CRUCIAL WEEKEND: Will App State OVERCOME Troy on the Road? Sun Belt Playoff SPOTS at Stake!

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App state mountaineers are hot, but they're going to get tested this weekend on the road,

taking on the Troy Trojans, Lockdown Sunbelt.

You are a Lockdown Sunbelt, your daily podcast on the Sunbelt Conference, part of the

Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

All right, Dave shows Lockdown Sunbelt, your teams every day, a big series with the

Cajuns and the Panthers, that's got a Sunbelt tourney bid written all over it, really a

no win situation for the Coast of Carolina, Shanta clears against Georgia Suther, and

except maybe one point, we'll talk about that.

And I was a little bit disappointed when I put out there on Wednesday, if the NCAA does

expand, and it does look like they're going to expand the men's and women's basketball

tournament, will the Sunbelt benefit from an additional spot, an additional bid?

Everybody who responded said, no, that's going to go to the Auburns of the world.

I'd say my orange, but we don't know how good they're going to be, but just those middling

SEC, ACC, and big 10 teams.

I have more faith, I think now.

The idea is that the Sunbelt team has got to be top 60, top 50 to get in there, and that's

not necessarily going to be easy, but that's the point.

If the Sunbelt team, the regular season champ doesn't win it, are they going to be able to

get in? That's the way I was looking at it, but we shall see. I have more faith.

All right. Sunbelt teams got a schedule, and that's not very easy to do, necessarily.

And then you got to win. You got to win some of those games.

I like Southern Missing Coastal Carolina have in baseball.

All right. So let's talk a little bit of app state.

Early on in the season, I was called out by an avid fan and viewer of Sunbelt.

He also tends to call me out because of all the clickbait that I put out there.

Although a lot of that, there's no links to click. It's either just a video,

I don't get paid for those shorts, or it's just a tweet.

And there's nothing to click. So I'm not sure where the clickbait is,

but he tends to call me out on that all the time thinking I get paid on that.

And I don't. I do get a nice little stipend if you will for Lockdown Sunbelt,

but that's you guys knew that, you know, we could do get paid a little bit for that.

And I do appreciate all the support I sincerely do.

But he also pointed out to me, maybe I need to ease up a little bit on app state because

they started out the season playing Coastal Carolina and Southern Miss two out of their first three

series. And they were competitive. Go back and look, they could have one five of those six ball

games. They lost 10 to six to Coastal Carolina. It was a six six game heading to the ninth.

They were up for nothing against Coastal Carolina. Coastal scores three and the eighth four and the

ninth. It was an eight eight ball game after six. They lose eight seven. Coastal Carolina with a

sweet. Those all could have gone in the other direction. They were up a five to two heading into

the eighth inning against Southern Miss. They lost six to five. They won the second game six to

two, but they did get blown out 13 to four. So that's being extremely competitive with the two

best teams in the conference where all those were flip of the coin ball games. All right. Now

Coastal Carolina and Southern Miss are good for a reason. And maybe app states were learning on

how to compete at that level. We pointed out numerous times. You got to play all nine inings

against Coastal Carolina because they're just they're going to keep on playing. And even when they're

up nine to two, they're still bunting players over. So you got to be ready to get all 27

outs against those teams. But then app state got hot. They took two out of three for Marshall,

despite losing the first game 12 to six. They took two out of three from ULM. They swept James

Madison 10 nothing 19 10 and 14 10. They swept Georgia Southern 16 3 11 5 and seven to three.

They did lose at this point three to two ball game to wake. But now they finish up the season and

it's not going to be easy by any stretch. They're at Troy this weekend. They get the cages at

home and then they're at Georgia state. All three of those teams are trying to improve their

standing in the Sunbelt Conference. Troy trying to move up and get as good as seating as possible.

The Cajuns in Georgia state still trying to just qualify for the Sunbelt Conference tournament.

Whereas the Cajuns I still believe have an outside outside shot at getting at large birth

if they can be top 40. And so this is not going to be an easy nine ball games left in the Sunbelt

Conference for app state. Not whatsoever. But they're right there with Southern Miss.

