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2023 Texas Baseball


Fletch

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22 minutes ago, UTPhil2006 said:

14 to Unranked in both polls 

There was some weird movement this week. 

Vandy went 0-4, including a sweep to unranked Tennessee and dropped one spot from 4 to 5.

Arkansas went 1-3, including a sweep to unranked and last place SEC East Georgia and dropped two spots from 5 to 7

ECU went 1-3, including a sweep to lowly Wichita State and dropped from 7 to 12

Virginia went 1-3, including a sweep to a bad Notre Dame team and dropped from 8 to 13

Louisville had an 0-4 week, loss to unranked Indiana and was swept by previously unranked Duke and dropped from 12 to 21

 

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1 hour ago, Hookem2147 said:

There was some weird movement this week. 

Vandy went 0-4, including a sweep to unranked Tennessee and dropped one spot from 4 to 5.

Arkansas went 1-3, including a sweep to unranked and last place SEC East Georgia and dropped two spots from 5 to 7

ECU went 1-3, including a sweep to lowly Wichita State and dropped from 7 to 12

Virginia went 1-3, including a sweep to a bad Notre Dame team and dropped from 8 to 13

Louisville had an 0-4 week, loss to unranked Indiana and was swept by previously unranked Duke and dropped from 12 to 21

 

Kendall Rogers'd

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Texas Tech also moved up to #14 in the polls, which is funny because even D1baseball projects them as a 3-seed in a regional. The same thing happened to Tech last year, they spent all season in the top 25 but their awful non-conference schedule and RPI made them a 3-seed in postseason play.

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Took some time to process the loss this weekend. Painful as it was, I think we can recover and the core of our pitching staff is still good.

The last two weekends are a wicked combination of bad luck, mediocre and untimely hitting, questionable usage, and the final straw on a few members of the pitching staff.

Here’s how I’d manage the staff going forward.
Friday: Gordon, under appreciated for a great if not totally dominant year.
Saturday: LBJ, has the stuff and has shown the glimpses to get it done.
Sunday: Hurley, Baylor was a dumpster fire but there just isn’t a third starter to keep him sidelined or out of the pen.

Tuesday: Sthele, just not good enough. Tracking at less than 5IP and 3+ ER per game. Maybe you hope he can give you 3-4 good innings Sunday and then go to Hurley for 3. But he has a pretty consistent body of work that seems to confirm he’s a 5+ ERA guy on weekends.

Morehouse probably needs the Kubicheck treatment. Potentially sit him. Maybe work in low leverage weekday innings or big lead middle inning stuff. But barring something dramatic, I don’t see how you justify another shot with any sort of stakes.

The pen actually has several solid arms. Shaw, Tole, Burke can cover quality leverage innings. Lummus, Minchey, and even AD can eat low leverage innings and even stretch when needed. Witt could be a real X-factor.

The cracks are definitely showing and we just got punched in the mouth. But Im not ready to write off this team. If they can regroup and if the coaches use the hitters and pitchers we have well to put them in a place to succeed, I still think we can be dangerous.

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52 minutes ago, Hookem2147 said:

Texas Tech also moved up to #14 in the polls, which is funny because even D1baseball projects them as a 3-seed in a regional. The same thing happened to Tech last year, they spent all season in the top 25 but their awful non-conference schedule and RPI made them a 3-seed in postseason play.

10 in the BA poll 

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Took some time to process the loss this weekend. Painful as it was, I think we can recover and the core of our pitching staff is still good.

The last two weekends are a wicked combination of bad luck, mediocre and untimely hitting, questionable usage, and the final straw on a few members of the pitching staff.

Here’s how I’d manage the staff going forward.
Friday: Gordon, under appreciated for a great if not totally dominant year.
Saturday: LBJ, has the stuff and has shown the glimpses to get it done.
Sunday: Hurley, Baylor was a dumpster fire but there just isn’t a third starter to keep him sidelined or out of the pen.

Tuesday: Sthele, just not good enough. Tracking at less than 5IP and 3+ ER per game. Maybe you hope he can give you 3-4 good innings Sunday and then go to Hurley for 3. But he has a pretty consistent body of work that seems to confirm he’s a 5+ ERA guy on weekends.

Morehouse probably needs the Kubicheck treatment. Potentially sit him. Maybe work in low leverage weekday innings or big lead middle inning stuff. But barring something dramatic, I don’t see how you justify another shot with any sort of stakes.

The pen actually has several solid arms. Shaw, Tole, Burke can cover quality leverage innings. Lummus, Minchey, and even AD can eat low leverage innings and even stretch when needed. Witt could be a real X-factor.

The cracks are definitely showing and we just got punched in the mouth. But Im not ready to write off this team. If they can regroup and if the coaches use the hitters and pitchers we have well to put them in a place to succeed, I still think we can be dangerous.

We lead in ERA in conference games at 5.01. We also lead in team ERA on the season of Big 12 teams. And that isn’t cause we’ve played a weaker schedule. We are 12th in the country. There are only 19 teams less than 4.0 on the season. If people haven’t recalibrated their thoughts on pitching, they need to do so. Last year was the same.

So for every shitty start we have our opponents are generally matching that. And I’m pretty certain teams aren’t 3 starters deep and most aren’t reliably 2-deep.

Probably any team goal we had still is on the table. Likely one of the worst things we can do is trying to mix shit up hoping it works. It could work. Or it could screw up multiple guys heads. Then you’ll get even less consistency.

We are at the tops of all Big 12 pitching stats. We’re in the bottom half in virtually all hitting categories. Kennedy needs to drop down the lineup. Thomas needs to go up. If Powell isn’t hitting, drop him down. Stack the hot bats. We need more improvement here than on the pitching side.
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3 hours ago, Had Enough said:




Probably any team goal we had still is on the table. Likely one of the worst things we can do is trying to mix shit up hoping it works. It could work. Or it could screw up multiple guys heads. Then you’ll get even less consistency.

We are at the tops of all Big 12 pitching stats. We’re in the bottom half in virtually all hitting categories. Kennedy needs to drop down the lineup. Thomas needs to go up. If Powell isn’t hitting, drop him down. Stack the hot bats. We need more improvement here than on the pitching side.

As Pierce said in his post-DH interview, we need to make changes.  You can't just keep issuing free passes by the half-dozen if you want to win.  My example here would be Morehouse, who has earned a diminished role with 21 BB in 35.2 IP.

I agree with the Thomas-Kennedy-Powell comments, but strongly disagree with the second bolded comment.  The walks and hbp have put us in jeopardy in most of our Baylor and OU games.  The hitting vs OU was not great, but the pitching was Bad News Bears quality (sans Lucas).  The other guys you mentioned need expanded roles, but Pierce needs to have a quick hook ready for most everyone else.

 

3 hours ago, Had Enough said:


We lead in ERA in conference games at 5.01. We also lead in team ERA on the season of Big 12 teams. And that isn’t cause we’ve played a weaker schedule. We are 12th in the country. There are only 19 teams less than 4.0 on the season. If people haven’t recalibrated their thoughts on pitching, they need to do so. Last year was the same.

So for every shitty start we have our opponents are generally matching that. And I’m pretty certain teams aren’t 3 starters deep and most aren’t reliably 2-deep.

Probably any team goal we had still is on the table. Likely one of the worst things we can do is trying to mix shit up hoping it works. It could work. Or it could screw up multiple guys heads. Then you’ll get even less consistency.

We are at the tops of all Big 12 pitching stats. We’re in the bottom half in virtually all hitting categories. Kennedy needs to drop down the lineup. Thomas needs to go up. If Powell isn’t hitting, drop him down. Stack the hot bats. We need more improvement here than on the pitching side.

BTW, you need a new username.  😉

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Have a feeling the rotation this weekend is going to be:

Friday- Gordon

Saturday- LBJ

Sunday- Witt (for 1 or 2 innings followed by Johnny wholestaff)

Guess we will just cross our fingers and pray with LBJ. Would be wonderful if they found a sweetspot 2-3 inning role for Sthele and/or Hurley out of the pen but I don't want to ask for too much from the baseball Gods.

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BTW, you need a new username.  

You are correct in that we cannot keep issuing free passes. We are 13th in the country in hits allowed per 9 innings. We are 137th in walks allowed. By the way, we’ve played 10 games versus teams in top 8 in the country in drawing walks. They aren’t that highly ranked off our backs alone.

Morehouse already has a diminished role. Sthele is likely headed that way too. We have no closer. We only have 1 starter. LBJ will be the 2nd. If Hurley is the 3rd guy, believe in it and stick with it. Same with LBJ for that matter. And it is ok to have your 3rd starter only go 1, 2, 3 innings. If you want Burke to do that, fine. But get to it and quit screwing around.

We’re more than halfway into the season. Get shit figured out. Before the last two weeks, our pitching stats were more impressive. Shaw getting hurt. Then moving Hurley out of the pen. All the way to Minchey starting, Hurley not playing and one of your top 2 pitchers when considering production/stuff not entering the series until you’re down 5-1 in the last game. These moves thus far are a net negative.

