; but lay eggs too... in serious contention to host regional): UVA, NCST, Wake
Needs Improvement (too many flaws to consistently win): Miami, Ga Tech, Duke
No Respect (this is me... but I just can't give these teams credit...very hard to take losing to these guys): Va Tech, Pitt, ND, BC
 
FredJacket

FredJacket

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Entering Sunday (4/2) play...

Only 5 of 14 teams over .500. The cream has already risen to top, I think. 3 best teams in ACC: LOU (9-2), CLEM (9-2) & UNC (8-3).

The Coastal:
One team above .500 - UNC
5 teams at 5-6 (no Atlantic team is 5-6) - just interesting/odd
One team 4-7... Ga Tech. At last in Coastal... yet one game out of 2nd. Just gotta find ways to win. Plenty of time to make ground in conference.

The Atlantic:
4 teams over .500 - LOU, CLEM, FSU, WF. Thank you, Boston College (1-10). FSU, LOU, & CLEM have all played BC.
 

Lagrangejacket

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FredJacket said:
The Coastal is now the Land of Not Quite Right:
UNC 9-3
PITT 6-6
VT 6-6
UVA 5-7
Duke 5-7
Miami 5-7
GT 4-8

Pitt & Va Tech 2nd & 3rd... does not compute. & VT was swept by Pitt last weekend.
Click to expand...

If conference play ended today, we'd get the #12 seed, thanks to a tiebreaker over Notre Dame. 12/14 teams make the tournament.
 

MWBATL

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Lagrangejacket said:
If conference play ended today, we'd get the #12 seed, thanks to a tiebreaker over Notre Dame. 12/14 teams make the tournament.
Click to expand...

Goodness, I thought only 8 made it in. We might be able to hang on to 14th place in the league. We'll be battling Pitt and Norte Dame the whole way. I think BC has a lock on 14th.
 
FredJacket

FredJacket

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MWBATL said:
Goodness, I thought only 8 made it in. We might be able to hang on to 14th place in the league. We'll be battling Pitt and Norte Dame the whole way. I think BC has a lock on 14th.
Click to expand...
The tournament field was 8 teams through the 2013 tournament. For the next 3 tournaments (2014-2016), the field was 10 teams with the bottom 4 teams (seeds 7-10) playing a "play in" round. Of note... Georgia Tech will forever be the ONLY team to ever win the tournament out of the play-in round (2014).

This season is a "new and improved" format with 12 teams making the field. There is no play-in round. All 12 teams will play 2 games each in pool play with 4 teams moving out of pool play into a semi-final round on the Saturday of tournament week. Winners on Saturday play in Championship on Sunday.
 
FredJacket

FredJacket

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Must say... I was surprised to see how HIGH we landed in the RPI rankings after last night's road win over Auburn. We're up to 27th... highest ranking of the season. Here is how the ACC sits as of today. Based on this.. our conference schedule really softens for the back half of the season. However and unless we shore up the pitching situation (in general)... we won't be able to fully take advantage of that.
#3 UNC
#4 Clemson
#8 Louisville
#13 UVA
#15 Wake Forest
#27 Ga Tech
#44 FSU
#65 NCST
#68 Miami
#71 Pitt
#122 Va Tech
#123 Duke
#131 BC
#133 Notre Dame

I think it was @GTNavyNuke who pointed out last night we're basically halfway through the season and the prospects (based on performance) of Ga Tech making the post-season (NCAA bid) are not promising. There seems to be very little evidence to support this.... BUT this is my team and I will keep simply hoping there will be a turn by enough guys who have under-performed to this point for a better 2nd half of the season. It's been frustrating for sure.

A look at our schedule... I noticed we have not lost 3 in a row all season. And the last time we won 2 in a row was the 1st two games v Belmont...over a month ago. Need that to end right now.
 
THWG

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FredJacket said:
Must say... I was surprised to see how HIGH we landed in the RPI rankings after last night's road win over Auburn. We're up to 27th... highest ranking of the season. Here is how the ACC sits as of today. Based on this.. our conference schedule really softens for the back half of the season. However and unless we shore up the pitching situation (in general)... we won't be able to fully take advantage of that.
#3 UNC
#4 Clemson
#8 Louisville
#13 UVA
#15 Wake Forest
#27 Ga Tech
#44 FSU
#65 NCST
#68 Miami
#71 Pitt
#122 Va Tech
#123 Duke
#131 BC
#133 Notre Dame

I think it was @GTNavyNuke who pointed out last night we're basically halfway through the season and the prospects (based on performance) of Ga Tech making the post-season (NCAA bid) are not promising. There seems to be very little evidence to support this.... BUT this is my team and I will keep simply hoping there will be a turn by enough guys who have under-performed to this point for a better 2nd half of the season. It's been frustrating for sure.

A look at our schedule... I noticed we have not lost 3 in a row all season. And the last time we won 2 in a row was the 1st two games v Belmont...over a month ago. Need that to end right now.
Click to expand...
The schedule really does "ease up" after Louisville though which is promising and I think the only ranked team that we play after them is Virginia. Both of those series are at home too which should give us a slight advantage (though it hasn't yet).
 

MWBATL

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Miami isn't high on that list and they spanked us 2 out of 3. While I will always root for GT, my expectation remains very low because of our pitching and as I write, I still expect to lose 2 of 3 to ND this coming weekend. (It would be nice to be proved wrong.)
 
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