Wednesday, May 30, 2007

This is Ray Tanner and these are his boomsticks.

We're stuck in a regional with the two most homer-happy teams in the country.






I took the above from the NCAA's website, which hasn't updated its stats since the 20th. In the meantime, Wofford has surpassed South Carolina in total HRs hit and now leads the nation with 106.

The sluggers doing most of the damage for USC:
                  Avg     OBP     SLG     ISO    HR
James Darnell .338 .452 .639 .301 18
Travis Jones .326 .419 .623 .297 18
Justin Smoak .304 .417 .588 .284 18
Phil Disher .335 .419 .613 .278 14
For Wofford:
                   Avg     OBP     SLG     ISO    HR
Brandon Waring .405 .520 .870 .465 27
John Brandt .304 .384 .584 .280 14
Shane Kirkley .317 .387 .588 .271 16
Mike Gilmartin .324 .376 .517 .193 13
Waring, I can only assume, stands fifteen feet tall and uses a tree trunk for a bat. Unfortunately for the Terriers--and it's the reason they're merely a .500 team despite having a Greek god in the lineup--they can't pitch.

In conference play, Wofford opponents hit .336/.436/.544 and scored 10.4 runs per game. And the Terriers didn't exactly face a tough slate; the So Con rates as the 10th-best conference in the nation according to RPI. This is how Wofford fared against Western Carolina, the league's best team:

L, 12-26
L, 3-21
L, 1-14

South Carolina is totally going to whale on these guys.

As for how NC State and Charlotte stack up...
         Avg     OBP     SLG     OPS     ISO     HR
Woff .304 .381 .521 .902 .217 106
USC .300 .391 .510 .901 .210 104
UNCC .320 .390 .464 .854 .144 32
NCSU .301 .399 .451 .850 .150 50
The Wolfpack and the 49ers collectively have two players with double digit home runs.