Hurricane Warning: A complete look at the Miami Hurricanes Regional

Bryan Radziewski hopes to lead Miami to a Super Regional berth this weekend in Louisville, KY

In 1972, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger had just won the Time Person of the Year and would later hear of a break-in at the Watergate Complex. Billie Jean King dominated Bobby Riggs in the ‘Battle of the Sexes’ and Time Warner introduced Home Box Office(HBO). Through the next 7 presidents’ tenures, the end of the Cold War, and every major cultural event in those 41 years, one thing has remained consistent: the Miami Hurricanes in the college baseball tournament. Miami extended their streak of tournament appearances to 41 this season, which ties Johns Hopkins’s NCAA record for most for most consecutive postseason appearances.

The Canes needed a late season push to solidify their spot in the postseason and got it by winning six of their last nine games, including an impressive series win against a ranked Georgia Tech team. Yet, the momentum didn’t carry over into the ACC tournament where Miami got mercy ruled against North Carolina, the sixth ranked team in the nation, and fell 7-1 to number nine North Carolina State. In their final game, Miami picked up a nice 7-0 victory against number 18 Clemson despite missing their head coach Jim Morris, who is suffering from pneumonia and may not be able to coach the Regional as he recovers. The poor showing in ACC tournament, however, did not seem to effect the team’s place in the NCAA tournament. They snagged the number two seed in the Louisville, KY regional, along with host Louisville, third-seed Oklahoma State, and fourth seeded Bowling Green. Miami takes on OSU on Friday at 2:00 pm on ESPN3.

The Hurricanes

While they finished with the same record as last season (36-23), Miami struggled at the plate through most of the season. No hitter in the starting lineup finished with a batting average above .300. They only hit 13 homeruns and David Thompson led the team with a mediocre 42 RBIs, with the next best total belonging to Alex Hernadez with 30. The team’s anemic offense seemed to go as David Thompson went. The freshmen started the season off on a tear with 18 RBIs and two homeruns with a .327 batting average through the first 14 games as the Canes cruised to 12-2 in those games. Thompson cooled off in the middle of the year and fell to seventh in the lineup at one point. Just as the freshmen regressed, Miami dropped five of their next six series. Coach Jim Morris then moved Thompson to third base and shifted Brad Fieger to third. The move seemed to ignite Thompson as he took off the rest of the season and helped Miami pick series wins against ranked Clemson and Georgia Tech. The Canes’ lineup needs to carry the momentum they had at the end of the regular season to give them a chance at advancing.

Miami’s starting pitching, by contrast, performed spectacularly all season. Chris Diaz, Bryan Radziewski, and Andrew Suarez kept Miami alive through their midseason hitting struggles and ensured the team’s spot in the postseason. The trio of lefty weekend starters all ranked in the top 25 of ERA within the ACC—Radziewski 2^nd, Diaz 4^th, Suarez 25^th—and combined for 21 wins. Coming back from a torn labrum in his throwing shoulder, Radziewski led the staff and emerged as the team’s ace. The ACC recently named him to the All-ACC team and he is on the 60-player watch list for the Golden Spikes award that goes to the nation’s best player. Diaz, a freshman, came on as the rotation’s most consistent by notching 102.2 innings pitched—3^rd best in the ACC—and delivering 12 quality starts in his last 14 chances. The bullpen, however, has been a different story. Eric Nedeljkovic has been a bright spot. He leads the ACC in saves with 13 and has only allowed 4 runs in 26.1 innings of work. Javi Salas also pitched well for the Canes in 15 appearences, 11 of which were mid-week starts. He finished the season with a 3.10 ERA, which put him at 17^th on the ACC ERA rankings, and remains the Hurricanes’ best option out of the bullpen other than Nedeljkovic. Outside of those two, the bullpen has struggled. AJ Salcines regressed from last season stellar showing, Eric Whaley has come on since struggling through a injury early in the year, and Thomas Woodrey showed flashes of brilliance in limited work. Overall, the bullpen needs to improve if Miami is going to advance out of this regional.

