Is that a dig at us?
It feels like it.
Weather is just an excuse for northern programs not to spend on baseball. If um committed resources to baseball like clemson does, the ceilings are very similar.
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Fiction
Characters
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Bakich had top 15 classes lined up at um with average to bad facilities. Last I checked Arkansas, lousiville, and Vanderbilt aren’t exactly in places with beautiful winters and early springs. Michigan has great baseball history, top academics(more important in non revenue sports), a national brand and tons of academic/financial aid(very important for sports with partial athletic schollies) and is in a state that produces a lot of talent. What Michigan doenst have is a willingness to keep up with the spending of the sport.
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The season ended Sunday and there are already 1600+ players in the portal.
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Crazy. (Characters)
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The Big Ten is the functional equivalent of the MAC
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Arkansas, Louisville, Nashville have markedly milder late winters and early springs than Ann Arbor and majority of the B1G
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Big ten has actually improved quite a bit and will get even better once usc and ucla join. Plus there’s the likely future acc school additions. B1g won’t be the sec but it will be a good league.
That’s fine, I’m discussing today. Bakich’s run to the championship is basically the equivalent of that Gordon Heyward Butler team.
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baseball is essentially a summer sports, so that it is limited what northern schools can do.
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Yeah, I’m aware. When I say that Clemson structurally has benefits we can’t match that (and the things that flow from it) are the primary reason.
Except the Northern schools are on the road for the first 15-20 games often in the West Coast or South. That’s a huge disadvantage plus they’re playing in a cold weather in mid April to early May.
It’s a big hurdle for recruiting.
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Yes this is the fundamental problem
Bakich had top 15 classes lined up for michigan in 2022-2024 and that was with lackluster facilities. Weather is an excuse, biggest issue is lack of willingness to keep up with the resources southern schools have(facilities, recruiting budgets and coaching salaries).
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There should be a way that the B1G (and some other northern conferences) can get the NCAA to start the baseball and softball season 6 weeks later than it currently does. Both post-seasons already run into Spring/Summer semester, so it seems like it could be doable.
bakich was leading the charge of moving the season back and it has a lot of momentum
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I think Bakich had a chance to make us the best school in the north, but it is still sort of like the best Pac12 school when the football playoff comes around - not even on the same tier. Baseball recruiting was messy to begin with since it is a partial scholarship sport and now with the portal it is going nuts. Pretty much every player at D1 and D2 is at risk for moving every year. Michigan can be a solid baseball program - but they will always have limitations that the southern schools don’t.
I photographed a chunk of the softball games this year and there was maybe one day where it was in the 60’s. Most were in the 45-50 degree range, and some were lower.
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