Not much to say entering the make-or-break game of the season. I was interested that Baseball America projected Tulane as a 3 seed in a regional if it beats ECU, which would make a huge difference, but I'm skeptical. I follow the selection process pretty closely even when Tulane is not involved, and the committee usually pays slavish adherence to the RPI. Tulane will have one of the 16 worst RPIs even with the boost into the top 100 it would get by beating ECU.

Here are the quotes from yesterday that are relevant:

JAY UHMLAN

On Carter Benbrook:

"He was unbelievable, but the unbelievable part is believable for us because that's what we see every day since the time he stepped foot on our campus. We feel great when he's in the game, and he was tremendous, and then of course Mont, yeoman's work. He gets out there and slams the door still throwing 94. Offensively we grinded and really made it tough on their guys. Once again we got clutch hits. Tanner Chun's big hit in the six hole to score two was gigantic. That's what you've got to get in these kinds of things. Just really proud of the effort, resiliency and resolve of this club."

On pitching and Anthony Izzio:

"As much as people want to badmouth our pitching (Tulane had the third-worst ERA in school history, better than only 1990 and 2023) and our pitching coach, coach Izzio's done a tremendous job for three years here. We're not putting out first-rounders sans maybe Michael Lombardi if he gets that opportunity. We run a bunch of guys out that compete their butts off. He calls every pitch. He makes every pitching change, so he deserves all the credit for the things when they go good. I'll take the blame when it's not good, and that's just how it works. He's done an unbelievable job with his pitching staff and this program in the three years he's been here. It's actually three-and-a-half years. He was the outfield coach in 2020. Without his contributions with our pitching staff, we wouldn't be in this position. Him and his pitchers held one of the top six offenses in the country at bay for two straight games, and I don't think anybody else has beaten them three times this season, so my hat's off to coach Izz, coach (Frankie) Niemann and our pitching staff. They were unbelievable."

On today:

"It's all hands on deck. If somebody comes to us and they're not prepared to pitch physically, we're not interested in side-tracking somebody or getting them hurt for short-term satisfaction. If they tell us they're good to go, then we'll respect that and we'll provide that opportunity, but we're always going to take care of our players first."

On Lombardi's availability:

"We'll see. We'll about that. 105 pitches is the most he's thrown in his career. We've got to be the adults, so we'll manage that and communicate well. There's a high level of trust amongst us, so we'll figure that out going into tomorrow."

On why Clearwater is so good for team:

"First, we've got one more game to go, so we are going to be focused just on that. We haven't done anything yet. We haven't accomplished anything. We've put ourselves in a position to get what we want, but that doesn't guarantee you anything. It's always about the next opportunity. I wish I could just tell you it's some magic potion or pill or some New Orleans voodoo, but it's not. I don't know. When we show up, I want our guys to enjoy the atmosphere--Clearwater, the Phillies' stadium, the people that work in it. The people that come with the conference for this tournament are all first class. They are tremendous supporters of baseball and they make it really easy to show up every day. You always are going to be taken care of, but for our guys, I tell them go on the beach. I'm not trying to lock them in a room and tell them they can't go out. What I do every single year is if this is what you say you want, which is winning a conference championship and winning a conference tournament because that's the only automatic way of earning your way into the NCAA tournament, I just gently remind them that if this is what you say you want, there are going to be some things you have to discipline yourself to do. I don't set a real curfew. Maybe it's 11 or 12 on the road depending on the time of the next day's game. The only thing I tell them is try to stay out of this heat and the water, pool included, from 12 to 3, and before and after that, if they want to go out there and enjoy that, I'm all for it. I don't try to catch them being bad or any of those things. I treat them like grownups. They deserve that. They earn that, and frankly if they don't take advantage of that and abuse that opportunity, I'll send them home, but I believe in the player, I believe in their attitudes, I believe in that this is what they really want. There's just something about the postseason where you don't have 20 games left in the season. This is it, and so the level of focus that you're able to expend in this time frame, you can empty your tank each and every day mostly because we get a day off. It's always about the players and their focus and their intent and their attitudes."