They're 13 and eight. They're one game ahead of Troy. They are four games behind Coastal Carolina.

Probably can't really think too much about first place. But you can certainly think about second

place. And as we mentioned, you play was it Wednesday and Thursday? If you win those two ball games,

you get Friday off. And then come back and try to win the conference tournament,

rested Saturday and Sunday. It is a huge difference.

And this is where app state is going to see if they can stand up to Troy, who probably

I mean, they are in second. They are in fourth place technically. So they're having a good

Sunbelt season, but they're under 500. So that's about as disappointing as a season as it is for

Troy. They scheduled the right way, but you got to win some of those ball games and they lost

some of those can't lose ball games to hurt their RPI basically.

All right, but the shocking things looking at the stats here is app state, at least I think so,

in lovely moon North Carolina, they got the most scenic ballpark in the conference.

They're in the mountains surrounded by trees. But I did ask the coach, are you concerned about

their pitching because of the high altitude and the home runs that you guys are going to give up?

And he said no. And wouldn't you know it, he was right.

App state has given up the third fewest home runs in the Sunbelt this year. Only Southern

Miss 33 in South Alabama 34 have given up less than App states 37. On the other side of things,

Troy has given up the 12th month's home runs 56 Georgia Southern 62 and a little shocking.

The cases have given up 67 and that's shocking only because that ballpark usually plays

really big. That's how those Cajuns had all those good

pitchers for all those years. So will App state, ironically enough, be able to adapt to playing

that short porch and right in Troy and keeping in the ballpark against what is generally considered

a good hitting team in a Troy. Troy's right in the middle of the pack when it comes to hitting.

There's seventh hitting 280. App state right now number one in the conference with their

three 21 batting average. How about that? They don't hit a whole lot of home runs. There are 37.

Troy had 37 home runs. They've hit, which is ninth. Troy is fifth with 50. All right. Let's see the

ERA overall. App states in the middle of the pack almost five and a half runs a game. There's

six. Troy is right behind them just over five and a half runs a game of 5.75. So we'll see what happens

who keeps into the ballpark and who doesn't is probably going to go a long way to determining who wins

this series between Troy and App state. All right. Let's move on. I did say coastal Carolina almost

a no win situation versus Georgia Southern did think of one where it's a little bit of winning.

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All right, Dave shows lockdown sunbelt your teams every day. Let me remind you about the

every day or club your chance to get locked on sunbelt and free plus you can get that members

only discord access. Join us at locked on sunbelt dot supercast dot com. That's locked on sunbelt

dot supercast dot com locked on sunbelt dot supercast dot com. All right, I do have let me have this.

Let me take a sip. I remember this got to have the mods. You got to have the mods.

All right, coastal Carolina. No wind situation versus Georgia Southern

and that is mostly due to Georgia Southern's really bad RPI of 22. Coastal Carolina is coming into

this series as of Wednesday evening. They are 16th in the RPI. Let me refresh that just to see.

Actually, they dropped their 17th. That's why I refreshed it.

Georgia Southern is 222. All right, the only benefit that coastal has in this is at Georgia

Southern. That's the only that's the only good thing. You win on the road, even if it's Georgia

Southern, you're going to get some bonus points. The point of this is for coastal Carolina,

if feasible, I don't know if it's possible to beat Georgia Southern three times and not fall

out of the top 20. If they are not out of the top 20 following the weekend, it's a successful

weekend. Let's see what coastal has left out of the. Let's see. Is that's not really good to

begin with. They're old dominion and Louisiana. Right now, it does not look good.

For coastal Carolina to be a national seed, although a lot of people had them as a national seed,

I thought this past weekend or this past week. I was surprised at that. We'll see if that continues,

but I guess if they win, their RPI can go down, but people can look that they won.

It's a tough spot. It's a tough spot because that's where the Cajuns we mentioned.

