Hate the shift in that situation. I get playing the percentages, but to give up the tying run on a ground ball that was an easy out for a hundred years is tough.
oh my i just saw that play. embarrassing. the batter hit .360 this year. All he had to do was put the ball on the ground to the right side and he becomes about a .750 hitter. We didn't think their cleanup hitter knew how to play pepper?
Like a friend of mine says, "Cheer up, things could be worse!"
..so, I cheered up and, sure enough, things got worse!
Let's not get all down in the dumps, ladies and germs! "There's always next year" and, nothing shabby about winning a Big Ten championship.
So, how many of you been to Omaha?
I was commissioned into the USAF out of UCLA and my first assignment was to SAC HQ at Offutt AFB in Bellevue just South of Omaha. In those days, the CWS was held in Rosenblatt Stadium. Imagine my thrill when UCLA made it there in 1969!
I watched all two of their games in person as they got cannonballed out of the D.E. bracket by Tulsa 6-5 (sound familiar) and the ASU Sun devils 2-1 who became the national champs.
UCLA's record that year was 42-10-1 and 17-6 in the PAC-8. Chris Chambliss played for them.
It'll come along someday but I am interested in seeing where the kids go in the draft and who's around next year! (Only nine months until pitchers and catchers report!)
One thing that I always say. You can lose, just don't embarrass your school. That's like the "last straw" sin of any program. And what does Savage do... the exact opposite. Total embarrassment.
Not a look good. This isn’t about the natty. However, the ouster in the manner in which it happened, begs the question of having been annoyed with the No. 1 ranking. Talk about utter implosion. Sort o f knew this would happen. UCLA has a tendency not to show up when the natty is in play
Both programs, Men's baseball and Women's softball bounced on the same day. But at least the women made it past regionals, this Men's overrated baseball team couldn't even do that! Embarrassing, but not surprising since UCLA has one of the worst AD's in the country. You can only do so much with these college squads these days.
I’ll pile on and agree that the shift in that situation didn’t make sense…two out, season on the line, runner in scoring position, of course the hitter will take a shot. Also, we’ll never know if somebody communicated to Hawk that with the shift on, he needed to come hard inside…even if he hit him, wouldn’t have been fatal. All things considered, pretty embarrassing underperformance…and the near-silent Sawtelle (it will always be Sawtelle to me) didn’t exactly stir the lads from their stupor.
your point about whether the pitcher knew about the shift and therfore whether to come inside brings up an interesting collateral issue. it's kind of irrelevant what the pitcher knew. Savage calls every single pitch from the dugout, including location. that is on par with a coach that is going to employ the shift as if it were the 5th inning in a mid week non conference game. smartest guy in the room until he is not.
Didn’t know that, thanks for sharing the information…Savage has won more CWS titles than I have, but…the whole weekend from performance to coaching strategy to athmosphere…just seemed off.
Savage calls every single pitch from the dugout, including location. I think that is totally ridiculous but it's a discussion for another day. However, i will say that it lines up with the poor decision to employ the shift in that situation.
Not that this is "coping" but #2 national seed GaTech lost in their regional as well - the 2nd year in a row that national #1 and #2 lost in the regional...
Yea, but Georgia Tech lost to Oklahoma, a far cry from St Mary's and now Oklahoma is in the super regionals and St Mary's lost their very next game to Cal Poly. Sorry but the UCLA losses were much worse than the Georgia Tech performances. Much worse. UCLA was ill-prepared and poorly coached, period. Seems to be a pattern with UCLA sports teams.
Fair point regarding losing to Oklahoma vs losing twice to St. Mary's - just pointing out that this wasn't exactly UVa losing to UMBC...
Even in the game we won at the regional, Savage having Dugger continually attempt to bunt late in the game when he not only hadn't laid down a sac bunt all season but was - you could tell from the first attempt - clearly unprepared to do so was a poor decision that we got away with. Seems like there was a lot of "getting away with it" at the end game of the season that caught up to us. As it usually does. Thank goodness Women's Basketball didn't fit that pattern you point out.