CARTER BENBROOK

On Uhlman trusting guys:

"He's the best. We've got an amazing staff here. It's rare to find an entire staff that really cares about the players and cares about more than just the number on their back and the stats that they put up on the field. It's a special place here, and I love being here. It's an incredible experience, but it's not over yet."

On Clearwater magic:

"We believe in each other. We believe in the work that we put in. Past years guys have been so successful here. We just play for each other and we all want it so bad. This is showing how well we can play. It's just a special group of guys that love playing with each other."

ECU COACH CLIFF GODWIN

On Tulane matchup:

"Well obviously Jay's got the recipe to get to the championship game, so maybe I need to talk to him to get some pointers for sure. They are very confident when they come to this tournament. There's a lot of guys who have been here before on Tulane's team, so we'll have our hands full tomorrow, but we're just excited that we'll get an opportunity to compete for a championship."

I've gotten some grief for saying Tayler Montiel had a really good year, but he proved my point yesterday with a masterpiece out the bullpen when it looked like Tulane was about to lose a must-win game in the AAC tournament. His stuff is legit, and after a very shaky performance closing out FAU on Tuesday, he was sensational yesterday, getting a double play (with the help of an interference call) when it was absolutely needed right after he entered, retiring the AAC player of the year for the first out of the next inning and then striking out four in a row. He extended the streak to eight outs before giving up a couple of base-runners in the 9th, but unlike Tuesday, when it really felt like the Wave was in trouble, he coaxed a weak grounder to Connor Rasmussen to preserve the 10-6 victory.

It feels like Tulane does whatever it takes to win in Clearwater, and yesterday it was a bizarre power surge, with a season-high five home runs, including four that were mammoth shots. That is not explainable, but this team clearly plays with tremendous confidence at BayCare Ballpark. Plus, the defense was immaculate.

The concern is who will pitch Saturday. My guess is Blaise Wilcenski will start the morning game, with Will Clements available for quick relief and then hope and prayer after that. If Tulane loses, I would expect Trey Cehajic to start the second game. He threw only 15 pitches yesterday.

Here is what was said in the Zoom interviews after another terrific performance:

UTSA COACH PAT HALLMARK

"Tulane was really good and we were kind of mediocre to not very good."

On Tulane hitting good pitches:

"We threw bad pitches. We didn't walk them, which is our first goal, but we threw bad pitches. We threw some terrible pitches. 0-2 pitches got us in trouble again (James Agabedis' first home run was the only one on an 0-2 count). Yeah, we threw some bad pitches. We always try to not get beat by the walk. We didn't get beat by the walk, but we didn't throw enough good pitches."

On offense:

"The offense was OK. It was decent. It can be better, but it was decent."

On starter Zach Royse:

"He didn't make pitches when he needed to. He didn't pitch bad. He got ahead 0-2 and got beaten 0-2 multiple times. It keeps happening, It's frustrating. You're not going to beat good people when you throw 0-2 pitches over the plate, and Tulane's good, and we keep doing it. This is not the first game it's happened. The second half of the season it's been a little bit of an Achilles heel. I don't see adjustments being made when adjustments need to be made. We need to be better as coaches, too."

On Montiel:

"He's good. He's been doing that all year. If you look at his numbers he doesn't get hit. it's well less than a hit an inning. Nobody hits him. He's got that fastball that moves a little bit, and he hides the ball and he throws hard. I did not expect to hit him real good, but I did expect with the game tied or one run that anything is possible, obviously with our team. But the two-run home run after the solo home run hurt us a little bit. That was a bad call. We called a high fastball to a high fastball hitter. Our catches call the pitches. We're one of the few teams in the country that let the catchers call the pitches, and they do a great job with that. We just happened to make a mistake there. And it's Rob (Orloski)'s best pitch, so I know why (Andrew) Stucky called it. He called his pitcher's best pitch. I don't know that it's a mistake, but Wachs is a good high fastball hitter, and that's what the report is. But I'm more frustrated with the pitches early in the game where we get ahead of people and we throw stupid pitches right down the middle."