Benefit. They don't have to play ODU. They don't have to play Georgia Southern. In other words,

the Cajuns can take two out of three from their next three opponents and probably see their RPI go up

versus you want to see coastal Carolina's RPI go down. Take two out of three from Georgia Southern

and see if you're in the top 20 then. That's not going to happen. You're going to fall into the

mid 20s and put yourself in a bind. It's a no in situation because you got to go in there and sweep.

I don't know if you can talk about that. You really can't because if you don't win Friday night,

you can't sweep. You can't really be talking about a sweep. You got to really do one game at a time,

but it's a tough spot. We've talked about these kinds of series all season. Obviously,

this would be Georgia Southern season. Can you imagine if Georgia Southern, they've walked

what they had had at least two 10 game losing streaks this year. If somehow they win a ball game

against coastal Carolina or God forbid, take two out of three, which I don't think is going to happen,

but that would make their season. So don't think this is going to be necessarily easy. It should be,

but we'll see. It's a really a no win situation for coastal.

All right, elsewhere. We do have got Southern Miss taken on ULM and ULM, all of a sudden,

has slipped a little bit. They were playing pretty good ball. I don't think Ford Permanent

got suspended, right? They swept Texas State lost two out of three to South Alabama,

but took two out of three to the Cajuns and they were sitting pretty and they lost two out of

three to Georgia State. They lost two out of three to App State and they lost two out of three to

Arkansas State. Now, all those teams are the Georgia States disappointing. That was in Monroe.

App State's pretty good and that was in Boone and Arkansas State's pretty good as well. So not

all that. There are other teams are trying as well. All right. The James Madison thing,

I didn't I didn't understand because James Madison has been playing awful for the past month or so

and giving up literally 10 runs of ballgame and twice James twice ULM. In fact, even in their win

that they only scored six runs. They scored three in the first game, did Monroe and they scored two

in the second game. Then their bass came alive against a really hot lot tech team go figure and

they beat them 16 to five. So we'll see if ULM can turn this around because you know quickly

going through those standings, ULM is going to find themselves out of the Sunbelt Conference

tournament. If you get swept and you're 10 and 14 and the Cajuns end up taking say two out of

three to Georgia State, we'll do that one in a little bit. So the Cajuns would be 11 and 13

and they would be ahead of ULM. So it's important for ULM to get a win and at the same time,

Southern Miss doesn't seem to be heard as much with their outstanding schedule when they've

making it two out of three. They're at home though. So that would count more if you do lose one at home

to ULM. What is ULM's RPI? It had been just over a hundred for the most part. Let's see what we got

here. ULM's RPI is 143. So that's not going to be great for Southern Miss and they are coming in

as a nine RPI. They two are looking at a national seed certainly to host and for those who don't know

if you're national seed and you win the regional, you host the super regional. That's the point

of that. It goes through your time. So you may not leave for the better part of two weeks.

Get to play at home. So that's a big series for Southern Miss and ULM and then you got a nice

series. You do have Arkansas State and this is a different kind of test compared to

compared to where am I here? App State and Troy and I think we had one of these earlier where Arkansas

State was going on the road. Let me see. They're playing ODU. All right, ODU is hot until they

weren't. They needed to take care of business. They did take care of business against Southern Miss

took two out of three. They lost two out of three to Georgia State. They took two out of three

winning a Sunday ball game two to one against James Madison. They did lose two out of three to Troy

when all three ball games are six to four. That's a little wild and wacky. They took the last game

against Costa Carolina and they did take two out of three from Monroe. Losers two out of three to

the Cajuns and they did win the final ball game eight to three. So this is going to be a little sign of

I know people don't like to hear it maturity. See if you can go on the road and be the team you should

be. Because Arkansas State is also looking for, you know, they were in the mid 30s

like a week ago and now they're 48. And so if you go on the road, ODU also take two out of three.

