I think Bogany will be the guy to watch, but that is obvious. I also think the ND transfer Olvey will be worth looking at. I think if we are 14-4 or 15-3 going into the SEC that will be a telltale that we have found our line-up and are clicking. With a line-up in place we could go as high as 20-10 in the SEC. If we do that we win the league. If we win the league there is no reason why we wouldnt be an Omaha contender. The pre SEC season will tell the tale of the year.
As of right now, I would say that our team is exceptionally young and unproven. You can never rule a team out due to youth though--as our own Tiger team from 3 years ago proved (when they weren't really expected to make it to EAUXmaha). Baseball is a long season though. We'll have our share of 15-1 wins...but because of the nature of the sport, we're sure to endure a few tough loses along the way, too. Our best chance to make it to Omaha (or deep in the tourny) is for our veteran hold-overs (Liuzza, Will Harris, Sprowl and Quinn) to be leaders both on and off the field and for our Freshmen to step up...PLUS, we need to remain relatively healthy.
I think the most likely scenario at this point for this team is a #2 or #3 seed, with us playing on the road in the regionals. Of course, it's very, very early so it's impossible to say for sure. I'm concerned about the lack of experience. And, I'm concerned that we don't have the pitching to win consistently with the style of baseball that we're going to play. Playing small ball is great when you've got great pitching...particularly a strong closer that you can turn the game over to. I'm not sure we have that. 3 run homers solve a lot of deficiencies and we just aren't going to have many of them this year. Overall, there are so many unknowns that it's hard to believe that all of the holes that need to filled will be done successfully.