JAY UHLMAN

"Tremendous victory against a really well coached, tough team. Just a gritty, gutty effort by us. Fladda did a tremendous job getting us off to a really good start. We had a baton pass there, went for it with Cehajic and sometimes things work out, sometimes they don't, and then we passed the ball on to Tayler and what a gutty performance by him. He emptied his tank. And then offensively we just kept pressure on them with some two-out RBIs and some big homers and a lot of individual performances, great defense. It was a really complete effort by our club to beat a really good 40-plus win UTSA team. I have tremendous respect for how they go about it. They are a tough team."

On if home runs surprised him:

"Not that it surprises you, but when you have far more doubles than you do homers. In years past we had 98 homers and 87 homers or something like that. That was always part of the play. But in Clearwater when the prevailing wind is that way, if you just square up a ball and gets some backspin on it, it's got a chance to go. I'm not surprised, but it certainly has not been the cowbell of our offense."

On Agabedis hitting two homers:

"They were huge, and he's done it here before. His freshman year he smashed a big homer. He had one off of (former ECU star pitcher Tre) Yesavage at our place. His homers have been few and far between, but they've been really important ones. The game rewards guys like him. He works his butt off. He's patient. He waits his turn. He's a great teammate. The game loves players like him, so I'm not surprised by his success. It's the kid that he is and the person that he is. It's awesome that he gets rewarded that way, and he deserves that."

On getting leadoff hitter out in eight of nine innings (gave up three runs the one time he got on):

"Yeah, it was huge. We got the double play to end it with (Mason) Lytle sitting on deck. That was a ginormous part of the game for us to get out of that and get off the field tied with that double play with him on deck. Just huge. That's one of the criteria we always talk about--six or more leadoff guys off base--and we did that. When you keep a team like that that is one of the top offenses in the country, hat's off to our pitching and our defense. Those guys did a tremendous job."

On why Tulane keeps playing well in Clearwater:

"I would like to think of that as a body of work. It doesn't always work out the way we wanted it work out in terms of wins, but we teach through the wins, we teach through the losses, we teach through the tough times. Our guys believe. We're like families. We have arguments and fights and disagreements. I don't give everybody what they want all the time and that's a hard pill to swallow, but the body of work as you go through a season, the trust that even in times when they don't get what they want, that we're doing everything we can the right way is really important. We're not running our guys out there for 120 pitches every single game, the whole 14 weeks of the season. Case in point, Lombardi yesterday was fresh and ready to go. We didn't put our self interests and our egos in front of our players' needs. It's never about us. It's always about our players, and again, we don't always get what we want in terms of the volume of wins, but the body of work with how we do it internally that nobody else can see, how we go about our business allows us to put ourselves in position here. Our guys are just ready to play. They feel good about being here."

On what said before the game:

"It wasn't some super rah rah speech. It was just a lot of truisms and things I wanted to see them do. Nothing super special. It's always the players that go out and do those things."

Tulane is going with Luc Fladda tomorrow against UTSA. I was not sure which direction they would go in the unappetizing choice between Fladda and Trey Cehajic to face by far the best hitting team in the AAC. Cehajic fared better in San Antonio than Fladda, but I think they believe Fladda is more capable of exceeding his normal level in a big setting that Cehajic and will not beat himself. I agree, but I'm not sure either one of them is good enough to give the Wave a good chance to win. Fladda has been crushed this year, giving up 91 hits in 71.2 innings, including a whopping 20 doubles and 12 home runs. The way the ball carries at BayCare Ballpark, that spells trouble.

Tulane will need to score early and often against a right-handed pitcher, Zach Royse, who is so-so. He gave up four runs on seven hits in six innings while opposing Fladda, who allowed seven runs on seven hits in five innings at UTSA (he was reasonably OK until the 6th, when he did not get an out).

What Tulane has going it for it is the knowledge it already has beaten UTSA once, joining Incarnate Word as the only teams to win on the Roadrunners' home field all year, and its incredibly run over three years in Clearwater. This is the highest hurdle the Wave will have to clear, though.