You're going to fall. ODU uses 135. But if you sweep ODU and you get the benefit of beating a

team on the road, you may get closer to 40 than you are 50. Make it two out of three. You're going

to drop out of the top 50. That's the way I see things. So this is a big series for Arkansas State

to see if they can put themselves back on the path to where they don't need to win the Sunbelt

Conference tournament to get into the NCAA tournament. All right. Okay. Let's, we'll come back,

wrap things up. We'll talk Cajuns and Panthers. It should be a big series. We've got some other

series to talk about as well. We'll do that after I thank everybody.

All right. Thank you so much. Almost 2,950 subscribers. Hopefully we'll get to 3,000 by college

football season. But I do appreciate it. And you guys have seen the, you know, the posts on Facebook,

on Instagram, on threads, on Blue Sky, on, did I say Instagram? I did on all of them. I'm trying

to get as much as out there as I can. And it, again, you can see it, you know, it's not necessarily

a straight line, but, you know, up and down, up and down. But it seems to be going, you know,

headed up where we do get a couple hundred views. And then it's a few hundred more. And then

it's a thousand. And then it's 2000. And you're like, where'd that come from? Let's do that again.

And so that's meaning more subscribers and more listeners and more people are aware of our

podcast is by doing it now for, well, I think we started it. Why don't I think we started it in

20, oh no, it would have been 21 at the end of 21. I think so. Isn't that when we started it

the week after all those three teams won on the same weekend, right? Would have been

Georgia Southern, Marshall. Was it that state? I can't remember off the top, man. But those three

teams all pulled off three upsets, beating power four squats. So do appreciate all your support.

Please go over the lockdown sunbelt on YouTube and subscribe. And I don't forget about Apple

and Spotify as well. Do really appreciate it. Thank you so much.

All right. I was wrong and I was right. It was 2022. It was Marshall against

Notre Dame, right? At versus A&M and Georgia Southern versus Nebraska. All right. So I did

have the three teams right. Had the year wrong. I do apologize. Tough time to remember what I did

yesterday. Meanwhile, 2022 or 2021. Okay. Let's talk about this Cajuns and Panthers series. Cajuns

did a good job last week taking two out of three and then not losing a ball game to Southern.

They were down five to three and then run rule at 15 to five. And they did a good job of beating

Arkansas State for the first two ball games and then Arkansas State did take the finale eight

to three. So they are where they cage. They're playing nickels on Wednesday night and they had

their RPIs around 50. That's where it is as this game is going on. Okay. And again, they need to be

again, I think in the top 40. Well, I would say 45 versus Costa Carolina. But again,

Costa Carolina's RPI is going to take a hit whether they win or not. So we'll see what happens to

the Cajuns. They may have to be closer to 40 and hopefully get into the top 40 if they take a ball

game from Costa Carolina. But they did a good job there. Georgia State. They won't go away.

All right. They took two out of three from Old Dominion. Despite I think Old Dominion

taking the first game of that series, they did. Old Dominion was hot and they beat Georgia State

10 to 2. But then Georgia State wins the last two ball games 10, 4 and 8, 7 in extra innings.

So all of a sudden, Georgia State comes in hot to this ball game. You got a six o'clock

start central time 2 p.m. on Saturday 1 p.m. on a Sunday. And it's a big series for both squads.

As we mentioned, Georgia State is 10 and 11. They are right ahead of the Cajuns who are 9 and 12.

Arkansas State, Texas State, ULM, Georgia State and Marshall are technically all tied for six

with a 10 and 11 record. The Cajuns are tied with Old Dominion at 9 and 12. James Madison and

Georgia Southern bringing up other rear. So this is a big series. If the Cajuns take two out of

three from Georgia State, there are probably not going to move that much probably. I don't think

it's going to go down. It's not going to move that much. And then they would be tied. They would

both have records of 11 and 13. If Georgia State takes two out of three from the Cajuns,

then they're going to put themselves in a good spot to get this Sunbelt Conference Tournament bid

as they would even up their record at 12 and 12. All right.