The Opponents

Oklahoma State Cowboys—Oklahoma State comes into the tournament ranked in all four major polls, as high as 12^th in the NCBWA poll. The ‘Boys finished the season second in the Big 12 with a 39-14 record to add another good year in their proud history as the eighth winningest program in NCAA history. Heading into the Big 12 tournament, they had won 15 of their last 19 games. OSU’s lineup has no hitter with a batting average below .277 and each normal starter has at least 16 RBIs, with 1B Tanner Krietemeier leading the pack with 41. Krietemier and RF Zach Fish drive the offense in the middle of the order; both are in the top 10 in the Big 12 in at least four offensive categories. The pitching staff has an ace in the starting rotation and in the bullpen with RHP Jason Hursh and RHP Vince Wheeland. Hursh’s story almost mirrors that Bryan Radziewski. He came off Tommy John surgery that forced him to miss all of last season and pitched excellently for the Cowboys, even getting named to the Golden Spikes Award watch list like Radziewski. He sports a 6-4 record with a 2.78 ERA and is listed as one of the top prospects in the upcoming MLB draft. Wheeland leads the bullpen with 26 appearances and 65.1 innings of work. He has only allowed 17 runs this year and has 1.79 ERA. The College Baseball Hall of Fame named him to the Pitcher of the Year Award watch list. The team fell to a three seed in the regional stage because of three straight losses to TCU, Kansas, and West Virginia in the Big 12 tournament. Expect a battle between like-minded teams on Friday, both the Canes and the Cowboys rely on timely hitting, small ball, and good starting pitching.

Bowling Green—The Falcons landed a four seed in the tournament by taking the MAC championship with 7-0 victory over Ball State. They came into the MAC tournament as the six seed with 24-29 record and 13-14 record in the conference, but beat Northern Illinois and arch rival Toledo three times in the tournament before finishing off the Cinderella story. BGSU lacks power in their lineup with just 14 homeruns on the year. Jeremy Shay and TJ Losby led the offense with a combined batting average of .326, 11 homeruns, and 74 RBIs. The starting pitching staff lacks an ace with no pitcher under 3.50 in ERA and none with a winning record. Ethan McKenney anchors the bullpen with a 1.93 ERA and has only given up 10 earned runs in 46.2 inning pitched. On paper, Bowling Green doesn’t stand a chance in this regional, but they’ve proven in their conference tournament that they can be Cinderfella.

Louisville—The host come in ranked in the top 10 of all four major polls and may have been a top eight seed with a Big East Tournament victory. The Cardinals only lost two series all year en route to 46-10 record, the best in school history, and 20-4 mark in the a relatively weak Big East Conference. They had won 16 straight heading into their conference tournament, yet got upset by eventual champion Connecticut and fell to Rutgers in the conference tournament. Louisville relies on defense and pitching to get victories. The pitching staff has a 2.43 ERA, third best in the nation, and is led by Chad Green and Jeff Thompson. Each own a 2.09 ERA and have combined for 19-4 record in 29 starts. Thompson joined Radziewski and Hursh on the Golden Spikes Award watch list and earned the Big East Pitcher of the Year. The defense only committed 64 errors on the year to help their star pitchers. First-team All Big East selection Nick Burdi highlights the bullpen with 0.88 ERA in 30.2 innings and has only allowed 4 runs this season. 3B Ty Young and DH Jeff Gardner lead the offense. Young tops Louisville in batting average(.372), RBI(55), doubles, triples, and on-base percentage. Gardner brings the power with nine homeruns and a .341 average. This team might be one of the best regional host outside of the top eight and has enough ammo to get to Omaha.

The Bright Side for the Oklahoma City Thunder

Kevin Durant and OKC’s great year ended in disappointment, but hope still prevails for the Thunder

Before the NBA Playoffs began, Kevin Durant graced the cover of Sports Illustrated. The magazine put a quote by Durant on the cover with a photo of him at the free throw line. The quote showed the disgust that Durant has for second place as the second pick in the 2007 NBA draft, the second best high school prospect in his class, and a part of the second best team last season. It ends with Durant professing that he “is done” with second place. This year he didn’t end up in second place, but didn’t even reach the podium as the Thunder bowed out in the second round against Memphis in 5 games.

Despite obvious disappointment, Durant stated that the season, while completely falling short of expectations, was not a waste. In many ways, Durant is correct. Yes, the Thunder looked as close to bad as they could look in the Memphis series. Yes, Oklahoma City General Manager Sam Presti and head coach Scottie Brooks should receive heat for their actions in the preseason and postseason. Yes, it appears the Thunder have digressed from last season. All those concerns have valid roots and we’ll touch on them later, but the 2013 season brought plenty of good for the Thunder. The team captured the top seed in the West for the first time ever and won the most games in franchise history (I know the NBA counts the Seattle years in OKC’s history, but that is bullcrap and we all know it, FOREVER LIVE THE SONICS). Every returning player improved his PER. Durant took two less shots a game while increase his points per average, saw his shooting percentage increase by five, increased his assist average, and improved his defense. Russell Westbrook had similar growth but to a lesser degree as he improved his shooting percentage. We also saw less or at least talked less about instances where Westbrook hindered his team by shooting too much and spoke more of his ability to lead his offense.

