Hlas: So much to like about 2017 Hawkeye baseball

It's business as usual for college baseball in Big Ten country, with the conference done in the NCAA tournament as the field is pared to the final 16 teams.

Indiana's appearance in the 2013 College World Series is the Big Ten's only one since 1984. All five of the league's entrants in this year's NCAA tourney were removed as of late Sunday night, with a combined record of 3-10 in the event.

But while it was a typically forgettable representation for the league, Iowa came home from the Houston regional having gained admirers.

Fourth-seeded Iowa played in three every-pitch-mattered games. It beat top-seed Houston 6-3 Friday, lost 3-2 to Texas A&M on Saturday, and fell 7-5 to Houston Sunday night. Each game could have gone either way.

On Friday, the Hawkeyes beat Houston starting pitcher Trey Cumbie, a second-team All-American. It was no fluke. Iowa had 10 hits off Cumbie, the most he had allowed all year.

The Hawkeyes left runners at second and third base in the ninth inning of the A&M game. They were tied after eight innings in Sunday's game, then Houston scored twice in the ninth. Iowa had the potential tying run at the plate in the bottom of that inning, but that was where it ended.

So ended a two-weekend odyssey for the Hawkeyes that saw them win four of five games over four days as the No. 5-seed to claim the school's first Big Ten tournament title. Then they played like they fully belonged in the NCAAs.

It was interesting to hear and read recent comments from many people saying this was the most they had ever watched Iowa baseball. Because of the bounce from the great run the Hawkeyes had in the Big Ten tourney, this NCAA berth got more attention than the one they had two years ago as an at-large team when they won twice in Springfield, Mo., before bowing to Missouri State.

Terrific defense — pitching and glove work — typified Iowa's postseason play. Hawkeye outfielders made several catches that major leaguers would have been proud to call their own.

But the separator was something we had never seen before and probably never will again from an Iowa player.

First baseman Jake Adams, who came straight from Central Casting as a 6-foot-2, 250-pound man-mountain from South Dakota, showed up from an Iowa junior college and gave the Hawkeyes something to behold.

Twenty-nine home runs. No matter what happens in the rest of the NCAAs, Adams will be this season's NCAA leader in that category. No Big Ten player had ever hit that many in a season. Five came in the postseason.

Since 2011 when college baseball went to Batted Ball Coefficient of Restitution (BBCOR) bats, which brought metal bats closer to duplicating the properties of wood, only two college players have hit more homers in a season than Adams did this year.

One was a fellow named Kris Bryant, who hit 31 at the University of San Diego in 2013. He reportedly has been successful in his subsequent baseball pursuits.

Adams' final Iowa at-bat was in the eighth inning Sunday. With his team down 5-4, he hit a ball that everyone watching the game knew was gone the instant they heard it touch his bat.

The joy the game-tying blast provided the Hawkeyes was short-lived, but what a moment. What a season. To think Adams would have played at North Dakota this spring had the school not dropped its baseball program after he committed to it last year.

Adams, a junior, is probably headed to pro ball after next week's Major League Baseball amateur draft. If the Minnesota Twins select him and assign him to Cedar Rapids for the rest of the summer, a lot of fans in these parts wouldn't object.

In the meantime, the image of Hawkeye baseball under head coach Rick Heller is clearer to people than ever. Sound. Skilled. Spirited. Competitive.

Baseball has been a minor sport at Iowa for a long time. It no longer feels that way.