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NC State Baseball

BASEBALL: What Now?

May 18, 2023
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NC State went on the road and got swept by UNC in a crucial series. What now?

Against UNC

State got their lunch handed to them for 26 innings last weekend. At the plate, on the mound, and in the field they weren’t good enough. They came out hot on Thursday night with five runs in the first and got Connor Bovair out of the game but could only manage three runs against six pitchers the rest of the night.

State was outscored 30-8 from innings 2-27 of the series. Defensively, they fell apart, as has been the theme this year. Logan Whitaker couldn’t finish three innings. Offensively, they didn’t do enough (even though they scored eight runs), leaving 11 runners on.

All of that gets you a devastating first-game loss that they did not recover from the next two days.

Pitt Up Next

Quite frankly, the Pack looked like a team just playing out the string Friday and Saturday. How much can you count on them bouncing back this weekend at home? They probably will, but I’m not 100% convinced.

Pitt is a frisky team, and making the ACC Tournament will likely mean more to them than State -- a program that is used to playing games with more importance at this point in the year.

On paper, NC State should win this series and push for a sweep. Can you count on them to do it? Not based on how this year has played out.

Tournament Hopes

Two wins gets the Pack in the tournament… the ACC Tournament. Jokes aside, the Pack would have to lose the Pitt series to miss the tournament and Louisville would have to sweep FSU. Additionally, if the Pack got swept by Pitt and Louisville wins 2 of 3, State would be done. All that said, State has very good odds to make it to Durham.

As far as the NCAAs, people are going to talk about State as a bubble team if they sweep Pitt. I will not be one of those people. A couple weeks ago I said I thought they had to get to 14-15 to get in, and my opinion has not changed.

I don’t see how a resume with one quality series win (ND), a weak non-conference schedule, 13-16 in the ACC, and an RPI in the 20s gets in. I’m sure the ACC tournament will be a talking point as well, but how can you possibly count on the committee caring about the conference tournament?

Regardless of sport or committee, the one constant has been conference tournaments not mattering. I’ll believe it when I see it.

I probably shouldn’t even be talking about the tournament with a team that just got run off the field with their season on the line, but that’s the nature of the beast.

State has to get up off the mat against Pitt or else we will be writing the obituary of this team next week and talking about a fascinating future for this program.

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BASEBALL: What Now?

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