Clearwater, Florida, a city that holds a record of 361 days of consecutive sunshine, will host the initial American Athletic Conference tournament. No. 3 seed UH and seven competitors will battle for the conference’s automatic bid and momentum going into that NCAA postseason baseball at Bright House Field.
With the tournament bracket already set, UH is slated to take on No. 6 seed Temple on Wednesday for the beginning of pool play. UH (41-14, 14-9) goes into its conference tournament this year with five more wins than the previous season and a 6-2 record against its upcoming opponents.
For the season UH is 1-1 against Temple, 3-0 against Thursday opponent UConn and 2-1 against UCF, who faces UH on Friday.
“We’ve been pretty hot lately,” said head coach Todd Whitting, who set his highest win total this season.
“We may have dropped a game here or there, but we played really well against Rice last weekend and we’ve been on the road a lot, which is tough, but it prepares you for the postseason, especially the conference tournament.”
The long march to this point saw UH sweep Rice for the first time since the presidency of George H. W. Bush, and included impressive numbers such as a team ERA of 2.04. Said pitching was bolstered by usually timely hits, and RBI has UH settled as high as 19th in some national polls.
“We’ve got a lot of good arms and a bunch of guys ready to come out and show what they can do and just keep doing what we’ve done all year,” said junior Jared Robinson, a first-year Cougar who became one of the go-to arms out of the bullpen.
“We all look forward to an opportunity to do well.”
More important than statistical dominance of the pitching staff was that UH avoided long losing streaks, with the only true blemish being swept by Louisville in a mid-April series.
“I think we’re pretty confident as a team going into the tournament,” said sophomore right fielder Kyle Survance.
“We’ve had success against all three of the teams in our bracket, and we’re looking at getting back at Louisville and getting a little revenge for that home sweep. We feel good going into this.”
Survance, who stole 29 bases this season, topping his tally of 25 from the previous season, as well as batting .304, was a mainstay of the UH offense that helped their pitching staff crack the aesthetically pleasing 40-win barrier.
“I like where we’re at,” Whitting said. “We’re relatively healthy right now, the kids are really enthusiastic. They’ve broken through a lot of barriers that we were looking to break through this year, but we’ve still got a few more. They still have a little edge to them and they want to get all the way to Omaha.”
The shift from important but repetitive weekend series to round-robin tournaments is something that makes the college baseball post season different than its gridiron counterpart. A successful regular season grants entry into a conference tournament.
Conference tournaments are followed by Regional Tournaments, with 64 teams garrisoned in host cities and towns until 16 winners advance to build up to Super Regionals before giving way to the eight teams that will play in Omaha, Neb. for the College World Series. The atmosphere of the events has long lent itself to more than the normal drama associated with baseball.
“I think, during a tournament, you get the postseason feel and there’s always excitement around a tournament because you’re playing for a championship that weekend. Our kids are excited and ready to roll,” Whitting said. In his previous job as associate head coach at TCU helped the Horned Frogs advance to the College World Series.
With UH departing Tuesday morning, the team, stats and all, remain aware that the game is still functionally the same.
“It’s still the same game,” Robinson said. “Bases are still 90 feet; pitcher’s mound is still sixty feet, six inches, so the only thing that really changes is that number of people that show up. It’s great having a bunch of people out there and I think a little added pressure makes us stay in the game a little bit more. It for sure makes it more fun.”
Go get ’em Coogs!