How many CWS wins do we have?

I dont really think you can quite equate post season success lineraly like that when comparing baseball to hoops.
#1 there are about 50 schools trying to make the cws compared to around 120 or so basketball programs who have the resources (major p5 football tv money, or being one of the 25-35 non p5 schools who basketball is #1).
#2 each round of the baseball playoffs is double elim, so a cws champ can lose 4 times in the playoffs and still win it all. In hoops you can't lose or you go home.
#3 baseball is still so small and irrelevant that they have to hold the playoffs on campus of a participating team or they wont draw any attemdance, so you have an incredible home field advantage factor in the baseball post season that hoops doesn't have.

The funny thing is only at A&M do people care more about baseball than they do basketball. Nobody really cares about college baseball.

I mean, that's not really true.

I care about basketball 1000X more than baseball, but I've been to some baseball games around the SEC (and Florida State) and there is a lot of passion for baseball there.

GrayMatter said:

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The funny thing is only at A&M do people care more about baseball than they do basketball. Nobody really cares about college baseball.

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LSU cares more about baseball than basketball. Same could probably be said for schools like Texas, Rice, USC, FSU, Miami, Miss St, South Carolina, and a host of other schools in the south

But how do you quantify that? I would bet that a&m and all those schools you listed spend significantly more in terms of coaching salaries, scholarships, facilities, total financial program support in hoops than baseball.

College baseball is dominated by teams in the warm weather states which leaves out about 40 percent of the nation from having consistently good teams. Add to that our baseball stadium, baseball fan base and recruiting in a hotbed then you would think we would have at least sniffed a serious run at a title within the last 30 years. We haven't come close.

expresswrittenconsent said:

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But how do you quantify that? I would bet that a&m and all those schools you listed spend significantly more in terms of coaching salaries, scholarships, facilities, total financial program support in hoops than baseball.

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And those differences in $ spent on the two programs could have almost nothing to do with what people care more about.

Ill use LSU as an example, because they undoubtedly care more about baseball than basketball. They pay Will Wade twice what they pay Mainieri, even though Mainieri has won a national championship. Does that mean they care more about basketball? Or does it mean the salaries and program expenses determined by the "market" are somewhat disconnected from how much a school cares about a certain sport?

sincereag said:

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College baseball is dominated by teams in the warm weather states which leaves out about 40 percent of the nation from having consistently good teams. Add to that our baseball stadium, baseball fan base and recruiting in a hotbed then you would think we would have at least sniffed a serious run at a title within the last 30 years. We haven't come close.

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You just described Aggie football.

Yep...same situation and very similar results.

sincereag said:

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College baseball is dominated by teams in the warm weather states which leaves out about 40 percent of the nation from having consistently good teams. Add to that our baseball stadium, baseball fan base and recruiting in a hotbed then you would think we would have at least sniffed a serious run at a title within the last 30 years. We haven't come close.

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This....we say we are serious about competing and yet we haven't been a factor in Omaha

Hmmmm

expresswrittenconsent said:

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But how do you quantify that?

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Rob Childress has made the NCAA tournament 12 straight years, the Super Regional (the equivalent of the Sweet 16) six times, and the CWS (roughly the Elite 8) twice. If he was the basketball coach, we'd have built a statue for him by now. Instead, there's a sizable portion of the fanbase that wants him fired for what he hasn't accomplished.

wacarnolds said:

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expresswrittenconsent said:

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But how do you quantify that?

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Rob Childress has made the NCAA tournament 12 straight years, the Super Regional (the equivalent of the Sweet 16) six times, and the CWS (roughly the Elite 8) twice. If he was the basketball coach, we'd have built a statue for him by now. Instead, there's a sizable portion of the fanbase that wants him fired for what he hasn't accomplished.

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He has done more than basketball, but you truly think thats statue worthy?

Baseball is a far less competitive sport at this level than basketball

PatAg said:

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wacarnolds said:

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expresswrittenconsent said:

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But how do you quantify that?

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Rob Childress has made the NCAA tournament 12 straight years, the Super Regional (the equivalent of the Sweet 16) six times, and the CWS (roughly the Elite 8) twice. If he was the basketball coach, we'd have built a statue for him by now. Instead, there's a sizable portion of the fanbase that wants him fired for what he hasn't accomplished.

