Mizzou Baseball: 2016 Season Excitement Builds in Columbia

Last season, Mizzou baseball was stellar on the diamond. But they will look to make 2016 even more special with more experience and a new cast of freshmen.

Going in to Mizzou baseball coach Tim Jamieson’s 22nd career season, there’s reason to believe that this could be the most exciting and successful year of them all. It could be that it was arguably Jamieson’s most successful year as coach last year, or it could be that star players, like the nation’s No. 1 overall MLB Draft prospect for 2017, sophomore sensation Tanner Houck, are fired up.

And why not? The Tigers have earned a No. 15 preseason ranking this year, a sharp contrast to the start of most seasons, and certainly any in recent memory.

Of course, to focus on last year’s guys would be to overlook the new cast of 11. Yes, that would be 11 freshmen on the roster, including hometown Rock Bridge hero Conner Brumfield who knocked in the winning run in the Missouri high school state championship game and gave the Bruins their first ever state title.

So how are the Tigers going to fare with this interesting 2016 mix?

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We’ll know fairly early into conference play just how special this season may or may not be. Last season, Mizzou had one of the toughest schedules in the country. Want to talk about a tough schedule? Try starting SEC play on the road against preseason No. 1 Florida for a three-game set, and then turning around and heading back to Columbia to host last year’s College World Series runner-up and No. 4 preseason ranked Vanderbilt for another three.

In fact, throw in that Mizzou will be hosting LSU on mid-April–a team ranked No. 5 preseason in their own right–and this means that of the 54 total games on the Tigers’ regular season schedule, they’ll play nine of them against preseason top-5 teams. Texas A&M is ranked No. 3 preseason, one top SEC team that Mizzou will avoid on their regular season schedule.

And don’t sleep on Mississippi State or South Carolina either, both obviously very successful teams traditionally, and both ranked preseason.

But focusing in on the immediate, Seton Hall is a team that most of us don’t know much about. They aren’t a name that you think of right away when you think of college baseball, but the school from New Jersey is very talented. Each of the past three seasons, they’ve made appearances as Top 25 teams. This year they’re receiving votes for national polls, and were picked to finish No. 3 in a tough Big East league.

Their strength has been the the same as Mizzou’s lately, a strong pitching staff that can limit hot bats. The two teams will be meeting for only the second time, with Mizzou owning the win from their first game in 1981.

Potential television information about the Seton Hall series is not immediately available. Missouri will open up their home schedule at Taylor Stadium on March 2 against Arkansas-Pine Bluff.

NOTE: 2016 preseason rankings attributed to PerfectGame, a Scout.com subsidiary. Seton Hall is receiving votes from College Baseball’s (newspaper/magazine publication) Fabulous 40 NCAA Division I preseason poll.

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