Before the 2010 season began, Conference USA had three teams ranked in the Top 25 by Baseball America, and for good reason.
Rice was ranked No. 5, after a 43-18 season in which they went 16-8 in conference play, won their fourth straight C-USA tournament and wound up in the Super Regional.
East Carolina was ranked No. 18 in the preseason. The Pirates went 46-20 last season, with 17-7 in C-USA to win the regular season title. East Carolina also made it to the Super Regional.
Southern Mississippi went 40-26 last season and was ranked No. 21. The Golden Eagles had the best finish of all when they made it to the College World Series where they lost to Texas and North Carolina.
Perhaps the most surprising struggles are those of Rice, who has perennially been considered an elite program. The Owls opened their season with a road series against Stanford in Palo Alto, Calif., where they were unceremoniously swept. Granted, Stanford is an upper-echelon program, but rarely does a Wayne Graham-coached team receive that kind of treatment. According to baseballamerica.com, the Owls were last swept in 2005.
Rice followed up with a 13-7 loss to lesser-known Lamar (6-1) to start the season 0-4. Rice then won their next three games in the Rice Invitational. The Owls knocked off UH (2-5) 8-2 Tuesday to win four in a row and returned to .500. The Owls are still ranked No. 9, but their ERA is a troubling 5.94.
East Carolina has struggled, due in part to their challenging schedule. They’ve had two three-game series against preseason Top 25 teams, but have survived with a 4-3 record, and actually improved their ranking to No. 14.
Southern Mississippi has suffered the most with their 4-3 start. The Golden Eagles took two out of three against Northwestern State (5-2) at home, and stayed home to crunch Mississippi Valley State 20-2. They then proceeded to lose two out of three at home to Le Moyne College.
That ugly stretch dropped the Golden Eagles out of Baseball America’s Top 25. The Golden Eagles don’t have an impressive schedule, so they could already be in trouble if they don’t do well in conference.
The struggles of these three have coincided with the surprising success of UCF, sitting first in the standings at 7-1. The surprise is that Central Florida was 22-35 and 9-15 in C-USA last season. On the other hand, their opponents’ combined record of 7-22 tells the story.
The No. 5 Florida Gators, who beat UCF 7-6, have five of the seven wins. It should be expected for UCF to come down a little, but with their relatively easy schedule, anything is possible.
Pirates have struggled? A series win over the number 10 team in the country, a midweek thrashing of a team that is usually in the RPI top 100 (Old Dominion) and dropping the rubber match of a series to the #1 team in the country by 2 runs on Sunday after dismantling that ver same team the day before? May want to re-define your definition of struggle…
How has ECU “struggled”?? They are 3-3 against then Top 10 teams. Thats not bad. Now UVA is up to #1 and South Carolina has dropped a bit due to ECU beating them in the series.
I couldnt disagree anymore with that. Now if you want to say Rice has struggled, thats obviously the truth. But lets not mislead people so you can try to try to satisfy the point of your story….
The Le Moyne College baseball team is a division 1 team. They play as an independent.
My previous message was in regards to your article which stated: “Southern Mississippi has suffered the most with their 4-3 start. The Golden Eagles took two out of three against Northwestern State (5-2) at home, and stayed home to crunch Mississippi Valley State 20-2. They then proceeded to lose two out of three at home to Division II Le Moyne College.”
Le Moyne College is a Jesuit school based in Syracuse, NY. Prior to becoming an independent their baseball team was an associate member of the MAAC conference. They went to the NCCA Division 1 baseball tournament in 2003, 2004 and 2007.
I think you need to re-define struggle. The Diamond Bucs won 2 of 3 from the then # 10 team in the country, dominated an ODU team that has a decent RPI consistently and lost 2 of 3 to UVA who at the time was the number 2 team in the country….btw, they currently reside at #1. If that is struggling then I hope we continue to struggle all year long on our path to Omaha.
Tristan, I would love for you to respond to this message. Too many writers never communicate with the reader, and this offers a great opportunity for you to change that trend. How can you say ECU has struggled thus far? I question your knowledge on this topic, as the Pirates have faced the toughest schedule in the country up to this point. Lets recap, opening weekend ECU hosted #2 UVA in the best series in the country that weekend, loosing in a rubber match 14-11 on Sunday. After thrashing ODU midweek, ECU hosted the #10 Gamecocks. After ECU’s loss on Friday, the Pirates came back to win 2 straight against a great ball club from South Carolina. Please respond and help me understand how this is a “struggle.”
Jim Deshaies, a former Major League Baseball pitcher and current Houston Astros TV commentator is a graduate of Le Moyne College.
For those who look at overall records and don’t watch the actual games unfold as played..I guess a 4-3 record for ECU would appear as “struggling”. Thank goodness that the college pollsters don’t weigh overall records as much as the talent load of a team. If the overall record of a team played such a big part in rankings, Rice would have tumbled out of existence in the polls after week 1 and probably would not be in the top 25 as of week 2.
ECU would have fallen further in that same time span but with the series win over a top 15 team, ECU would still be ranked in the top 20.
I haven’t seen USM play any games and can’t really comment about their performance.