Nebraska baseball completes a perfect homestand

0:00Hi, this is Alex Cantrowitz. I'm the host of Big Technology podcast, a long time reporter and an on-air contributor to CNBC. And if you're like me, you're trying to figure out how artificial intelligence is changing the business world and our lives. So each week on Big Technology, I bring on key actors from companies building AI tech and outsiders trying to influence it, asking where this is all going. They come from places like Nvidia, Microsoft, Amazon, and plenty more. So if you want to be smart with your wallet, your career choices, and meetings with your colleagues and at dinner parties, listen to Big Technology podcast wherever you get your podcasts. All right, everybody. It is a basketball week, of course, in Nebraska. But we still are a baseball state. We've got a great baseball show, and we're going to do it today for you. He's Evan Blaine. I'm Ben Doody. You know the drill. We do the Omaha 8 and the Husker baseball minute as it's 15 degrees outside, Evan, but on its way to be 80 this coming weekend. So

1:03this is March in Nebraska. Let's go to the Omaha 8 who you have this week, Evan. Yeah, some familiar names, some new ones. We have UCLA, Texas, Oklahoma, Georgia Tech, Auburn back in there, USC, Florida State, and the sleeper this week, South Florida, from the American. We lead with the sleeper whenever we can. So tell us about the bulls of the USF. Yeah, they've been on a bit of a high streak. One eight and a row overall. You'll look at some of their metrics. They're just a really balanced team. Top 20 in fielding and earned around average. Top 50 scoring have a really solid one, two punch in the rotation in Edwin, Alessia and Michael Sinai and just just a solid team that I think has played a strong enough schedule to be in that at large. RPI mix may well win its conference down the road has some some some RPI making opportunities ahead with Florida State and East Carolina and some other ones. But some program without a lot of

2:08history to this point, but I think they are making some noise and they do have some traits of a team that could maybe make a run at the end of May into June. If I force you to predict right now, who will be in the CWS championship series in June, downtown Omaha, championship series, who you got? UCLA is the easy one. I think they're still on a roll. They go and and and bring in Michigan and sweep them last weekend, just pair one one one one run losses for them. A lot of star power. So I'm picking them on the on the one side and I think probably Texas at this point, they finally lost a game last weekend Ole Miss won the series and that's just another team that can beat you in so many ways. Really strong starting pitching, deep bullpen. A lot of ways to score offensively, they can slug, they can sacrifice and play some small ball if they need to. Two teams that are pretty familiar to Omaha in recent years, too. So I'm giving me the the Bruins and Longhorns.

3:09All right. So big 10 team here. It's a good segue to the Husker minute, the Husker baseball minute here at the World Herald, Evan Bland and Ben Doody. We do this every week. Nebraska coming off a 9-0 homestand. Evan, would you make of the homestay and including some drama against the main black bears down in Lincoln? Would you make it up? You know, we talked about it last week or I've been like this was a take care of business sort of homestand. Boy, did they ever go in 9-0? You have three walkoffs in there. You have a couple of lopsided victories as well and you know, the season to this point has been segmented where those first three weekends are about how many big wins can you grab and then this last stretch has been how many potholes can you avoid when you talk about building that postseason resume and they avoid it all of them at home and you go 9-0. The starting pitching looked good. The offense did enough in stretches. The defense has been solid. I think they found a few more pieces in the bullpen that they feel like they can trust

4:10moving forward and so that's what you want. You want to stack wins going into conference play as they will here this weekend. The rest of the way. I think they feel like they have a sense of who they can trust, who they are as a team and you know, one of the top winning streaks for Nebraska and the big ten era now at 9-0 heading on the road here for the next week plus. Any future major leaders on the team, Evan? You know, I think Carson Yassa could be a guy who if the command comes together has the potential. He's got that mid to upper 90s velocity. He has what he calls kind of a slider curve hybrid pitch that really confounds hitters and that's actually the pitch that he commands the best. So that's really been the thing for him has always been the command piece, the ability, the velocity is there. The build certainly he's a taller guy with a frame I think that can even build out a little bit more. So he's probably the guy that I would say in the lineup is that way.