Offensively we are 156 in the country for OBP. 90th in slugging percentage. Tied for 146th in runs scored.

The offense is below average. The pitching and defense are not. That’s relative to the nation and relative to the conference. You can certainly make the argument that each conference opponent we’ve played brings a better offense than pitching.

We have lost 3 conference games when giving up 4 or fewer. The number #20 team in the country gives up more earned runs than that per game. In todays game, you can’t lose 20% of your conference games with that little run production.

Don’t forget the key point. All goals are in play and achievable.
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2 minutes ago, Had Enough said:


You are correct in that we cannot keep issuing free passes. We are 13th in the country in hits allowed per 9 innings. We are 137th in walks allowed. By the way, we’ve played 10 games versus teams in top 8 in the country in drawing walks. They aren’t that highly ranked off our backs alone.

Morehouse already has a diminished role. Sthele is likely headed that way too. We have no closer. We only have 1 starter. LBJ will be the 2nd. If Hurley is the 3rd guy, believe in it and stick with it. Same with LBJ for that matter. And it is ok to have your 3rd starter only go 1, 2, 3 innings. If you want Burke to do that, fine. But get to it and quit screwing around.

We’re more than halfway into the season. Get shit figured out. Before the last two weeks, our pitching stats were more impressive. Shaw getting hurt. Then moving Hurley out of the pen. All the way to Minchey starting, Hurley not playing and one of your top 2 pitchers when considering production/stuff not entering the series until you’re down 5-1 in the last game. These moves thus far are a net negative.

Offensively we are 156 in the country for OBP. 90th in slugging percentage. Tied for 146th in runs scored.

The offense is below average. The pitching and defense are not. That’s relative to the nation and relative to the conference. You can certainly make the argument that each conference opponent we’ve played brings a better offense than pitching.

We have lost 3 conference games when giving up 4 or fewer. The number #20 team in the country gives up more earned runs than that per game. In todays game, you can’t lose 20% of your conference games with that little run production.

Don’t forget the key point. All goals are in play and achievable.

We also have racked up a staggering 50 HBP that I include in "free passes".

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3 minutes ago, ClubWhatever said:

I don’t get this.  He is one of your top 2 or 3 weekend arms out of the pen.  As in maybe 50 pitches over the weekend.  Why hamstring his weekend usage by using him now? 

A college pitcher should be able to throw a few innings on Tuesday and then be able to go again on Friday or Saturday.

Or maybe they are stretching him out and he’ll be a bulk inning guy after Witt on Sunday or something. 

Or maybe everyone is throwing 1 inning tomorrow and he just happened to be the lucky starter.

We’ll see.

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Unfortunately this team has little dick energy, just like their HC. We need a change. Texas baseball is bigger than this. It’s been obvious over the past 6 years. He doesn’t have what it takes to make a championship level team and keep that momentum moving forward. The first round of the CWS should not be an acceptable outcome for this program. 

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14 minutes ago, b_p said:

The first round of the CWS should not be an acceptable outcome for this program.

That’s fine if you believe that, but that means every coach past, present and future will need to be held to this standard.

Only 6 of 20 seasons (30%) for Augie were acceptable for you.

Only 16 of 29 seasons (55%) for Gus were acceptable for you.

 

 

Edited by Hookem2147
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2 minutes ago, Had Enough said:

I am going to expect Witt to be an impactful addition

Hopefully it is a boost mentally and morale wise for the guys to see him out there, because his impact performance wise won’t likely be meaningful until he’s stretched out.

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21 hours ago, WBT said:

I'm old enough to remember being impressed with what Woody Williams had done with our pitching staff this year.

I still think he's a big upgrade and will do well here but the regression the last two weekends...yikes.

It’s not on the pitching coach to teach a fucking D-1 pitcher to throw strikes. It’s his job to replace every one of these guys though. 

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Hopefully it is a boost mentally and morale wise for the guys to see him out there, because his impact performance wise won’t likely be meaningful until he’s stretched out.

I think it will be. It’s a crapshoot what he can bring from a performance standpoint. I do think one out here or one inning there can be huge particularly if he has enough juice rather quickly.
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43 minutes ago, b_p said:

Unfortunately this team has little dick energy, just like their HC. We need a change. Texas baseball is bigger than this. It’s been obvious over the past 6 years. He doesn’t have what it takes to make a championship level team and keep that momentum moving forward. The first round of the CWS should not be an acceptable outcome for this program. 