Durant’s and Westbrook’s improvements all came as they had to carry a larger share of the team’s burdens due to the trade of James Harden. Serge Ibaka’s emergence on offense and two successful acquisitions by Presti in Reggie Jackson and Kevin Martin also contributed to filling the void left by Harden’s absence. Ibaka transformed himself into a small ball center in the model of Chris Bosh. He took more shots per game and added four more points per game. His biggest improvement was his three-point shooting. He only attempted six three pointers in his first three years in the NBA; this season, he attempted 57 three pointers. Ibaka made an impressive 35 percent of those shots, which beat Bosh’s mark this season by six percentage points. Martin gave OKC 14 points per game after coming over from Houston in the trade and Jackson took over the backup point guard position from Eric Maynor.

The Thunder though fell apart when Westbrook got hurt in the playoffs. Their struggles were visible as the offense fell apart against Memphis as they couldn’t adjust to life without Westbrook and Memphis’s great defense made that life hell for OKC. The tale of the Thunder collapse without Westbrook has been well chronicled and don’t need rehashing (unlike the positives of a great season that nobody seems to acknowledge). Criticism has poured in from every corner mainly on Presti and Brooks. Brooks deserve to be questioned for his inability to create any sort of strategy after Westbrook’s injury and mismanaging a number of situations in the playoffs such as not pressuring ball handlers against Memphis, leaving Durant in for too long against the Rockets, letting Durant play point guard, and allowing Kendrick Perkins to see the floor. The heat on Presti comes from the Harden trade. The decision to trade Harden cost the Thunder a finals trip this season by demolishing the chemistry they built last season. The trio that OKC seemed to build their future around enjoyed playing with each other and truly appeared to loved each other. They wanted to win for each other, they wanted to beat the Heat together. Then, Presti ran a train through their friendship because he was afraid to give up Harden for almost nothing. He could’ve waited and seen what happened this season then make a decision or amnesty Kendrick Perkins to create enough cap space that the tax would not be crippling. He could’ve afforded Harden anyway by amnestying the basically useless Perkins—I’m not a fan of his—and filling out the team with minimum veterans and rookies like the Miami Heat have.

So the Front Office probably cost the Thunder a finals run this year and a big three that would rival any in the NBA including the one on South Beach, but the future is still shining bright as long as Presti gets his mojo back. He can start by making a move he should have before last season: Amnesty Kendrick Perkins. Perkins’s performance in last year’s finals was atrocious and showed that he would no longer be valuable against teams that play small ball. This season, he declined in every major statistical category except assists and on defense. In the playoffs, he finished with a -0.11 PER to become the first player ever to finish the playoffs with a negative PER while playing 200+ minutes. To reiterate, he had THE WORST POSTSEASON EVER by that measure. Perkins will make 8 million next year and 9 million the following and Presti traded Harden because he cost too much. The move would be a year too late, but nonetheless necessary to provide some cap flexibility.

If they amnesty Perkins, the Thunder will have about 62 million in salary among nine players. The salary cap is projected to be about 69 million with the luxury tax at 84.4 million. With that 22 million in space before the tax, Presti needs use his draft picks efficiently and sign a swingman or big man to replace Martin and Perkins. The Thunder own their pick, number 28, and the Raptors’ pick should it fall outside of the top 3 in the lottery. The Raptors pick is hard to project because the lottery will decide who will be there for OKC, but if UCLA swingman Shabazz Muhammad falls to that pick, he could make sense in Oklahoma City. Muhammad can drive, spot up from three, and post up on smaller players, much like James Harden can. At 28, Presti should look at Center Jeff Withey from Kansas. Withey can run the floor, play the pick-and-roll game, and defends better than any other center in the draft. In free agency, the Thunder will have about 5 million in cap space and a 3 million in the taxpayer’s mid-level exception to fill out the roster. They need grab a bench scorer and some are available this offseason. OJ Mayo and JR Smith fit the bill, but might price themselves out of OKC’s market. Marco Bellinelli is a more realistic target and showed that he can score when given the opportunity this postseason. The Thunder will also look for some size after letting Perkins go. JJ Hickson makes sense, but again could be out of their price range. Brenden Wright, who averaged 8.5 points and 4.1 boards, fits for the Thunder this offseason.

The Thunder Front Office failed this season and smothered the team’s chance at a title this year. Their coach failed them in the playoffs. They need to make moves to get back to title contender status. But, the future in OKC will always be bright so long as Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook don a Thunder uniform.