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The Roost Podcast | Ep 174 – ’24 UAB Preview with Evan Dudley

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The Roost Podcast is kicking off AAC opponent previews. Up first: Evan Dudley of Al.com previews UAB football in 2024.

The Rice football season will be here before we know it. Now we begin the long road back to the fall, previewing all of the Owls’ 2024 opponents on the gridiron, including a once familiar foe that wasn’t on the Rice schedule last season: UAB. Longtime friend of the show Evan Dudley joins us to talk about what’s been going on with the Blazers since, the Trent Dilfer experience and more.

You can find previous episodes on the podcast page. For now, give a listen to Episode 174.

Episode Notes

DCTF

The Roost Podcast is now part of the Dave Campbell’s Republic of Football Podcast Network. You’ll still get the same content with the same hosts, but now under the DCTF banner.

Homefield

We’re thrilled to partner with Homefield Apparel, the premier proprietor of college football clothing. First-time buyers can use the code ROOST for 15% off their order. The Owls hoodie is a personal favorite. So is the brand new Luv-Ya-Owls shirt. Shop the Rice collection or pick up something else (or both)!

Homefield

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Previewing 2024 UAB Football with Evan Dudley

  •  Year 1 under Trent Dilfer
  • Expectations and level setting for this new era of Blazers’ football
  • Jacob Zeno returns
  • Offensive playmakers
  • Defensive growth questions
  • How the Transfer Portal has impacted AAC programs
  • The outlook for the program moving forward
  • The Lightning Round

Where can you find us?

The Roost Podcast is part of the Dave Campbell’s Republic of Football Podcast Network. You can find this podcast and all of our partner podcasts on Apple, Spotify and wherever you get your podcasts.

Subscribe on Patreon for exclusive Rice football recruiting updates, practice notes and more.

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AAC Baseball sends ECU, Tulane NCAA Tournament

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AAC Baseball will have two representatives in the 2024 NCAA Tournament, regular season champ ECU and tournament champ Wichita State.

East Carolina

East Carolina was a force throughout the 2024 AAC Baseball season, impressing in nonconference play and following it up with a top finish in the league. Injuries saw them stumble a bit down the stretch, but the Pirates have a shot to make some noise with several of those key players expected to make their return for the NCAA Tournament.

The Pirates will host their regional as the No. 1 seed. Joining them in Greenville is their first opponent, No. 4 Seed Evansville, as well as  No. 2 Seed Wake Forest and No. 3 Seed VCU.

This is ECU’s sixth time hosting at Clark-LeClair Stadium and the Pirates’ 34th  appearance in the NCAA Tournament. They’ve qualified for regional play eight times in 10 years under head coach Cliff Godwin.

The Greenville Regional is paired with the Knoxville Regional, home of No. 1 National Seed, Tennessee.

Tulane

Tulane secured automatic entrance to the NCAA Tournament field by virtue of their AAC Baseball Tournament championship, their second tournament title in as many seasons after taking home the trophy last season as well. This is Tulane’s 10th conference tournament title and their 23rd appearance in the NCAA Tournament.

The Green Wave are the No. 4 Seed in the Corvallis Regional, home of host Oregon State, the No. 15 overall seed in the tournament. Also in the field are No. 2 Seed UC-Irvine and No. 3 Seed Nicholls.

Tulane has met two of its regional members on the diamond already this year. The Green Wave were swept in New Orleans by UC Irvine and won a pair of midweek games against Nicholls earlier in the season, one at home and one on the road.

The Corvallis Regional is paired with the Lexington Regional, home of No. 2 Seed, Kentucky.

NCAA Tournament Bracket

Elsewhere in the AAC

South Florida has made a coaching change, dismissing Billy Mohl after seven seasons with the Bulls. USF was one of two teams, the other Memphis, who failed to reach the AAC Baseball Tournament, falling in their final game of the season to UAB and ending up on the wrong side of the bubble. USF is the only program to have made a coaching change at this time.

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Rice Baseball squanders late lead, falling to ECU in AAC Tournament

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Rice Baseball started strong before everything went wrong in a disastrous 12-run eighth inning that sent the Owls from an upset bid to an elimination game.

Days removed from a disastrous one-inning start, perhaps his worst of the season, Rice baseball hurler JD McCracken delivered an incredible bounce-back performance. On an afternoon when his team desperately needed him to deliver, the Owls’ typical Saturday starter tossed six shutout innings, allowing just two hits, neither of which left the infield.

“They didn’t really get a chance to see him last time we faced them,” head coach Jose Cruz Jr. said of McCracken’s big day. “He had some really good bullpens after that and we thought he was the best matchup for them and he proved us right. He pitched great, man. He was very competitive, tough, on a really good hitting team and he held them down pretty ferociously.”

Thanks to McCracken, through seven innings, everything was going right for the underdogs. A Rice team that was outscored 29-11 in three games this past weekend in Greenville, to that point, played strong defense, committed zero errors, and executed just well enough on offense to spot them a 4-0 lead midway through the eighth inning. That’s when disaster struck.

Kyte McDonald lost a ball in the sun which resulted in a leadoff triple. ECU loaded the bases and proceeded to take the lead on three consecutive bloop singles, which landed just past the heads of the Owls’ infielders. There was a botched double play ball. Nothing was hit hard off ace reliever Davion Hickson, but ECU just kept coming. McDonald lost another ball in the sun a few batters later before the Pirates eventually broke the game open with a bases-loaded triple off Tom Vincent.

