clt is biased, but we seem to be ranked way too low here
Agreed, the more teams i see above us, the more i think we are under rated. Campbell, Duke, ODU…
We lost a lot of our talent to the pros. A lot.
I agree we should be higher, but these rankings are not for 1 year, they are based on the program’s performance over the last 5 to 10 years and what they look like moving forward.
Many of the teams in front of us have multiple Regionals and Super Regional appearances in that time frame. We are just getting started.
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Some familiar names in 11-30. Looking forward to DBU joining CUSA this year.
14 North Carolina
16 NC State
22 East Carolina - AAC
26 Southern Miss - CUSA/ SunBelt
27 Dallas Baptist - CUSA
30 Coastal Carolina
31 Clemson
32 South Carolina
33 Duke
41 Wake Forest
46 Campbell
47 LaTech - C-USA
52 Florida Atlantic - C-USA/ AAC
63 South Florida - AAC
64 Old Dominion - C-USA/ Sunbelt
66 UNC Wilmington
67 VCU - A-10
74 Charlotte
80 Rice - C-USA/ AAC
91 UCF - AAC/Big 12
96 UNC Greensboro
97 Tulane - AAC
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Exhibition vs Walters State Saturday has been postponed. We still have a game vs the Ontario Blue Jays scheduled for Monday night.
I have a dream that one day a Niner will be an Atlanta Brave. 
Probably digging too much into these D1 top 100 program rankings but it is the offseason and we have a football bye week so…
D1 put out some data on their rankings including how much each team’s ranking had changed since they last did this in 2019. We were not ranked in 2019 so we went up at least 26 spots in this. We were 1 of 15 that joined the list after not making it in 2019. I think it is interesteing to look at “peer institutions” and see whether they are trending up or down, and who we can pass when they do this 2 years from now.
2023 CUSA
27 Dallas Baptist - CUSA (+1)
47 LaTech - C-USA (+43)
52 Florida Atlantic - C-USA/ AAC (-7)
74 Charlotte (+26)
80 Rice - C-USA/ AAC (-43)
2024 AAC
22 East Carolina - AAC (+4)
52 Florida Atlantic - C-USA/ AAC (-7)
63 South Florida - AAC (-3)
74 Charlotte (+26)
80 Rice - C-USA/ AAC (-43)
97 Tulane - AAC (-25)
Other Peers
14 North Carolina (-1)
16 NC State (+2)
26 Southern Miss - CUSA/ SunBelt (+7)
30 Coastal Carolina (-10)
31 Clemson (-8)
32 South Carolina (-14)
33 Duke (+6)
41 Wake Forest (+11)
46 Campbell (+22)
64 Old Dominion - C-USA/ Sunbelt (+36)
66 UNC Wilmington (-20)
67 VCU - A-10 (+25)
91 UCF - AAC/Big 12 (-20)
96 UNC Greensboro (+4)
I’m thinking we should be in the 49 range the next time D1 does this in 2024.
Rice is on a steep decline, but hopefully they can get that worked out in the next few years. They are in year 2 of a new coach.
Tulane just hired a new coach, so they are definitely a program with history but in transition at the moment.
FAU is higher than us but we’ve handled them head to head over the past 2 years.
We beat USF last season at their tournament. They made a run out of nowhere in 2021 to their first Super Regional, but took a step back last season.
ECU is clearly the next program in our sights within the AAC and within our state.
It is also encouraging that we have beaten teams like UNCW, Coastal, Campbell, South Carolina, NC State and North Carolina in the past 3 seasons head to head.
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So what do we think of this for 2023?
C – Hopson
1B – Butcher, Stahlman, Nolan
2B/SS – Knight
SS/2B – Dragum
3B – Wiesner
LF – Jackson
CF – Cunningham
RF – Fisher
SP – Evans, Sims, Kramer, Hansen, Dearman, Conte, Langhorne
CL – Lothes, Michelson, Gillentine, Rossi, Wilson
I haven’t seen all of the new pitchers yet but I have seen Evans and Dearman. Evans is going to compete to be our Friday guy. Dearman is in the mix the start. Between those 2 and Hale, Kramer, Hansen, we should have a solid weekend rotation.
They have Lothes as an arm on the back end, but it will will be interesting to see if he works his way into the rotation by the spring. They’ll probably take it slow with him as he works back from his injury.
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This lineup looks to have a lot less pop in the bats than last year? Likely a few less 3 run bombs?
Actually I think that looks pretty good. I might lead-off with Dragum. Not sure if you had that as a lineup or just putting probable positions out. Fisher likely in the 4/5 hole I’d think. I also think Suarez will get some opportunities but not sure where and don’t know a lot about Wiesner. But excited to see how this group looks. I think we will be solid overall. Yes, lost some good bats but still have several proven ones back. Defense should be really good, especially if we get good play at first as Madole was great there. Pitching should be solid as well I THINK.
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Maybe slightly less pop but I don’t see a big drop off in HR. We had 5 guys with double digit HR last year and return 4 of them: Fisher, Cunningham, Butcher and Dragum.
What we will miss more is Furman and McCabe getting on base. Furman set the table all season last year getting on and McCabe was right behind him in OB%.
We basically plug in Blake Jackson and Eli Weisner for Furman and McCabe in the order. Going to be hard to repeat the numbers Furman put up in the leadoff spot. Wiesner had 12 HR last season at Louisburg ,so he has power for sure.
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Cool deal.
You guys do such a good job getting us hyped for baseball.
Hopefully Knight is healthy and can get back to being a first team all-conference player. I think it will be critical to get Lothes back too. Will definitely miss Furman, one of my all-time favorites.
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I was just listing them by position from the D1 article.
It is going to be hard to replace Madole’s glove. He was one of the best defensive first basemen that we’ve had. Going to miss his bat too. Hopefully Butch will slide in over to 1B and free up the DH spot. Lots of options there.
The article didn’t mention Suarez but I’ve seen him hit several bombs this fall in scrimmages.
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clt says we need a Mr Bo for msoc coverage
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I think we’ll see a jump in power from Cunningham and Butcher !
If Knight can get anywhere close to back where he was, its gonna be a fun season.
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