Louisville baseball's first year in ACC a history-making success
RALEIGH, N.C. -- Maybe it's the edge Louisville had entering the ACC -- its third sports league in three years -- knowing outsiders doubted whether the Cardinals could compete.
Maybe it's just the powerful program that Louisville head coach Dan McDonnell has built -- that was the word Vanderbilt head coach Tim Corbin used to describe it after an exciting midweek game between two top-10 teams last week. The same type of program as Vanderbilt, which has produced the likes of David Price -- not one seeking to get to that point.
On the same level.
With its first ACC regular season in the books, Louisville finished 25-5, setting a conference record for conference wins, an overall 42-14 record and ever-growing national respect.
Louisville (25-5) tore its way through ACC play, ending a dominant stretch in divisional play, putting great distance between the Cardinals and the next-closest teams in the Atlantic (Notre Dame and Florida State at 17-13).
The ACC has had a good, but far from dominant season to date. Eight of the top 40 RPI teams hail from the conference -- including four from the Atlantic. Still, Louisville won every series this year, including the final one against a desperate North Carolina State team that had won nine in a row entering the Wolfpack's final home stand.
It didn't matter.
The Cardinals took a tight Game 1 of the series with ace Kyle Funkhouser on the mound, and NC State won Game 2, fighting off a late Louisville rally.
In Game 3, Louisville got out to a big lead -- 5-1 -- before NC State clawed back for tying runs.
A hit by pitch, a double, a patiently earned walk and a sacrifice bunt later and Louisville had the lead back, taking all the air out of the crowd -- particularly when the Cardinals added two more insurance runs to go up 8-5 (the final score).
The Cardinals weren't leading entering the 9th, so they couldn't add to this statistic; but they've won 125 straight games when taking a lead into the ninth inning.
This marks the Cardinals' fourth straight 40-win season, along with their fourth straight league championship in three different leagues (Big East in 2012 and 2013, AAC in 2014 and ACC in 2015).
The ACC doesn't give out a regular season trophy, but it does let teams recognize division titles. Considering how dominant Louisville was throughout league play, though, it's pretty clear who the champions were.
McDonnell would argue that his team wasn't really dominant in league play, in spite of what the record says. That Sunday win is more evidence that he's right -- the final score indicates a somewhat comfortable three-run win, but it was anything but.
"I wouldn't say we roll," McDonnell told the Louisville Courier-Journal. "I think on the outside you look at it as we've rolled. We've won a lot of close games. That's a credit to our pitching, our defense and some timely hits. It's not like we're just running over people, physically just dominating teams."
And yet even if the games were close, Louisville has just kept winning them. No one shut out Louisville in 30 tries in ACC play, and they didn't lose a series, which is remarkable. Louisville started off this season 2-3, and went on a March run (a 16-3 record, its best March ever) to get to where they are now.
But he's right -- just six of Louisville's 25 ACC wins were by more than five runs, and 16 were by three runs or fewer. The Cardinals outscored ACC opponents by a total of 71 runs on the year, but their five losses came by 23 runs combined.
That's because Louisville has been remarkably consistent. College baseball is all about small ball, and this Louisville team is particularly equipped to play that game. There's not necessarily an overwhelmingly powerful hitter in the lineup, but the Cardinals have a ton of balance. Their top four hitters all hit .318 or better; there are only 22 players in the ACC that are hitting at least that mark.
Sophomore Corey Ray -- who made a huge leap between his freshman and sophomore seasons -- is third in the ACC in hits and ninth in slugging percentage, and he's one of nine ACC players with at least 11 home runs. He's also third in total bases with 129.
But as a team, Louisville is sixth in runs scored in the ACC. They get offense when and how they need it, and they can move runners on the base paths -- their 153 steal attempts lead the league, and they had more than 50 steal attempts than the next-closest ACC team. They led the league with 2.09 stolen bases per game, and they didn't strike out a ton -- third in fewest strikeouts per game (6.59).
Where they've been an elite team, though, is defensively. Their 2.65 team ERA is first in the ACC, and opponents have hit .208 against their pitching staff (also best in the league). Their bullpen is 20-0 on the season and has an ERA under 2.00 (it was 1.69 entering the weekend series against NC State).
The difference, though, has been the starting pitching. Kyle Funkhouser is 7-4 on the season and is expected to be a top-five pick in the upcoming MLB Draft; he's got a 2.99 ERA and the most losses of all three starters, for the sake of perspective.
Sophomore Josh Rogers had a little bit of a rough start to the season, but bounced back and is 7-1 with a 3.62 ERA that was made worse after NC State hit two homers off of him on Sunday -- the only two he has allowed all season. All three starters combined have allowed just four home runs, and two came on Sunday.
But if Rogers -- who has lost just one game all year in 14 starts -- is the weak link, then that's pretty scary.
Funkhouser is the staff ace, so he normally goes the first game of a series. But freshman two-way player Brendan McKay has been a revelation for the Cardinals, and one of the nation's best. He's started 10 games and has an 8-2 record with an ERA of just 1.64, a mark that's second in the ACC. He leads the ACC in strikeouts with 100 and in opposing batting average (.143). And he's a second-day starter!
Funkhouser, by his standards, has had a bit of an up-and-down year. It won't matter much for his draft stock, but even though he's "struggling", he's still ninth in opposing batting average in the ACC (.221).
A lot of collegiate pitching staffs have a weak link. With a bullpen as strong as it is and a closer in Zack Burdi who is 5-0 (the most wins by a non-starter) with a 0.78 ERA, there's really not much of a weak link on Louisville's staff.
Timely hitting coupled with the dominant pitching and a winner's mentality instilled by McDonnell has led to this point -- an insane 25 ACC wins to just five losses. "Being new to the league, I think definitely people thought 'hey Louisville's good, but this is the ACC'," Funkhouser said of his team outperforming expectations. "I think we've played well up to this point, but we've still got a lot of baseball left to play."
Before McDonnell arrived in 2006, Louisville had been to one NCAA Tournament ever (2002) and didn't have a win. They've been to six NCAA Tournaments since and won 24 games, not to mention making it to the College World Series three times (including the last two years in a row).
Last year, Louisville was the only team that advanced to the College World Series in 2013 and returned there again in 2014. They'd love to make it three in a row.
The Cardinals will have the No. 1 seed in the upcoming ACC baseball tournament in Durham, and in spite of their record and ranking in many polls -- as high as No. 2 -- their RPI is not as good. The RPI wouldn't line them up for a national side at the moment, so they'll have some work to do.
But what else is new? All they've done all year is continue to prove doubters wrong.
