thunderbird1100

Of the scholarship quality guys, we have the potential to return 6 (Bender/Fife/Pearson not 'scholarship quality' players):

Dioubate (5 for 5)
Bashir (5 for 5)
Ugochukwu (has at least 1 if not 2 more years)
Niang (draft or 1 more year)
Ruzic (draft or probably 1 more year)
Levy (Wade says he has 3 more years due to military service)

Edited to add Levy, was wrong about him due to age because of military service

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Y'all realize we are in the playoffs if we win out?

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This is a bold statement not realizing what 3 weeks from now will actually look like.

We are definitely far from a playoff lock at 9-3.

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The catching issue is less about steals and more about receiving the ball cleanly and stopping the passes balls.

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We are all well aware of that :lol:

My point was nobody like sot give Arrambide credit for holding guys onto their bases at a high level meanwhile you have other catchers in the SEC giving up 3x-3.5x as many stolen bases.

Yes we lost on the receiving/blocking front but he at least made up for that in a big way through his ability to hold guys on the bases they are on.

The receiving/blocking thing will only continue to get better.

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Do we have a new catcher? Last year was kinda rough.

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Not everyone comes into here elite at both offense and defense.

Arrambide came here a high end offensive prospect who projected well as a catcher with an elite pop time and a very strong arm.

It's not easy going from high school where you catch guys throwing 70s and 80s to suddenly college pitching throwing mid to high 90s who are constantly working on new pitches and not exactly having great control from 1 guy to the next.

People seem to forget college exists largely as a development ground, these are not finished products coming in here. Even the high level guys right off the bat (like say a Curiel or Bregman) tend to get better as they go through college, continue to develop, get stronger, etc...

If Jay thought Arrambide/Serna are going to be too bad behind the plate to play every day for us he would have addressed that in the portal/recruiting. It shows he has confidence in them catching every game for us this season and they will continue to get better.

South Carolina's catcher last year allowed 80 stolen bases in 94 attempts; thats less than 15% throwing out base stealers and people knew they could run on him. He started 54 games at catcher last season. By comparison Arrambide who started 37 games at catcher allowed just 24 steals on 33 attempts (over 25% throw out rate). When teams are attempting less than a steal a game on you, they fear you. USC's catcher in just 17 more starts at catcher than Arrambide gave up 56 more stolen bases than him.

Things can be A LOT worse than what you saw last season

Feel like Ark and USC expansion was right and a good fit

The A&M/Missouri expansion felt forced and teams that really just dont fit in the conference and never really have

Texas/OU was basically "you cant turn them down" type situation, I dont know they fit especially well, but certainly make the conference better at least

"Outside of these dozen or so players we got who are good from the portal, everyone is trash" :lol:

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190-9 at home isn’t a joke, it’s going to be a huge test. I like it though does us no good to be 14-0 without being tested at all by a good team.

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This game technically isnt a true home game for them, their home arena is McCarthey Athletic Center which seats 6k.

They are having this game right down the road though at Numerica Veterans Arena which seats double the capacity (and I do mean literally down the road, it's like 5 minutes from campus)

They are 3-0 there over the last 4 years against OU, Baylor and Kentucky; none of those games were close either

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What's a Hitler complex? Does Sankey want to wipe out an entire race of people?

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Yes, they're called geauxmers

Don't let Bashir get hot :geauxtigers:

Bashir 3 point attempts look like hail Mary heaves, but they go down :lol: