Life in the Valley

Just when the Indiana State Sycamores were celebrating the potential of hosting a Super Regional against TCU, that dream was snatched away late Monday, as the school announced that preparations to host a Super Regional this weekend at Bob Warn Field were beyond their capabilities, and thus, the #14 national seed Sycamores (45-15) must go on the road to Fort Worth, Texas, to take on TCU this weekend in a best-of-3 series for a berth in the College World Series.

TCU (40-22), winners of 9 straight games, knocked off host and #3 national seed Arkansas to win the Fayetteville Regional over the weekend. Had seeds held, Indiana State would have been on the road at Arkansas, but the red-hot Horned Frogs took care of the Razorbacks, leaving many to naturally think Indiana State, as the national seed, would host. That’s how seeding works, of course.

In the words of the great modern philosopher Lee Corso, not so fast, my friend.

Monday night, the Indiana State Athletic Department announced Terre Haute wouldn’t be hosting the Super Regional, and apparently no nearby-ish neutral sites were possible or available, so the Sycamores have to take their show on the road.

It is understandable that the Special Olympics are a previously scheduled and long-known about event, and there are any number of logistics involved with hosting a Super Regional to accommodate the opposing team, both sets of fans, media, and television.

But there has to be some forethought here, too. Maybe when Indiana State is 2-8 in February, the department isn’t thinking about hosting a Super Regional. Understandable. But as the season went on, and the Sycamores ripped off 30 wins in 33 games and dominated the Missouri Valley in the regular season, some back-burner preparations could have been commenced such that if this situation arose, Indiana State would have a plan in the works to partner with the community and get this done.

Indiana State’s players and fans earned what should have been another glorious weekend in Terre Haute (or, #Terredise, as it’s now known on Twitter). Having to cobble together travel logistics for Fort Worth (I hear it’s lovely this time of year, I’ve never been) can’t be easy, either. But the fear here is that the NCAA Selection Committee will in the future look down on schools from the MVC and other mid-major conferences who have a resume that suggests hosting a Regional, only to be perhaps knocked down a peg because the perception is these schools don’t have what it takes to host a Super Regional should it arise. If you’re a 2-seed instead of a Regional host, the path toward hosting a Super Regional becomes that much harder. Something has to happen for such a reward to fall into your lap.

You’re welcome, TCU.

There’s certainly no doubt Indiana State will play hard this weekend and I have no doubt that they will play well. Their pitching depth should play well in the best-of-3 Super Regional format, and defense travels. But TCU’s offense is no joke. I’ll have more on this later in the week as the focus shifts to on-field matters, but during its 9-game winning streak (7 of which have come in either the Big 12 Tournament or the Fayetteville Regional), the Horned Frogs have scored 104 runs, an average off 11.56 runs per game. Six regulars hit at least .300, they’ve bashed 85 homers, and stolen 139 bases, while being caught just 19 times. TCU is the visualization of the old high school softball chant, “Everybody hits! Everybody scores! Woo!”

Here’s a live look at TCU’s offense lately:

So Indiana State was going to have its work cut out for them no matter if this series was going to be played in Terre Haute, Fort Worth, or perhaps Columbia, Mo., which would have been almost a perfect neutral site venue for the series had the University of Missouri been able to host it.

Perhaps such an option was discussed. Maybe it wasn’t possible. The statement from the Athletics Department doesn’t make mention that such efforts were undertaken. I hope they were.

But they’ve long known when the Special Olympics event would be, and that event should absolutely go forward. They’ve also long known what weekend Super Regionals were going to be. The first rule of great preparation is to have a plan and it’s unclear if there was one here. If you play Division-1 college baseball, you have to prepare for the possibility, however slim, that you might host a Super Regional some day.

Unfortunately, in this case, things haven’t worked out. Indiana State was a great story these last 2 weeks at home in winning the MVC Tournament and the Terre Haute Regional with a combined 7-1 record. Now, the Sycamores must pack their bags and hit the road and along with cleats, uniforms, gloves, and bats, it might be good to stash away a chip for their shoulders. Any bit of motivation helps this time of year, after all.

Tomorrow, I’ll take a deeper dive into TCU, as the Horned Frogs look for their 6th trip to Omaha since 2010, and perhaps, to finally win the College World Series.

If Indiana State is going to have anything to say about that, it’ll have to succeed in a hostile environment.