LINCOLN — Less transfer portal. More junior college.
Nebraska baseball coaches made the shift in recruiting philosophy a year ago. Too often had the Huskers been burned chasing higher-profile Division-I free agents. There is another place, they reasoned, to find just as much experience and ability.
A glance at any recent lineup card confirms NU might be onto something.
The Huskers — an at-large afterthought last spring — are squarely in the NCAA tournament mix in late April thanks to a rededication to the old-school transfer approach. On any given day, as many as four members of the offense were playing juco ball in 2023. The same goes for Big Red’s Saturday starter, co-closer and another high-leverage bullpen arm.
Nebraska signed nine juco players in the offseason. Eight have started games or filled key roles, with the only exception infielder Aaron Manias, who underwent shoulder surgery in January and is out for the year.
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“Some of it is a little luck of the draw,” NU coach Will Bolt said. “You’d like to think you’re going to hit on every prospect that you go see and sometimes for whatever reason it doesn’t work out. Very rarely does it have to do with talent, though. Usually it has to do with makeup. I think we’ve done a good job of hitting on makeup.”
That is to say, gritty. Tough. Self-motivated baseball junkies just as happy to grind in relative juco anonymity as in front of Haymarket Park crowds of 5,000-plus.
The Nebraska lineup needed some established veteran sticks and found them at a variety of two-year programs. Riley Silva (Barton C.C. in Kansas) is the everyday centerfielder and has the most Husker stolen bases in a season (23) in nearly 20 years. First baseman Tyler Stone (Iowa Western) is hitting .337 as a power bat with six homers. Josh Overbeek (Cisco College in Texas) is entrenched as a speedy switch-hitting third baseman.
Rhett Stokes (New Mexico Military Institute) fills in across the infield with 26 starts so far. The junior boasts a .310 average and a Big Ten Player of the Week award from early March. Infielder Dylan Hufft (Johnson County C.C. in Kansas) has appeared in half of Nebraska’s games and reached base at a .500 clip.
“You can go recruit a high school pitcher and he’s got a chance to come in and impact the game right away,” NU pitching coach Rob Childress said. “The hitters, it’s just hard to cover up experience. I think it’s what you hope for when you go get a junior-college guy.”
Meanwhile, Mason McConnaughey (Cloud County C.C. in Kansas) arrived last fall in a crowd of pitchers with undefined roles. As his confidence grew — his stuff could play at the Division I level after all, he learned — the right-hander went from reliever to midweek hurler to Saturday starter in a matter of weeks. His 3.41 ERA would rank fifth in the Big Ten if he had enough innings to qualify and his strikeout total (46 in 37 frames) is second on the team. He was the league’s Pitcher of the Week earlier this month.
Casey Daiss (1.80 ERA, four saves in 15 innings) and Evan Borst (5.06 ERA) have reinforced the bullpen arriving from Pasco Hernandez J.C. in Florida and Iowa Central, respectively.
“Being able to have guys on the team that have been through it coming from juco and having all that wisdom coming with them, I think we just grew well as a team,” Daiss said. “(We) act a lot older than what we are.”
Of Nebraska’s 42 players, 17 were in junior college at some point including Friday ace Brett Sears, outfielder Cole Evans, utilityman Ben Columbus and multiple relievers. Every coach on staff has also worked at the juco level during their careers.
The transition can be tricky, Sears said. It was for him last year in navigating the change in crowds and attention from Iowa Central to Lincoln. It can take time to trust your talent can translate to the next level.
“I think the big thing is you keep doing what you’re doing and have the mentality that you’re good enough to be here,” Sears said. “I think that’s the biggest thing — we’ve had a lot of dudes that do think that and are very confident in their stuff this year.”
“To get here, you have to believe you can be here,” said Evans, previously at Parkland College in Illinois. “That’s a big part of it.”
Nebraska under Bolt has had other juco hits. Cade Povich, the Husker ace in 2021, came from South Mountain C.C. in Phoenix. Hitters like Griffin Everitt and Efry Cervantes were multiyear contributors and pitchers Koty Frank and Jake Bunz were trusted arms too.
The program has six known juco pledges who will arrive this fall as well including four hitters. Husker coaches will continue to recruit traits that stick when moving up a level. Speed. Hand-eye coordination. Competitiveness.
But the success rate of NU’s latest juco class is easily its best so far — and the additions keep making it obvious.
“The biggest thing for a player transferring up is are you surrounding them with more players that are above their ability level,” Bolt said. “That’s the key. The more they’re around good players every day the better they’re going to get because they see the level they’ve got to get to. That’s been a big part of this development of some of these junior-college guys too.”