The Indiana baseball team starts its 2020 season with a three-game road trip to LSU to take on the top-15 Tigers.
The Hoosiers enter the 2020 season with high hopes after winning the regular-season Big Ten Championship in 2019. First-year head coach Jeff Mercer, who came over from Wright State, was able to lead the Hoosiers to the title and a regional berth. The season ended sooner than they would have liked, but it was still a great season overall.
They look to do more this year and even though they are picked to finish fourth in the conference still think they have the pieces to compete for another Big Ten crown.
It doesn’t start off easy for the Hoosiers as they travel to perennial power LSU for a three-game series. The Tigers are currently ranked 11th in the preseason poll and play in the ridiculously good SEC conference. LSU is where the Hoosiers hope to be in the future and playing them will only show them where they need to be. The Tigers have been to eight straight regionals and have only missed the postseason three times since 1989.
Playing at Skip Bertman Field on the campus of LSU can be very intimidating for the opposing team. The fans are rabid and it doesn’t hurt that LSU is always good. It will be a great measuring stick to see how good the Hoosiers are to start the season.
It is a no-lose situation for the Indiana baseball team. If they win they pull off a great upset, but if they lose they weren’t supposed to win anyway. They get all this and get to see how they stack up against one of the best programs in the country.
Mercer is no stranger to having his teams play some of the best in the country. His Wright State team went into Clemson and upset the Tigers a few years back. He isn’t going to let the Hoosiers go in scared or unprepared.
It is a great opportunity for the Hoosiers to get a taste of something great. It’s a three-game set that won’t kill their season but could definitely jump start it.
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