5:12I don't know that there's an obvious guy on the batting side necessarily but I do think on the pitching side they have a chance for if you guys tie horn potentially could pan out as a guy like that and then they have some younger pitchers too. I think Yassa is part of the clear prospect at this point. So let's get back to talking about the weather. It's going to be gorgeous here next weekend and then hopefully knock on wood no more 15-day degree days going down into the spring. So it's more opportunities for the Husker fan to show up at the ballpark and watch this team. So this audience here would include me because I haven't gotten out of a game yet and I'd like to. If you're a Husker follower or Husker fan you want to make a trip down the ballpark but you're busy and you got to figure out when to do it and how to do it. Give me a couple opportunities next couple months where you say the fan has to get to the ballpark to see this particular game or this particular series. Well I'll give you one this week that this

6:13is sort of a world's colliding thing. Wednesday Nebraska is playing at Wichita State at 2 p.m. So if you're going down for March Madness in Oklahoma City it's a four hour drive straight down highway 81. You can stop at Wichita watching Nebraska play it too then continue on to Wichita that night and you're all ready to go for tip off Thursday morning. So I think that's a two for one that you can look at for sure. And then Nebraska's they're not home again till the end of the month. Indiana comes to town. They've been sort of a quasi contender in the big 10 the last few years. Of course their Saturday game coincides with the spring game. So that traditionally is is it's most crowded game a lot of walk up attendance for that one. So I would expect especially that Saturday game. If the weather's good for there to be you know six seven thousand people maybe more depending on how things go. Really the month of April is the one to me Nebraska has some pretty marquee opponents coming in Penn State. I think they'll finish toward the top of the league.

7:14They come in in early April and you've got USC which has one of the best pitching staffs in the country toward the middle of April. They're coming in to Haymarket Park with that uniform and their tradition in the sport. That'll be a pretty cool thing too. And of course you have the the games with Creighton too both in Lincoln and in Omaha depending on where you're coming from and you want to save a few miles on the car. Those are always pretty contested games too especially with the new coaching staff in place for Creighton. So I think a lot of a lot of chances the weather's going to get better here. We're not talking about real feel or or flurries or anything like that should be good. That recommendation to go to the Wichita State game is absolutely tremendous. How many people do you think will do that? I can see it in a fairly significant number do you think? I mean it's got the potential you're going down anyway on Wednesday. So like you either go all the way and get to KC and do the brick town thing which is cool absolutely or you just have a bit stop for a few hours and stretch your legs and X stadium there in Wichita is a pretty cool

8:15facility kind of has shades of the old rose and black stadium a little bit in terms of how it's laid out and the color of the chairs and things like that. So I mean why not pull over it's it's literally right off the highway on your way south if you're going to Oklahoma City stretch your legs grab a dog you don't follow Nebraska and then hop back in the car and do the basketball thing the next day. Why not? I'm just smiling here to here because baseball as you know Evan is about storytelling and it's about the color of the chairs and the the smell of the sausages outside the stadium and the sight lines and the history and all that you just teed up just a pretty gorgeous picture. So you heard it here go to the Nebraska Wichita State game on Wednesday on your way to okay see uh let's get you out you got to do a basketball pick here um Nebraska 13 and a half or so favorite against Troy analytics models have Nebraska around 90% or a little bit more to win the game you think the Huskers get the monkey off their back Thursday afternoon okay see.

9:16Yeah I think so you know they're do you work all all this season to be a seed as high as Nebraska is and I do think the matchups not a perfect one in the sense that it does seem like Troy has some size especially in its front court they're going to play some physical defense offensive rebounding is one of their strengths and as we know that's not been a huge asset for Nebraska it's clear in the boards so I don't know that they're going to cover the 13 and a half necessarily I think Nebraska win I'll be fascinated to see what kind of atmosphere the crowd brings and I do think even though you've been talking about it all year man just the the moment of getting that monkey off your back you're going to feel some some nerves there so can Nebraska make some shots can they do what they do and sort of put the historical context to the moment aside I think they'll do it well enough they have an old enough team that they can rely on that I think they'll get it done but I think it'll be a gain well into the second half I'm just prepared to be nervous and you know you've got here's a little little advice I'll come in from New England I've had a probably more of basketball

10:22winning viewership experiences than folks out here the I can give you a million examples here Evan I'll give you a recent one the 2023 Yukon championship team was losing to Iona in the first game of that of that tournament 413 with Rick Patino coaching Iona Yukon sweating that against Iona as a 13 seed so the point being these teams even with deep runs you may feel nervous okay so just just keep that in mind if you're down for three minutes into the second half just retain your composure retain your composure all right any any other parting thoughts on the basketball front just ready for the madness man it's early on on Thursday so it does set the tone and you know I think Nebraska fans with this program for years you're always waiting for the other shoot a drop I hope that this is a moment that they can just enjoy and take in I know they are going to have a probably a strong traveling contingent down there I'm sure the atmosphere is going to be electric

11:26and see if they can extend that visit into Saturday and potentially beyond could be a really special weekend all right you heard it here he's Evan and I'm Ben we'll see you soon on the pick six pod the world arrow then the Oscar baseball minute every day the world gets a little weirder and a lot more awesome cool stuff daily takes a look at everything from mining in space to the latest in the fight against cancer to how AI is basically changing everything it's all the cool stuff you didn't know you need it to know join us for cool stuff daily as we take a quick look at science tech and the wait what stories that make you sound way smarter at dinner subscribe to cool stuff daily now because the future is happening fast and it's way too fun to miss