So that's a big spot. And we'll see if the Cajuns, it's a courty brash, just pitched well,

the last two Friday nights. We'll see if he goes. Andrew Herman did not have it on Saturday,

but the Cajuns won that ball game anyway. And again, Arkansas State managed to win the last

bucket. And we'll see what Georgia State can do going on and play the Cajuns. And then Georgia

States not bad, right? They're not bad. They're RPI. Maybe they're the team with the RPI around 100.

They have 118. So they fell a little bit. I think they've been inside the top 100 a little bit

this year. They're overall 22 and 22. They're 10 and 11 in the Sunbelt. All right. Elsewhere in

on the Sunbelt, we haven't gone over South Alabama yet. Let's see. South Alabama is taking on

Texas State huge series there. South Alabama is 11 and 10. Texas State is 10 and 11. Texas State,

they've fallen to 41 RPI. South Alabama is 83 RPI. So South Alabama is going to have to win that

Sunbelt Conference tournament at this point in time. But if somehow they go in to Texas State

and take care of the Bobcats two out of three times, they'll put themselves in a better spot

in the Sunbelt. They are fifth alone at 11 and 10. Unbelievable that you have Southern Miss,

you have what is it? Between I guess it's nine teams between Southern Miss and Marshall that are

13 and 8 and 10 and 11. And South Alabama is the only team that's 11 and 10. A little crazy.

I find that peculiar. But there's a big series between these two teams. And again, you win a

couple of ball games. And you know, if Texas State can win a couple of ball games, again,

there are RPI is not going to improve that much with South Alabama at 83. South Alabama's RPI

can move a little bit if they take two out of three from Texas State. But really these two teams

are looking for, well, Texas State's looking to get in the top 40. Top 40 RPI out of the Sunbelt,

you should be in the NCAA tournament at large birth. All right. That's what I believe.

But Texas State's got a little work to do. Anyways, that is a big, big series as well. All right.

And then you do have James Madison and Marshall. I mean, if you're James Madison, you want to say

face and I guess you have you still have a certainly you have a shot at getting hot and and

making the Sunbelt Conference tournament. If you're Marshall and you want to play in the Sunbelt

Conference tournament, you got to take two out of three from James Madison. It's just it's

very simple. All right. You should be the better team. Although JMU did take two out of three

last weekend from and row. If Marshall wants to play in the Sunbelt Conference tournament and

have a shot at winning the Sunbelt Conference tournament, they got to take two out of three from

James Madison. That's really about it. Okay. Let me know what you guys think. Who's going to win

it? Let me go through these here. I'm probably going to go well, not Homer, but

let's see here. We'll take Marshall in that series. Arkansas State over Old Dominion.

I think Costa will sweep Georgia Southern. Let's see if Abstate can take two out of three from Troy.

I would be impressed with that. Okay. Texas State's probably going to take two out of three from

South Alabama. Southern Miss two out of three from and row. And let's see if the Cajuns can

take two out of three from Georgia State. See if anybody surprises us with those quick picks.

All right. Again, thank you so much for tuning in. We'll do more in depth

into the series on for Friday's episode. I am off work on Friday. My niece is graduating

college. I somehow got off the oaks. Usually we're extremely busy, but I had that day off from

the get go. I didn't even have to ask for it. So that's nice. Be back for the derby going to

Cincinnati and going to spend time. Mama Schultz is coming to town. All right. Along with my brother

Eric. So that's going to be a lot of fun. And we get to spend time with my niece who's graduating

from the University of Cincinnati. Okay. Thank you so much for tuning in. We still should have an

episode on Friday. One thing is nothing to do with another, but we'll see a name. It should be

back to watch some baseball on Friday night. I will say that. There's a little get together,

but that's unfortunately on Saturday, which I will be missing. Okay. Thank you so much for tuning in.

I do appreciate it. Please go over to Lockdown Summit over on YouTube and subscribe.

Also the Apple and the Spotify, the audio numbers to help as well. All right. Thank you so much.

You guys are the best. We will talk to you again on Friday. You've been watching and listening to

Lockdown, Sunbelt, your teams every day. Have a great Thursday, everybody. We'll talk to you

again on Friday.