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17 minutes ago, Levi said:

Ryan Reynolds Reaction GIF

We were just swept, at home, by one of the worst teams in cbb. That doesn’t happen when you’re a good, much less great team. It’s unacceptable. Especially to the fucking sooners who could give two shits about baseball. 

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6 minutes ago, b_p said:

We were just swept, at home, by one of the worst teams in cbb

This is not at all true. Oklahoma is a borderline tournament team who just got their starting SS and 3-hole hitter back the week before they played us.

Should we have won that series at a minimum? Absolutely. But calling them one of the worst teams in college baseball tells me you don’t know college baseball. 

We should know more than any team about what standings mean 12 games into conference play.

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Just now, jimmyjazz said:

#76 of 305 coming into the series.  Yeah, "worst".  

Take some Midol.  It helps with the cramps.

Lol at thinking that’s acceptable. And I’ve also gone through menopause, so please consider your audience 

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1 minute ago, jimmyjazz said:

I didn't say it was acceptable.  It was a really bad weekend.  That said, OU is a far cry from the bottom of D1 baseball.  Don't blame me for your hysterical ranting.

I’m not trying to be hysterical, just realizing what we have to work with. I’m glad you agree this weekend wasn’t acceptable. 

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5 minutes ago, b_p said:

We were just swept, at home, by one of the worst teams in cbb. That doesn’t happen when you’re a good, much less great team. It’s unacceptable. Especially to the fucking sooners who could give two shits about baseball. 

I forgot that getting swept one series in conference play defines a coach that has been to the World Series 3 times in six years. Some of you have got to chill on the “Pierce isn’t the guy” every time something doesn’t go your way. The series sweep was unacceptable and should not have happened, but it did and that’s the way baseball rolls sometimes. Based off of Pierce’s attitude during the postgame press conference, this team and staff understand the level of expectations for this program. 

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4 minutes ago, Levi said:

I forgot that getting swept one series in conference play defines a coach that has been to the World Series 3 times in six years. Some of you have got to chill on the “Pierce isn’t the guy” every time something doesn’t go your way. The series sweep was unacceptable and should not have happened, but it did and that’s the way baseball rolls sometimes. Based off of Pierce’s attitude during the postgame press conference, this team and staff understand the level of expectations for this program. 

I appreciate that, and your take is definitely solid. Here’s my thing - have we ever felt like Pierce is delivering the best recruiting, development, in-game management, and personality to lead a team to multiple national championship opportunities, or has he had a few seasons where we made the regionals, won a few times, then lost it early? I just don’t feel like he has what it takes. I could be wrong. I hope he proves me wrong because I don’t think we get rid of him soon. 

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That crappy OU team beat Wichita State two weeks ago. Why is that significant? It’s not.

But I did notice that #7 ECU got swept by that WSU team this weekend. Two shutouts and a 23-3 score differential.

That’s the beauty of baseball. You just never know. This past weekend had a lot of craziness.

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5 minutes ago, b_p said:

I appreciate that, and your take is definitely solid. Here’s my thing - have we ever felt like Pierce is delivering the best recruiting, development, in-game management, and personality to lead a team to multiple national championship opportunities, or has he had a few seasons where we made the regionals, won a few times, then lost it early? I just don’t feel like he has what it takes. I could be wrong. I hope he proves me wrong because I don’t think we get rid of him soon. 

There is one way to give yourself a national championship “opportunity”, and we have given ourselves that opportunity in 3 of 5 full seasons with him at the helm. Maybe he actually sucks and has fooled us for 6 years and will be gone 14 months from now, but at this point the best reason for people to want to get rid of him appear to be his lack of wins in Omaha and his supposed “personality”. That is some pretty weak reasoning.

Speaking of which, I really couldn’t give a rats ass about the personality of a coach because it’s never won a baseball game or a game in any sport really. Tim Tadlock has the personality of a DMV employee, Jim Schlossnagle is a mega asshole, Tony Vitello whines more than a toddler and Dave Van Horn looks like he is about to kill someone every second of every day.

This program has 3 national titles in the the last 40 years and we have people acting like a national championship is our god given right. Hell, you just said earlier your criteria for a successful season is one where Augie freaking Garrido would have ‘failed’ in 70% of his seasons at Texas.

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7 minutes ago, b_p said:

I appreciate that, and your take is definitely solid. Here’s my thing - have we ever felt like Pierce is delivering the best recruiting, development, in-game management, and personality to lead a team to multiple national championship opportunities, or has he had a few seasons where we made the regionals, won a few times, then lost it early? I just don’t feel like he has what it takes. I could be wrong. I hope he proves me wrong because I don’t think we get rid of him soon. 