Those bunt "attempts" were so painful to watch. It's sort of crazy that a D1 level starter on a top ranked team has no idea how to do something as fundamentally simple as bunt. And that's not meant as a criticism only of Dugger. Seems someone on the coaching staff should have taken him aside at some point and said, "Hey, in case it ever comes up, here's how to bunt a baseball. Let's practice this a few times".
There's nothing more recent on TMB, so I'll just tack this on here... Congrats and a huge 8 Clap to all the 2026 graduates from our favorite University in the world - including my amazing daughter with a double major in Poli Sci and Econ (that's one more major and in one less year than her dad, btw). I saw pics on social media of Lauren and Gabs who were back for ceremonies themselves as well as many other athletes sharing their memories of Westwood. It was so heartwarming to be on campus this weekend and see the grads and families and friends all over campus - Bruins Nation just keeps getting bigger and better and stronger than ever!!
Funnily enough, the only member of the women's basketball team that was at the athletics grad ceremony was Timea Gardiner, who is coming back next year. Softball was also interesting in that Megan Grant skipped the ceremony, though Tinsley and Woolery were in attendance. Big attendance from water polo, which even featured the championship trophy in the crowd.
Source: me, the person attending the ceremony as well to watch my cousin walk.
Thanks for this thoughtful write-up. “Live by the walk-off. Die by the walk-off” perfectly encapsulates this team recently.
We won our first and only baseball natty when I was an undergrad. I hope I get to see them win another one…
Hate the shift in that situation. I get playing the percentages, but to give up the tying run on a ground ball that was an easy out for a hundred years is tough.
sounds like the analytics virus that has ruined MLB has also infected college baseball.
oh my i just saw that play. embarrassing. the batter hit .360 this year. All he had to do was put the ball on the ground to the right side and he becomes about a .750 hitter. We didn't think their cleanup hitter knew how to play pepper?
Embarrassing losses
Like a friend of mine says, "Cheer up, things could be worse!"
..so, I cheered up and, sure enough, things got worse!
Let's not get all down in the dumps, ladies and germs! "There's always next year" and, nothing shabby about winning a Big Ten championship.
So, how many of you been to Omaha?
I was commissioned into the USAF out of UCLA and my first assignment was to SAC HQ at Offutt AFB in Bellevue just South of Omaha. In those days, the CWS was held in Rosenblatt Stadium. Imagine my thrill when UCLA made it there in 1969!
I watched all two of their games in person as they got cannonballed out of the D.E. bracket by Tulsa 6-5 (sound familiar) and the ASU Sun devils 2-1 who became the national champs.
UCLA's record that year was 42-10-1 and 17-6 in the PAC-8. Chris Chambliss played for them.
It'll come along someday but I am interested in seeing where the kids go in the draft and who's around next year! (Only nine months until pitchers and catchers report!)
One thing that I always say. You can lose, just don't embarrass your school. That's like the "last straw" sin of any program. And what does Savage do... the exact opposite. Total embarrassment.
Not a look good. This isn’t about the natty. However, the ouster in the manner in which it happened, begs the question of having been annoyed with the No. 1 ranking. Talk about utter implosion. Sort o f knew this would happen. UCLA has a tendency not to show up when the natty is in play
Both programs, Men's baseball and Women's softball bounced on the same day. But at least the women made it past regionals, this Men's overrated baseball team couldn't even do that! Embarrassing, but not surprising since UCLA has one of the worst AD's in the country. You can only do so much with these college squads these days.