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He has done more than basketball, but you truly think thats statue worthy?

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it was just a figure of speech, but sure, build this hypothetical basketball coach a statue. I'm guessing it wouldn't be the worst idea we've had when it comes to statues.

My expectations for Kennedy are far different than Childress

You can't say well RC has had more success and therefore is a better coach. It's not that simple

Aggie baseball has had historical success while basketball's first season finishing ranked was in the 2000s

(I'm not saying this to imply BK is better but only to say you can't be expected to build a dynasty right away at a school that has little historical success )

Florida did it, and they're a part of the GOM conspiracy.

TXMatt15 said:

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You can't say well RC has had more success and therefore is a better coach. It's not that simple

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The answer on who the better coach actually does seem to be pretty simple. And their respective success would illustrate it best.

I think the people that care about baseball care A LOT about baseball, but I think there are significantly fewer "casual fans" of college baseball than there are of basketball if that makes sense.

Also, I haven't gone back and read the whole thread, did someone actually argue that Childress and Kennedy are somehow on nearly equal footing?

bobinator said:

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Also, I haven't gone back and read the whole thread, did someone actually argue that Childress and Kennedy are somehow on nearly equal footing?

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Well I don't know about an argument, but both coaches have had disappointing seasons where they had teams that were talented enough to reach Elite 8 or the CWS.

The reason this kind of discussion is always going to fall meaninglessly flat is that the two positions arent remotely comparable in the way that people want to think of them.

Kennedy>>>>>Childress regardless of whatever baseball vs basketball feelings people have about any supposed accomplishments for either of them. Billy Kennedy is a lot closer to the pinnacle of his profession than Rob Childress is and it shows..Kennedy makes 6 or 7 times the amount of money that Childress does.

JJxvi said:

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Kennedy>>>>>Childress regardless of whatever baseball vs basketball feelings people have about any supposed accomplishments for either of them. Billy Kennedy is a lot closer to the pinnacle of his profession than Rob Childress is and it shows..Kennedy makes 6 or 7 times the amount of money that Childress does.

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This just seems like an insane thought to me.

bobinator said:

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JJxvi said:

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Kennedy>>>>>Childress regardless of whatever baseball vs basketball feelings people have about any supposed accomplishments for either of them. Billy Kennedy is a lot closer to the pinnacle of his profession than Rob Childress is and it shows..Kennedy makes 6 or 7 times the amount of money that Childress does.

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This just seems like an insane thought to me.

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Why?

Tony DeFrancesco makes, as manager of the AAA Fresno Grizzlies, made $550k, not quite double what Childress makes, and I dont think thats particularly weird. Head Baseball Coach at Texas A&M is way lower on the baseball coach totem pole than Head Basketball Coach at Texas A&M is on the basketball coach totem poll.

Another website lists Rodney Linares (current manager at AAA Fresno) salary at $370k (roughly what Childress makes as far as I can tell) back when he was a manager in A ball.

I mean now you're basically talking about the national infrastructure of the sport itself which isn't really where I was going. I meant more your "Kennedy >>>>> Childress" part.

There are a lot more baseball teams in the US than there are basketball teams, and because of the way the NBA and NCAA operate, college basketball has a much greater talent pool and thus more emphasis, than college baseball does, so on that level I agree that comparing the two sports can be problematic.

But just judging them within the relative parameters of their sports (college basketball vs college baseball) Childress has been WAY more successful than Kennedy.

Now, we could get into a discussion over how much better (or potentially, not) than a replacement level coach at A&M Childress is vs Kennedy, but that's kind of a different conversation.

My point is basically that at some level the conversation that deals with comparing accomplishments will always break down, because major college basketball is inherently a higher level of sport than college baseball, which is a regional minor sport not played by everybody while basketball is the college sport played by everybody as well.

I get that you can kinda compare when looking from the narrow viewpoint of these accomplishments from the perspective of Texas A&M, but even still if you dig in even slightly you will always bump up to the fact that there is clear data (money) that says Texas A&M thinks Kennedy is worth almost 7 times as much as Rob Childress.

