Iowa Baseball: Big Ten Tournament Primer

The Iowa Baseball team will head to the Big Ten Tournament this week and under Rick Heller it has become a yearly trip for the Hawkeyes. The program appeared in the tournament just one time in the last six seasons under Jack Dahm, but has appeared in it all seven times years that it has been held under Heller.

This season, the Hawkeyes head to the tournament feeling as comfortable as they’ve felt about their NCAA Tournament chances since the 2015 season. They have a 39-13 record with a #32 RPI ranking and earned the #3 seed in the tournament.

1. The opening matchup – Michigan Wolverines

The Wolverines enter the tournament with a 26-26 record and are on the verge of missing the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2018. They finished with a 13-11 record in Big Ten play and enter the week as the #6 seed. Still, many players from last seasons tournament championship team are on this year’s squad

Their offense ranks 11th in the Big Ten in batting average, runs scored, hits and walks, while they have struck out the 4th most times. Still, there are a couple of names to be aware of.

2B Ted Burton- The most dangerous hitter in the lineup, Ted Burton leads the team with 13 doubles, 13 home runs and 42 RBI’s. He is second on the team with 29 walks, but does lead the team with 51 strikeouts. Burton will make the outfield work, as 54% of his balls in play are fly balls.

OF Jonathan Kim– The true freshman out of Brookfield, WI is the top hitter on the team in terms of average. He is batting .331 and has a .418 average on balls in play. Kim has 33 strikeouts to just 11 walks and has put the ball in play in 69.5% of his at-bats.

SS Cody Jefferis- The Wolverines leadoff man does what every coach wants from his #1 guy. He gets on base. Jefferis is batting just .285, but a team-leading 42 walks/hbp gives him a .406 on-base percentage. He is tied for the team lead in doubles with 13 and leads the team with 15 stolen bases.

Projected Pitching Matchup- RHP Marcus Morgan vs LHP Connor O’Halloran

This will be a really fun pitching matchup to kick off the tournament. After working through some things in the non-conference portion of the season, Marcus Morgan has turn it on against Big Ten teams. He leads the conference in five categories, including ERA (2.67), hits allowed (16), runs allowed (10) and opponent average (.150).

He will be going up against veteran lefthander Connor O’Halloran. Over 97.0 innings this season, he has a 3.43 ERA, as well as 103 strikeouts to just 23 walks. He is allowing just 0.81 hits per inning and averages 6.1 innings per outing. Last season in two matchups against the Hawkeyes, O’Halloran allowed zero earned runs over 11.0 innings and allowed just seven hits.

The pitching staff as a whole ranks 8th in ERA, 7th in hits allowed, 6th in walks, 9th in strikeouts and 8th in opponent batting average. Mitch Voit has a 3.26 ERA in 30.1 innings over 18 apperances this season.

2. Iowa is the best team in their half of the bracket

Yes, their half includes Indiana, but the Iowa Hawkeyes are the best team in their half of the Big Ten Tournament bracket. Sure, they lost the series earlier in the year in Bloomington, but the pitching staff dominated the Hoosiers lineup. They allowed just seven runs on 23 hits over three games and racked up 27 strikeouts.

The Hawkeyes won the series opener in dominating fashion 7-1, but dropped the final two on the weekend. However, it took the Iowa offense going 4/34 with runners in scoring position for it to happen and still, they only lost 2-0 and 4-2. Another important note, the Hoosiers have done quite a lot of damage at home. They are 26-4 in Bloomington, but just 10-12 against Q1-Q3 teams away from home.

The other two in the grouping, Michigan and Illinois, have played good baseball at times this season. However, they don’t match up on paper with the Hawkeyes or the Hoosiers. It would take an upset for someone other than Iowa or Indiana to make it to Sunday.

3. Game 1 is the most crucial game of the tournament

Last season, the Hawkeyes experienced first hand why winning the first game of the tournament is so important. They dropped the opener to Penn State and were forced to try to go the hard way through the loser’s bracket. Their valiant effort to run the gauntlet fell short in game two against Michigan in the semifinal.

The last 14 Big Ten Tournament champions won the first game of the week, while six of the last seven champions have not lost a game en route to the title.

“If you want to win the tournament, the first two (games) are so crucial. If you can win those first two, you’re sitting in a really good place and that’s the goal, to get to that point,” said head coach Rick Heller. “As coaches, you don’t really like to talk about that openly (with the team), but you’ve got to be very real with your team if we want to have a chance to win the tournament.”

If the Hawkeyes can defeat Michigan in the opener on Tuesday, it will set up the pitching staff well and allow the coaching staff too use their arms almost like a normal weekend. Iowa has a squad that is certainly capable of grabbing the auto-bid to the NCAA Tournament on Sunday afternoon, but winning game one is the most important step.

4. A look at Indiana and Illinois

The other matchup in the Hawkeyes group of four teams is between Indiana and Illinois. The Hoosiers come into the tournament as the two seed with a 40-16 record.

Offensively, they are in the top third of the Big Ten in almost category, including batting average (2nd), hits (2nd) and home runs (4th). They have five hitters batting over .300, including 1B Brock Tibbitts who is hitting .387 with 28 extra base hits and a .447 on-base percentage. True freshman OF Devin Taylor leads the team with 16 home runs.

The Hoosiers pitching staff has done a good job this season behind ace Luke Sinnard, who will give them a great shot at winning the opener. The staff as a whole ranks 2nd in strikeouts and 4th in ERA, but are 7th in walks and 10th in hits allowed.

As for the Illini, they enter the tournament with a 25-25 record and a 12-12 mark in Big Ten play. Interestingly enough, they match Iowa with 11 Q1/2 wins, but racked up 11 Q3/4 losses to go with it. Their offense is in the middle of the pack of the conference, but they do hit the ball out of the ballpark.

They have four players in double figures in home runs, including 1B Drake Westcott with 18, DH Jacob Schroeder with 15 and 3B Branden Comia with 12. Conversely, they are second in the conference in strikeouts and have six players with 40+ K’s.

Their pitching staff limits walks and ranks in the middle of conference in many categories, but allows teams to hit .278 overall. That ranks 11th in the conference.

5. Maryland is the favorite in the other half of the bracket

The other four team grouping in the tournament includes Maryland, Nebraska, Rutgers and Michigan State. The Terrapins have been rolling along at a crazy clip on the offense end, averaging 10.3 per game over their last 18 Big Ten games. As long as the pitching staff does a reasonable job of limiting opponents, Maryland will have a really good shot at playing on Sunday afternoon. They were 9-3 against the top five teams in the Big Ten this season.

The biggest threat to the Terps chances could be the #8 seed Michigan State. The Spartans just took 2/3 from Indiana to build some momentum going into this week. They also have an offense that could take advantage of a Maryland pitching staff that hasn’t been great as of late.