‘Pre-mortem’ season begins for Indiana baseball as critical offseason awaits for a program looking for a breakthrough

Indiana baseball was ‘dead in the water’ midway through the season as it dealt with injuries, inconsistent play and underwhelming performances. Postseason play was the last thing on the mind of head coach Jeff Mercer. Albeit a talented roster, IU was well on the outside looking in when it came to Big Ten and NCAA Tournament chances.

Then, everything changed in the matter of a few games and spearheaded a late season run that Mercer and the rest of the Indiana baseball team won’t forget.

“They didn’t cave. They didn’t quit. They didn’t back down, and they fought through and persevered,” Mercer said following IU’s season-ending loss in the Knoxville Regional. “We had to thread the needle almost perfectly the last two months, and we did. We put ourselves in a position to compete on the biggest stage.”

Indiana not only needed some significant wins late in the season to make the NCAA Tournament, it needed a near Big Ten tournament championship in order to make the field. A semifinal run for the Hoosiers led to its spot in the NCAA Tournament, a spot that nobody thought they’d be in just weeks prior.

The perseverance is what Mercer will remember most from this group.

“Each team has its own experience and highs and lows. Every team goes through that,” Mercer said. “I think the thing that I’ll remember the most, is we were dead in the water there about a month or six weeks into the season. We were in a tough spot.

” … They’re a resilient tough group that refused to quit. They understood the standards and the expectations of the program, and then upheld those every day. The best you can do is the best you can do. Those guys did it every day. I am very proud of that.”

That standard led them to the Knoxville Regional where they jumped out to a terrific start, blasting Southern Miss in the tournament-opener. That led to a matchup against No. 1 Tennessee — a game in which IU hung in and showed its toughness, falling a bit short.

Then, an elimination game against Southern Miss just 48 hours after its opening-win, turned the season on its side and put a sour end to a terrific late-season run.

“The last two days were disappointing, but that doesn’t take away from what they did in totality,” Mercer said.

“I know it didn’t go our way. Sometimes, and I guess not sometimes, the best things in life are the hardest things. When you look at how hard it was at times and how we persevered through those things, that’s what I’ll remember the most. It’s easy when it all goes right. It’s easy when it all goes smooth. It’s easy when you’re healthy and everything goes right, and you win every game and every close game. If the ball always bounces your way, it’s a lot harder to get back up and continue to fight. That’s what this group did, and that’s what I am very proud of.”

Indiana baseball finished the year 33-26-1 and reached postseason play for the fifth time in the last seven seasons.

“It’s a long journey,” Mercer said. “Sixty games is a long time … You have to get back out and go to work. We have to do a better job to compete in the environment. I think that has a lot to do with it. You have to be able to be confident and handle the environment as it elevates around you.”

That environment in postseason play, while not new for Indiana baseball, is a hump that has been difficult for the Hoosiers to get over. Indiana hasn’t made it out of a regional since its historic season in 2013 that resulted in a spot in the College World Series.

“Trying to create more and more environment-based training,” said Mercer of the next steps this offseason. “Difficult games in your offseason, difficult training environments, whether you’re using the machines or whatever else it is. Trying to replicate that more often will be a main focal point going forward, and it has been, but you’re always trying to refine that.”

It’s an important next few months as the next time Indiana baseball takes the diamond, the Big Ten will look entirely different and the talent level in the league will make every game just that much more difficult and critical.

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