TexAgs poster annual salary (mid-career Aggie graduate average as of 2017): $99,700 = approximate amount required to buy a single 5 star Adidas sponsored basketball recruit

Childress annual salary: Approx. $350-400K
Kennedy annual salary: approx. $2.3 million
Jimbo annual salary: $7 million

But I don't think it's too much for people to compare the two within their own universes.

Kennedy is worth almost 7 times as much because college basketball is worth that much more. That doesn't mean that Kennedy is comparatively better at his job, his job type is just in higher demand so the market value is a lot higher.

It's like comparing salaries for someone with a history degree versus someone with a Petroleum Engineering degree. Your average petroleum engineer is going to make way more than your average historian, but that doesn't mean he's better at his job.

I do think the comparison is a little closer than maybe most people would think on first glance because I think the floor is a lot higher for A&M in baseball than it is in basketball, but Childress' accomplishments are still way better than Kennedy's. It may be closer than most people would think, but it still isn't very close.

bobinator said:

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JJxvi said:

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Kennedy>>>>>Childress regardless of whatever baseball vs basketball feelings people have about any supposed accomplishments for either of them. Billy Kennedy is a lot closer to the pinnacle of his profession than Rob Childress is and it shows..Kennedy makes 6 or 7 times the amount of money that Childress does.

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This just seems like an insane thought to me.

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It's not just you.

In football, we've hired Bear Bryant, dang near hired Bo Schembechler, hired Jackie Sherrill, hired Fran (even though he was a supreme bust), hired Sumlin (who was the hot name at the time), and hired Jimbo.


In basketball, we've fired Shelby, and hired Kermit, Barone, Watkins, BKG, Turge, and Kennedy.

Kermit immediately got caught cheating and we got 2 years in NCAA jail.
Barone was a reach.
Watkins was a reach.
BKG was a reach.
Turgeon was a reach.
Kennedy was a decent hire.

We failed to even attempt to hire Buzz Williams, Avery Johnson, Frank Martin, Bruce Pearl, all who have been available since we hired Kennedy.

Reaches BKG and Turge worked out. Kennedy may work out, if the team gets more consistantly better.

Turgen actually had a good run at Wichita state before coming here. He wasn't so much of a reach. He just didn't have the personality to keep going what BCG had started. Fans lost interest when turgeon started complain.

The job search after the Shelby firing was a mess. You go from Kermit Davis to Tony Barone to Melvin Watkins. Melvin at least brought in enough talent for BCG to win with.

Kennedy and Childress are two peas in a pod. Both were extreme reaches as you say. Neither had a track record that gave you any confidence that they were any better than the previous HC. Both have shown That they don't have what it takes to get past the 2nd round of the basketball NCAA's nor (in childress' case) make it to the CWS and actually win a game.

Artimus Gordon said:

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Kennedy and Childress are two peas in a pod. Both were extreme reaches as you say. Neither had a track record that gave you any confidence that they were any better than the previous HC. Both have shown That they don't have what it takes to get past the 2nd round of the basketball NCAA's nor (in childress' case) make it to the CWS and actually win a game.

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There is a pretty key difference here in that we fired one of the previous coaches and the other one left us. Kennedy being an "extreme reach" just isn't true, he fit the profile of the kind of coach we normally try to hire in basketball.

Turgeon's "good run" at Wichita included one NCAA appearance and one regular season conference title in seven years. He was good there, no question, but it's not like he built Wichita into an absolute powerhouse. If Kennedy is a reach, then Turgeon was a reach, but neither one of them were reaches. They're both the kind of coaches we usually have had to hire in basketball.

This Kennedy = Childress thing is madness.

There's a good argument to be made that Childress has gotten us as far as he can, and if we're ever going to win a national championship, we're going to have to hire someone else. I think that's a perfectly reasonable stance. But you can't overlook what Childress has done, and that's establish an incredible floor for our baseball program. Even in our worst years under Childress, we still make the NCAA's, and we put ourselves into position to host regionals about every other year and we make the supers about every other year. If we were to fire him, it's partially because he's made pretty good seasons seem boring.

Kennedy's program on the other hand is nowhere close to that successful. Just once have we put ourselves in position to reasonably expect to make the sweet 16. Now, we made it another time, but we had to pull off a 7/2 upset to do it.

I think there are different arguments for and against both of them, but equating them to each other is just ridiculous.