quote:
Super regionals 5 out of 11 years is nothing to sneeze at. Nobody's saying that just sneaking into the playoff field every year is the qualifier for success.
Except it's a little more than just "supers in 5 out of 11 years". We've hosted exactly ONE super, and lost it. The other 4 supers have been at other venues, and we've managed to only win 1 of those 5 (and it could be argued we played over our head to do so). .200, even in baseball, isn't that great of a number.
And while nobody is saying that sneaking into the playoffs is the qualifier for success, many are pretty much using that metric. Because even with our regional appearances, of which RC has a very respectable number, only about half were at Olsen. That's not to say that we "snuck" into the post season, but more than once we were just a smidge above a bubble team.
I know RC isn't going anywhere this year, hell probably not even next year. But it's not hard to predict how we are going to do under him. We are very likely going to make a regional, we even have a decent shot at making a super. But odds are that we will be the visiting team and it's almost a guarantee that we'll be watching the show from the couch again over the next few seasons. We have 11 years of historical data to rely upon.
Meanwhile, TCU, tehc, LSU, Arkansas and others in our regional area are experiencing a much better success rate. We are most decidedly playing catch up to these guys when the post season is concerned.
I'll gladly trade a #1 ranking an an SEC tournament trophy for a team that doesn't finish the season as highly ranked and gets bounced in the tournament, but shows up to play in the regionals and supers and gets to take that plane ride to Omaha more than 1 time in 11 years. Every day, and twice on Sundays.