2025 NCAA Tournament - Thunderin' Bolts vs Oklahoma (Round 2)

Certainly the execution during the season was not commensurate with the "on paper" expectations.

Pitching injuries early and offensive injuries late played a role, but a lot of player and coaching performances were underwhelming.....

Very inconsistent, but the most positive aspect I can muster is the grit of this bunch. Unfortunately, that alone was far from enough.

 
Comish said:
Certainly the execution during the season was not commensurate with the "on paper" expectations.

Pitching injuries early and offensive injuries late played a role, but a lot of player and coaching performances were underwhelming.....

Very inconsistent, but the most positive aspect I can muster is the grit of this bunch. Unfortunately, that alone was far from enough.
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Hate the way we lost and ended the season but a B1G championship is pretty damn good.   That really should be enough to constitute a good season.   NU fan expectations are really too much sometimes.  

 
Hilltop said:
Hate the way we lost and ended the season but a B1G championship is pretty damn good.   That really should be enough to constitute a good season.   NU fan expectations are really too much sometimes.  
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Not to undersell the Chamionship (Big Kudos for that), but with tthe returning talent from last year, it's hard to consider a barely.500 record too much of a fan expectation....

 
No, there’s no selling this dumpster fire to the fans next year if problems continue. Winning the B1G Tourney doesn’t amount to much if we don’t do anything with it…and a 17-1 loss is certainly not doing anything. 
 

Top programs deal with key injuries and make do all the time. We have one or two and we fold….not to mention consistent quality pitching has been missing in all but one year of Bolt’s stay here. 
 

We have too good of facilities and a fan base to suffer mediocre (and less like today) ball. I really hope if Bolt doesn’t make strides next season that we are ready to open the pocketbook and bring some quality coaching to Lincoln. 

 
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Mr7071 said:
No, there’s no selling this dumpster fire to the fans next year if problems continue. Winning the B1G Tourney doesn’t amount to much if we don’t do anything with it…and a 17-1 loss is certainly not doing anything. 
 

Top programs deal with key injuries and make do all the time. We have one or two and we fold….not to mention consistent quality pitching has been missing in all but one year of Bolt’s stay here. 
 

We have too good of facilities and a fan base to suffer mediocre (and less like today) ball. I really hope if Bolt doesn’t make strides next season that we are ready to open the pocketbook and bring some quality coaching to Lincoln. 
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Bolt brought back Childress as pitching coach.  This was his 2nd year & I seen improvement. Harvel, on the hand has been here 6 years as hitting coach.  He is not working our.  Very little improvement & needs to be replaced!  I agree that Bolt is on a short leash if especially if keeps Horvel.

 
SouthLincoln Husker said:
Bolt brought back Childress as pitching coach.  This was his 2nd year & I seen improvement. Harvel, on the hand has been here 6 years as hitting coach.  He is not working our.  Very little improvement & needs to be replaced!  I agree that Bolt is on a short leash if especially if keeps Horvel.
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There is essentially a 0% chance they fire a guy who is under contract for four more years who has won back-to-back conference championships in a non-revenue sport.

 
Really thought Harvel would be gone prior to this season. He is not real popular in the clubhouse by players and I agree he has shown to provide little substance. Bolt is safe for a few more years, but maybe an internal shake up would be welcome.

A lot of things factored into this season. Due to graduation and injury, we lost our top 2 pitchers, Horn is young and it took him awhile to “grow up”, Timmerman out most of the year… on and on…

Max B was heating up and was out with illness for over a month I believe. All this doesn’t excuse the lack of hitting and especially “timely” hitting. This team did not come close to meeting expectations, but they had some unfortunate help along the way.

 
HANC said:
...This team did not come close to meeting expectations, but they had some unfortunate help along the way.
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This is what is crazy to me... winning a B1G title exceeds realistic expectations.  It is hard to do, even when you have a talented team. 

A B1G team hasn't won the CWS since 1966...    And we have only been there as a conference 29 times all time (not counting the 2024 team additions).  Do we realistically expect to get there every year?     

 
Hilltop said:
This is what is crazy to me... winning a B1G title exceeds realistic expectations.  It is hard to do, even when you have a talented team. 

A B1G team hasn't won the CWS since 1966...    And we have only been there as a conference 29 times all time (not counting the 2024 team additions).  Do we realistically expect to get there every year?     
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No, but consistently making noise in regionals and Super Regionals with a CWS trip once every 3-4 years is not out of the question...and 17-1 is far from making noise. It's more like a mouse squeak in a country field. Again, we have the resources and the status quo should not be maintained.

When Nebraska baseball has been good, it's been one of the few programs to actually turn a profit in baseball. So while certain folks want to say non-revenue, that non-revenue result is really a reflection of current attitudes about the team and coaching by the fans. Give the Nebraska fans a program that's worth backing, and they'll show up and show $$. 

 
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Hilltop said:
This is what is crazy to me... winning a B1G title exceeds realistic expectations.  It is hard to do, even when you have a talented team. 

A B1G team hasn't won the CWS since 1966...    And we have only been there as a conference 29 times all time (not counting the 2024 team additions).  Do we realistically expect to get there every year?     
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It's the inconsistency & the lack of competitive play.  Oklahoma beat us like a red head step child.   

 
Hilltop said:
This is what is crazy to me... winning a B1G title exceeds realistic expectations.  It is hard to do, even when you have a talented team. 

A B1G team hasn't won the CWS since 1966...    And we have only been there as a conference 29 times all time (not counting the 2024 team additions).  Do we realistically expect to get there every year?     
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I meant fighting for our baseball lives to even get into the Big 10 tournament was well below expectations!! In fact, if it wasn’t for a little league type of error by the MSU right fielder, we would have been bounced in pool play. So yes, the regular season was below expectations. We were expected at least be in the upper half of the conference and not needing to rely on luck and a 4 game hot streak to even make the regional. This is what I meant by not meeting expectations. This team should not have had to rely on an auto bid. I did not expect them to win the Big 10 tournament prior to the season and no one else probably did either, so that was fun.

 
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So to you guys,  losing the last game like we did meant the season was a failure?  We sucked in that game,  no doubt.   However that doesn't ruin the entire season imo.  All but one team ends the season on a loss....  

 
Hilltop said:
So to you guys,  losing the last game like we did meant the season was a failure?  We sucked in that game,  no doubt.   However that doesn't ruin the entire season imo.  All but one team ends the season on a loss....  
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trying find the word failure in either of my posts. Not meeting expectations is not automatically a drastic failure. So to you, just bc we caught a HUGE break in the tournament and won 4 games automatically makes the season a success? The regular season was not what was expected, would you agree or disagree? That is simply what I am saying. Finished 8th, only after needing to win the last 3 series or we don’t even qualify for our own tournament. Is that what you expected?

 
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