He’s done everything imo in the first part of your question with the caveat that in-game management being subjective in its nature. That’s one of those things where a coach is criticized when it goes wrong and usually doesn’t hear anything when it goes right. The latter part of your question is a bit confusing. He’s hosted 3 regionals, was a 2 seed in Long Beach (first year), Covid season was a cancelled and then the forgettable 2019. In one of those regionals we were the #2 overall seed in the tournament and finished 3rd in the CWS. You just don’t stumble into regionals and walk away with a win. Ask Florida and Ole Miss what it feels like when you host a regional and lose to tens like Tennessee tech and USF. 

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2 hours ago, b_p said:

Unfortunately this team has little dick energy, just like their HC. We need a change. Texas baseball is bigger than this. It’s been obvious over the past 6 years. He doesn’t have what it takes to make a championship level team and keep that momentum moving forward. The first round of the CWS should not be an acceptable outcome for this program. 

So anything less than #6 or better every year is unacceptable?  Name one program or coach ever that meets that standard.

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6 hours ago, Hookem2147 said:

but at this point the best reason for people to want to get rid of him appear to be his lack of wins in Omaha

We aren't a&m. We are college baseball royalty and if you can't see that shitting the bed in Omaha is a big problem then I don't think you'll ever see why this guy needs to go. I don't ever want to be a program that's just happy to get there.

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11 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

I didn't say it was acceptable.  It was a really bad weekend.  That said, OU is a far cry from the bottom of D1 baseball.  Don't blame me for your hysterical ranting.

I mean, yeah it sucks, but ...

2018 - made CWS - lost 2/3 to 23-31 KSU and 2/3 to 29-27 WV
2022- made CWS - lost 2/3 to 27-28 South Carolina and 2/3 to 29-29 KSU

It's not the end of the fucking world.  It sucks though, and it sucks more that it was OU, at home and a sweep by 1, 3 and 2 runs. 

But shit happens in baseball.  

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18 hours ago, Hookem2147 said:

Hopefully it is a boost mentally and morale wise for the guys to see him out there, because his impact performance wise won’t likely be meaningful until he’s stretched out.

Him, LBJ, Hurley, Burke and Gordon get into shutdown mode come mid May with Powell and Kennedy getting back on track….yeah I wouldn’t want us in our regional 

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10 hours ago, austintiger said:

We aren't a&m. We are college baseball royalty and if you can't see that shitting the bed in Omaha is a big problem then I don't think you'll ever see why this guy needs to go. I don't ever want to be a program that's just happy to get there.

Jesus fuck dude it’s baseball. We’ve gone 38 times and won 6. Should we have won a few more? Definitely (89, ‘04 and ‘09 come to mind). Is Pierce the best coach in college baseball? No. But is he the best fit for Texas at this time? Probably. Jay Johnson is really the only one I’d take over Pierce at this moment. 
 

Going to the college World Series 3 out of 4 seasons is very fucking good. Shit, if Witt doesn’t get injured last year we might’ve dog piled a 7th time. It’s fucking baseball, dumbass. Weird shit happens and always will happen. All we can do is keep winning the conference and putting ourselves into a position to host until we get to Omaha. The ball will bounce our way one of these years 

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5 hours ago, Js1 said:

I mean, yeah it sucks, but ...

2018 - made CWS - lost 2/3 to 23-31 KSU and 2/3 to 29-27 WV
2022- made CWS - lost 2/3 to 27-28 South Carolina and 2/3 to 29-29 KSU

It's not the end of the fucking world.  It sucks though, and it sucks more that it was OU, at home and a sweep by 1, 3 and 2 runs. 

But shit happens in baseball.  

Everyone keeps forgetting just how fucking bad the Oklahoma state series was last year. Friday night for the taking and we choked it up. Tier 6-6 going into the 9th. Okie lite scored two in the top half and that was that. Saturday we got asspounded so fucking hard it was insane. 14-3 or something. Then Sunday, Lucas Gordon was having an outstanding day, leaving the game with an 8-0 lead in the 7th with 2 dudes on. They score 10 and we lose 10-8. That was fucking soul crushing 

Bur as usual, we got hot again in May and June and made some postseason noise. Just didn’t have the pitching last year 

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So the CWS has been played since 1947. 75 years. And Texas has the second most appearances in the title game with 12 (and one of those appearances was back when only 4 teams made it to Omaha). So 16% of the time they have made it to the finals.

And yet we had someone say last night that any season that doesn't end with at least one win in Omaha is "unacceptable".

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