Jo Evans talks Byrne, search committee, NCAAs

Notes from Jo Evans interview

* The team had dinner last night with the Boise A&M club, and about 30 people from that organization will be out at the Boise State softball field this weekend to root on the Aggies.

* The combination of A&M having some games rained out early on, and Texas Tech not wanting to play this weekend due to their finals allowed her to schedule a non-conference series this weekend to prep the team for the NCAA tournament next weekend. She sent out a mass e-mail across the country looking for games and Boise State said come on over.

* The retirement of Bill Byrne has made this time a tough time on everybody because change is always hard. The coaches all appreciate the opportunities that were given to them by Byrne and she believes they were all given any resources they needed to be successful. He was an athletic director that was strong and tough, and there were times where the two of them didn’t always agree on everything, but at the end of the day, she always felt respected by him.

* She felt extremely honored when she got the call from Jason Cook asking her to be part of the search committee. Cook knows that she won’t be afraid to speak her mind, and she knows how big of a decision the hiring of a new athletic director is. She’s impressed that A&M wanted to form a search committee and the hire a firm to help as well.

* Boise State is playing great and is very good at home. They just lost the opportunity to win their conference and their RPI is right around 50, which shows that they could be competitive in the Big 12. Their program is only four years old, and seeing what they have been able to do thus far is very impressive.

* The team wants to use this series as a catapult into NCAA Tournament play. It’s great for the team to get experience playing in a foreign place, because you never know where you’ll end up in the NCAA’s with the current selection committee. The team is looking at the series this weekend as three really important games for the committee to take a look at, and needs the wins to show that they are continuing the roll they have been on as of late.

* The team will need a little help from others in the conference in order to finish in second, and are pulling for a win from Baylor over Texas and needs Oklahoma State to take at least one from Missouri to secure that second place spot. Of course the team wanted to win the conference, but not that they can’t, they want the next best thing. The team was ranked fifth in the preseason Big 12 poll, but she knew all along that they would finish higher than that.

* She feels really good about the chances of hosting a regional, partially due to the selection committee changing their thinking about travel issues. Before they were worried about the number of flights teams would make, but now they have focused on giving the top 16 teams the best scenario and are doing much more to protect them.

* The kids played well, but not great against Kansas last weekend. In the end, the team was able to sweep the Jayhawks and pick up three important conference wins. On Sunday, she told the team that they needed to separate themselves because they were clearly the more talented team. That message showed during the game as the team run-ruled Kansas 9-0 and Mel Dumezich and Lindsey Sisk combined for a five-inning no-hitter.

* She is proud of senior Natalie Villarreal for sticking in school because she is a terrific ball player and a great kid. It was tough to talk about her on senior day in front of her family because her dad is gravely ill. For him to be there at the ballpark to watch his kid and honor her made for a really emotional and special day.

* Having a good team makes senior day a piece of cake because you know there is a lot more season left. The ultimate goal is to be playing in the College World Series in June and the team has the talent to do so.