Friday was not a good day for all but one Big Ten baseball teams. Nebraska, Maryland, Indiana, and Michigan all suffered losses. Those defeats seemed to underline a problem the conference still has when it comes to being compared to teams all over the NCAA landscape. Those in the B1G simply aren't as good as their counterparts, especially when it comes to the postseason.
At least for one day, there is one school that managed to overcome that was a very bad day for the conference. Iowa continued its recent hot streak by knocking off a Houston Cougars team that finished the regular season ranked 15th in the country.
The Hawkeyes also started the day as the only team from the B1G that was handed the indignity of a 4 seed in their regional and they showed they likely deserved a higher seed.
Nebraska and Michigan's no good, very bad Friday
The Huskers showed their woes in the Big Ten baseball tournament are far from over. After beating Purdue 15-9 in the opening round, they lost to Iowa 2-0 and then were bounced out of the tourney Maryland. The Huskers head coach hoped that he would be able to hit the reset button and get his team going back in the right direction. Instead, it was more of the same as the Yale Bulldogs were able to thoroughly dominate Nebraska and send them to Saturday's loser's bracket.
Michigan, much like Nebraska had a rather frustrating showing at the Big Ten Baseball Tournament.
Entering the post season ranked in the Top 25, there have been plenty of people who believed the Wolverines could be a kind of dark horse candidate to get to the College World Series. If they're going to get to Omaha now, they're going to need to go from the loser's bracket in their regional. Michigan lost to upstart Florida Gulf Coast.
While Nebraska gets to go up against Holy Cross on Saturday, the Wolverines have to take on a North Carolina team that also suffered an upset loss on Friday. The Tar Heels came into the tourney ranked second in the country.
Maryland and Indiana round out B1G losers
Indiana looked like it might be the second team from the conference to get itself a win on Friday night, but in the end, the Hoosiers were sunk in extra innings by North Carolina State.
While that was likely disappointing, it was a better showing than Maryland's. The Terapins continued a late season cold streak as they were dominated 9-1 by West Virginia. Indiana will now take on Ohio and Maryland will square off against UMBC as a quartet of Big Ten baseball teams try to show the conference isn't as bad as they looked to open regionals.