“I haven’t really been a part of anything quite like it,” Cruz said of the decisive eighth inning. “It just seemed like it was just one thing after another after another. A couple plays that we should have executed that probably would have changed the entire inning early on and we just didn’t get it done.”

Trailing 4-0, ECU had scored 12 unanswered runs, tattering the boxscore of the Owls’ best relief pitchers and ruining what began as a storybook afternoon for Rice baseball.

“Ultimately there’s 27 outs and we were just a little short there at the end.”

The 12-run eighth-inning implosion exacerbated what had been a 1-for-11 outing with runners in scoring position for Rice hitters with 11 runners left on base. An ineffective offensive day combined with a bad inning to end all bad innings sent the Owls to the loser’s bracket. The next time they play, tomorrow against UAB, their season will be on the line.

More: Parker Smith’s journey from hometown kid to Rice Baseball ace

Cruz will turn to Parker Smith to start that elimination game. “He’s been our ace the entire year, for a couple years, really. He’s going to be ready to go and I’m sure he’s going to be chomping at the bit to get out there,” Cruz said.

“It stinks at the moment, but we got to try and shake it off and be as prepared as possible for tomorrow.”

Up Next: vs 5-Seed UAB – Wednesday, May 22 at 12:00 p.m. CT

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2024 American Conference Baseball Tournament: Preview, schedule, how to watch

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The American Conference Baseball Tournament is set to begin in Clearwater, FL. Here’s how to watch and what to be looking for this week.

The final weekend of regular season play saw teams jockeying for position, but now the American Conference Baseball Tournament field is finally set. The top eight squads will square off with hopes of an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament and their chance to play for a trip to the College World Series. The bottom two teams in the standings: Memphis and South Florida, will be watching from home with all six of the former C-USA additions reaching their inaugural AAC Tournament field.

All games will be streamed on ESPN+ with the exception of the tournament championship, available on ESPN News. The tournament runs from Tuesday, May 21 to Sunday, May 26. The full schedule and updated bracket are available on the American Conference Baseball Tournament website.

Assessing the field

The favorite | East Carolina has been the most complete team in this conference from start to finish. The only ranked squad, the Pirates are the clear frontrunners and boast the ability to beat teams with their arms and their bats.

The contender | UTSA didn’t finish far behind ECU in the conference standings and won the head-to-head series with the Pirates earlier this season. The Roadrunners are talented, albeit inconsistent. When they’re at their best they’re hard to beat.

The dark horse | A team with a couple of quality starters can make a run in tournament play. In this league, UAB gits the bill. Both Blazye Berry and Colin Daniel boast top five ERAs in the conference. If they start hot and make the winners bracket, UAB will have a shot.

The wild card | Tulane has the ability to bludgeon opponents with their bats. The Green Wave led the league with 80 hores and finished second in slugging percentage. If they can cut down on strikeouts and run into a few pitches, they have the tools to pull off an upset or two.

The bracket

The opening day of games will take place on Tuesday, May 21:

Game 1 – 9:00 AM | (5) UAB vs (4) Wichita State

Game 2 – approx. 12:30 PM | (1) ECU vs (8) Rice

Game 3 – 4:00 PM | (7) Charlotte vs (2) UTSA

Game 4 – approx. 7:30 PM | (6) FAU vs (3) Tulane

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AAC Baseball: Lots on the line in final weekend

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Every team is alive in the AAC Baseball conference tournament hunt and the regular season title remains up for grabs in the final weekend of the season.

SCHOOL CONF OVERALL NEXT

Notable storylines results

1. Pirates and Roadrunners and the battle for first place

Things couldn’t be much closer at the top of the conference.  UTSA has a one game leader over UTSA, but the Roadrunners took the conference series over the Pirates, giving them the tiebreaker. If ECU sweeps Rice, they take the conference crown. If they fail to win three more, that opens the door for UTSA and other possible permutations. ECU has lost four straight AAC games entering the final weekend.

2. Memphis a longshot

Memphis does have two series wins, but one of them (over Tulane) is irrelevant because of how far ahead the Green Wave are over the Tigers in the standings. The head to head over Rice might be pivotal, though, depending on how these next three games go. They have be far the most tenuous path to the postseason and would need help, most likely from Rice and USF, to advance to Clearwater.

3. Who has tiebreakers over who?

As this league has already seen in men’s and women’s basketball in recent months, tiebreakers get extremely complicated when we’ve got three or four (or even more) teams tied with identical records. From there, the tiebreaker rules stipulated best records in the tied pair and get more complicated from there.

Rather than try and spell out every scenario — that’s a lot to type — here’s a brief rundown of the series each team has won this year. Read this as the team before the parenthesis has the head-to-head tiebreaker over the subsequent teams.

ECU: UAB, FAU, Charlotte, Wichita State, Memphis, USF
UTSA: ECU, Tulane, Charlotte, Memphis, UAB, USF
Tulane: USF, FAU, Wichita State, ECU
Wichita State: UAB, Rice, FAU, UTSA, Charlotte
FAU: Charlotte, Memphis, USF
UAB: Tulane, Charlotte, FAU, Memphis
Charlotte: USF, Memphis, Rice
Rice: UAB, USF, UTSA, FAU
USF: Memphis, Wichita State
Memphis: Rice, Tulane

4. Series to watch

Rice at ECU and UTSA at FAU are both fascinating matchups. One side of the pairing is playing for their postseason lives. The other can win the league outright if things go well. Then add the extra dynamic of Rice owning the head-to-head tiebreaker over FAU, taking two of three from the other Owls this past weekend.

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