So agree. UCLA sports should be far superior to what they are. How the heck do we allow two premier pitchers transfer out. No NIL dollars
I’ll pile on and agree that the shift in that situation didn’t make sense…two out, season on the line, runner in scoring position, of course the hitter will take a shot. Also, we’ll never know if somebody communicated to Hawk that with the shift on, he needed to come hard inside…even if he hit him, wouldn’t have been fatal. All things considered, pretty embarrassing underperformance…and the near-silent Sawtelle (it will always be Sawtelle to me) didn’t exactly stir the lads from their stupor.
your point about whether the pitcher knew about the shift and therfore whether to come inside brings up an interesting collateral issue. it's kind of irrelevant what the pitcher knew. Savage calls every single pitch from the dugout, including location. that is on par with a coach that is going to employ the shift as if it were the 5th inning in a mid week non conference game. smartest guy in the room until he is not.
Didn’t know that, thanks for sharing the information…Savage has won more CWS titles than I have, but…the whole weekend from performance to coaching strategy to athmosphere…just seemed off.
In the meantime, the men's golf team made it into match play quarterfinals for the first time since 2015!
Savage calls every single pitch from the dugout, including location. I think that is totally ridiculous but it's a discussion for another day. However, i will say that it lines up with the poor decision to employ the shift in that situation.
Not that this is "coping" but #2 national seed GaTech lost in their regional as well - the 2nd year in a row that national #1 and #2 lost in the regional...
Yea, but Georgia Tech lost to Oklahoma, a far cry from St Mary's and now Oklahoma is in the super regionals and St Mary's lost their very next game to Cal Poly. Sorry but the UCLA losses were much worse than the Georgia Tech performances. Much worse. UCLA was ill-prepared and poorly coached, period. Seems to be a pattern with UCLA sports teams.
Fair point regarding losing to Oklahoma vs losing twice to St. Mary's - just pointing out that this wasn't exactly UVa losing to UMBC...
Even in the game we won at the regional, Savage having Dugger continually attempt to bunt late in the game when he not only hadn't laid down a sac bunt all season but was - you could tell from the first attempt - clearly unprepared to do so was a poor decision that we got away with. Seems like there was a lot of "getting away with it" at the end game of the season that caught up to us. As it usually does. Thank goodness Women's Basketball didn't fit that pattern you point out.
Those bunt "attempts" were so painful to watch. It's sort of crazy that a D1 level starter on a top ranked team has no idea how to do something as fundamentally simple as bunt. And that's not meant as a criticism only of Dugger. Seems someone on the coaching staff should have taken him aside at some point and said, "Hey, in case it ever comes up, here's how to bunt a baseball. Let's practice this a few times".
Agreed. But the reliance on analytics that cost us this game just makes it more frustrating. Such an unforced error.
At least $c got ousted by North Carolina today. If you squint, you can pretend the trogans were beat by us..
The play the *$c CF made on NC's walkoff hit in the gap was pretty interesting.
And in the 8th when Carolina was starting to rally, the foul ball SC blew could've ended the inning.
The next best thing to a Bruin win is a Trojan loss.
I squinted so much, I thought i was in the The Sandlot.
Squints was the real hero of that movie.
There's nothing more recent on TMB, so I'll just tack this on here... Congrats and a huge 8 Clap to all the 2026 graduates from our favorite University in the world - including my amazing daughter with a double major in Poli Sci and Econ (that's one more major and in one less year than her dad, btw). I saw pics on social media of Lauren and Gabs who were back for ceremonies themselves as well as many other athletes sharing their memories of Westwood. It was so heartwarming to be on campus this weekend and see the grads and families and friends all over campus - Bruins Nation just keeps getting bigger and better and stronger than ever!!
GO BRUINS!! 🩵🐻💛
Funnily enough, the only member of the women's basketball team that was at the athletics grad ceremony was Timea Gardiner, who is coming back next year. Softball was also interesting in that Megan Grant skipped the ceremony, though Tinsley and Woolery were in attendance. Big attendance from water polo, which even featured the championship trophy in the crowd.
Source: me, the person attending the ceremony as well to watch my cousin walk.
It's 75 days until the football season starts.