Mid-Week Blog Thoughts...

A few thoughts about a few teams around the country, starting with a couple Big 12 teams in the Sunflower state...

1. Kansas State...The Wildcats tied a school record for the best start in school history with Tuesday's 13-5 win over the state's traditional baseball power, Wichita State. K-State is 27-9 overall, and you have to go all the way back to 1976 to find a KSU team that has started that well. They also have the best pitcher in the Big 12, and possibly the country, in A.J. Morris. The right-hander is 9-0 (the only 9-game winner in the country), he's third in the nation with his 1.19 ERA and his 64 strikeouts are 16th. The Wildcats have quality non-conference wins over San Diego State and Arizona State. In the latter Morris won a head-to-head match-up with the Sun Devils' Mike Leake (8-1, 1.53 ERA). At 7-5, KSU is tied for fourth-place in the Big 12 with...

2. Kansas...The Jayhawks (24-12) picked-up their sixth straight win Tuesday when they downed Creighton 7-6 in 10 innings. Brett Bochy, the son of San Francisco Giants manager Bruce Bochy, got his third win in relief. Like K-State, KU has a quality win over Arizona State and another over Arkansas in Fayetteville. Kansas has also swept two Big 12 series from Texas and Oklahoma State to improve to 18-2 at home. The 18 wins matches their home win total from 2008. They're just 4-7 on the road, and they go to Texas Tech this weekend. KU and K-State play a 3-game series to close the regular season.

Sidetrack...I caught the last inning of the KU-Creighton game last night on CBS College. The game was played at Rosenblatt Stadium. Was that REALLY the same stadium where the College World Series is played? No wonder Omaha's building a new downtown park. I still love Rosenblatt for the CWS.

Sidetrack II...Kevin Kugler was calling the game on TV. Talk about a charmed life. The dude started calling CWS games locally for an Omaha station, parlayed that into the CWS for Westwood One, and now he can add the Olympics and the NCAA Final Four (including the championship game) to his impressive resume.

Back on track...

3. I've said this before, Washington State is a good team, but a brutal non-conference schedule may kill its chances for an NCAA bid. Among the Cougars' non-conference losses: Rice, Arkansas (3), Oklahoma (2 of 4), Oral Roberts, Pepperdine (2), and a 17-6 loss to Gonzaga Tuesday night. WSU is 15-16 overall, and 5-4 in the Pac 10 after finishing 30-26 and 8-16 in the conference last year. UCLA received an at-large bid with a 33-27 overall record and 13-11 overall mark last year. The Cougars should get consideration if they can get close to that this year, but a little less Arkansas at the front of the schedule would have helped a team that has to navigate an already tough Pac 10 slate to begin with. Their remaining schedule includes series with Oregon State and Stanford, which makes this weekend's home series with Arizona (15-16, 3-9 Pac 10) crucial.

4. Gonzaga...The Bulldogs (24-10, 7-2 WCC) are in third place in the West Coast Conference behind San Diego and Loyola Marymount. They've already racked-up two non-conference wins over Missouri as well as conference series wins over Pepperdine and San Diego. Their top two starters, Matt Fields and Steven Ames, have combined to go 11-1 with 89 strikeouts and just 25 walks in 105 1/3 innings.

5. Arkansas...the Razorbacks appear to be in a classic hangover after two big home wins over Arizona State last week. The Hogs (24-9) have lost three straight for the first time this season after a 3-2 home setback to Louisiana-Monroe Tuesday at Baum Stadium. They have a big SEC series at Georgia this weekend.

6. West Virginia...the Mountaineers (26-7) are #26 in this week's Collegiate Baseball poll. It's the first time they've been in the CBN rankings since 1982, when they finished two wins away from the College World Series. WVU took two of three games from defending Big East regular season champion, St. John's, last weekend. Their 10-2 conference mark has them tied with South Florida atop the Big East standings. The Mountaineers visit Notre Dame this week and then travel to USF April 24-26. WVU's non-conference schedule has never been overly challenging, and its top inter-conference wins this year are over Indiana, Tennessee and Kentucky. The Mountaineers have losses to Illinois and Minnesota, which have been two of the better teams (along with Ohio State) in the Big 10 this season.