Jim Brownlee Quotations

Luke looked like his old self today. He was consistently ahead in the count against most hitters and was throwing all of his pitches for strikes.

I don't have the answer. You need to ask the players why they're playing like they are. Illinois was ready to go and we weren't.

Ian pitched his heart out tonight and really deserved for something good to come out of this start. Unfortunately, our bullpen could not shut Evansville down and we lost another game late due to a big inning.

I did not have a good feeling coming into today because of the way they've been swinging the bats. Luke has really struggled, but he got his confidence going early and he gave us a big lift.

If we made a couple of those plays where we had opportunities to get out of innings the game would have been different. Good teams make those plays and we didn't today.

Kris is the type of player that can really make us go and his competition level has grown tremendously in the past week or so. He has been getting clutch hits and making things happen on the bases with steals. I believe that will start to rub off on some of the other players who are not playing as well as they should be.

Our pitching has been solid the past two weekends against Central Michigan and Northern Iowa and a strong outing from Luke would really keep the ball rolling. It seems that some of our early season problems we had on the mound, both with our starters and in the bullpen, have been corrected and our staff is very different from when Iowa saw us last.

Other than the win at Southern Mississippi, I think this is the best that we have played all year. We got some timely hits and managed to get on base, either with good at bats or getting hit by pitches. Then we ran the bases well and produced with runners in scoring positions.

We still have a good shot at getting into the conference tournament and that's the most important thing.

The win against Iowa was great for the team and the confidence they picked up could really benefit our play over the weekend. Momentum and confidence will prove to be key ingredients for this team's success and some wins this weekend could certainly help in both categories.

Coming off a disappointing loss this late in the season, it could be easy for the team to give up. But I don't think that will happen with this group. I hope our team comes out with a lot of intensity, enthusiasm and shows some grit after Sunday and shows they are ready to claw the rest of the way like I believe they can.

That's kind of been the story of our whole year. We've got some holes and you try to hide them but tonight we got exposed. We've got six pretty good hitters and the other three have been struggling.

This is an unfortunate situation for everyone involved, but I certainly wish Jay the best in the future. Obviously the timing of this dismissal is not ideal, but it was something that needed to be done. Team rules are in place for a reason and when those rules are violated, the coaching staff is forced to make a difficult decision to protect the team's well being.

This is a game that we as a team always look forward to. Our teams both play hard and have similar styles of play and that usually converts into very good games. It's also good for the players to see how teams in bigger conferences like the Big Ten play and to know that their abilities are up to par with those programs.

It's important for us to get a win and stay even in the conference.

In baseball, you're either moving forward or you're going backward. We're going backward.

In these mid-week contests, we try to get as many people work as possible and still give ourselves a chance to win. Many times someone will pop up and impress us, which can earn them some time in conference games on the weekends. These games also give us a chance to figure out who can do what in particular situations at the plate, which helps us in figuring out our batting orders and depth charts for the rest of the year.

Because my son, Ryan, is on the staff at Iowa, there's always some bragging rights involved in the series each year. It would be nice for us to win the series and have those bragging rights, but it will be more important that we play well, so we can head out Thursday on a high note to face Creighton for a tough weekend Valley road series.