JC got me thinking yesterday about UGA baseball...

[DawgNatty]

I'm excited for a new season and a new coach.  I know we brought in some decent talent.   It's hard to say if we will be any good or not...

I think it's going to take another year to weed through the current roster.  Lots of seniors that aren't going to be contributors.  

I would also add...I know a couple of the pitchers on this team that my son played with.  I sure hope they've come a long way since high school.  

Since we can't seem to find it with basketball...it would sure be fun to make some noise with baseball again.

[FeralDawg]

Yeah, I would love to see us be decent again. One of the guys on the current team played on Team Elite with my middle son.

[JC-DAWG83]

There is no excuse for us to be as mediocre as we are in baseball. I blame every AD we've ever had for that. If SC and MSSt can be baseball powers there is no reason for Georgia to not be at least as good as they are. Vandy games the system with their scholarships from their endowment to circumvent Title IX restrictions.

[DawgNatty]

There is no excuse for us to be as mediocre as we are in baseball.  I blame every AD we've ever had for that.  If SC and MSSt can be baseball powers there is no reason for Georgia to not be at least as good as they are.  Vandy games the system with their scholarships from their endowment to circumvent Title IX restrictions.

That's exactly right on Vandy.  Hard to compete with their set up.  On top of that, they've cherry picked out state bad for last 5-6 years on baseball talent.  Still, as you say...there is zero excuse.   

I'll say this, we were not great at evaluating talent with the last coaching regime.   We will see if we've improved.  (this is the basis of my comment above.)   

Hell, I could pick 5-6 kids myself that are playing at schools like UNC Aiken that are better than half our team from last year.

[JC-DAWG83]

There is no excuse for us to be as mediocre as we are in baseball.  I blame every AD we've ever had for that.  If SC and MSSt can be baseball powers there is no reason for Georgia to not be at least as good as they are.  Vandy games the system with their scholarships from their endowment to circumvent Title IX restrictions.

That's exactly right on Vandy.  Hard to compete with their set up.  On top of that, they've cherry picked out state bad for last 5-6 years on baseball talent.  Still, as you say...there is zero excuse.   

I'll say this, we were not great at evaluating talent with the last coaching regime.   We will see if we've improved.  (this is the basis of my comment above.)   

Hell, I could pick 5-6 kids myself that are playing at schools like UNC Aiken that are better than half our team from last year.

I think it all goes back to the AD and no accountability or expectations of success from the baseball coach.  Being baseball coach at Georgia is a "money for nothing" job.  As long as a coach has a winning record for the season, his job is pretty safe as long as he doesn't have any team scandal or get in the news for doing anything bad off the field.  With no accountability and no expectations it is easy to be lazy in recruiting and evaluation of talent.  The state is full of baseball talent and pretty much all of the top talent goes somewhere besides Georgia.  Of course the fact we won't even let out of state players pay in state tuition and we can't give them full scholarships doesn't make recruiting out of state any easier.  

We are playing Ga Southern on March 5th here and I'll be at the game.  I won't be surprised if Southern beats us (again).  USC Aiken and Augusta University both have decent baseball teams and I wouldn't be shocked if either one of them beat us if we faced them.

Our baseball team has been mediocre for a very long time.  My father played in the late '50s and he said he was shocked at how bad the Georgia baseball team was when he arrived.  He said his HS team would have beaten them like a drum.  Jim Whatley was the coach when he was on the team and he said his HS coach was light years better than Whatley.  Whatley coached for 24 years and ended up 9 games over .500.

[ugafan49]

Getting off to a good start on a really not so good team is essential.

[viper2369]

I'm excited for a new season and a new coach.  I know we brought in some decent talent.   It's hard to say if we will be any good or not...

I think it's going to take another year to weed through the current roster.  Lots of seniors that aren't going to be contributors.  

I would also add...I know a couple of the pitchers on this team that my son played with.  I sure hope they've come a long way since high school.  

Since we can't seem to find it with basketball...it would sure be fun to make some noise with baseball again.

I ain't giving up on the Hoop Dawgs just yet.  This season reminding me a lot of Kirby's first season.  I know it's CMW's second season, but he's got a whole new roster and is basically a different team.  

That said, the current losing streak is tough when we could have won each of them.  Losing like that is usually a back breaker, but it hasn't.  These guys are still fighting hard and not rolling over.  That's the culture change we need.  A lot were saying the same about Kirby that first season after losing to Vandy and GT, but a lot of us saw that the foundation of "playing to win" was being established.  It was only going to take a few more pieces to get over the top.  

I could be wrong, but I see that happening with the Hoops team.  Playing with the desire to win, rather than "not to lose" is there.  More consistent shooting and we are at least .500 over the last 6 games.  shooting going ice cold at the end of the second half in all of those games has killed us.

[JC-DAWG83]

I'm excited for a new season and a new coach.  I know we brought in some decent talent.   It's hard to say if we will be any good or not...

I think it's going to take another year to weed through the current roster.  Lots of seniors that aren't going to be contributors.  

I would also add...I know a couple of the pitchers on this team that my son played with.  I sure hope they've come a long way since high school.  

Since we can't seem to find it with basketball...it would sure be fun to make some noise with baseball again.

I ain't giving up on the Hoop Dawgs just yet.  This season reminding me a lot of Kirby's first season.  I know it's CMW's second season, but he's got a whole new roster and is basically a different team.  

That said, the current losing streak is tough when we could have won each of them.  Losing like that is usually a back breaker, but it hasn't.  These guys are still fighting hard and not rolling over.  That's the culture change we need.  A lot were saying the same about Kirby that first season after losing to Vandy and GT, but a lot of us saw that the foundation of "playing to win" was being established.  It was only going to take a few more pieces to get over the top.  

I could be wrong, but I see that happening with the Hoops team.  Playing with the desire to win, rather than "not to lose" is there.  More consistent shooting and we are at least .500 over the last 6 games.  shooting going ice cold at the end of the second half in all of those games has killed us.

I've never seen a team that was worse at layups.  I would think college basketball players would be automatic on the vast majority of layups.  Free throws are much better than in the past but we give away way too many points on missed layups and short shots.  We also have more turnovers than any team I have seen lately.  It really is a miracle our losses have been as close as they have been.

The roster turnover in basketball is going to make it tough to really build a team like Kirby did.  The team is playing better but wins are going to be tough to get if we can't shoot better.

[DawgNatty]

I'm excited for a new season and a new coach.  I know we brought in some decent talent.   It's hard to say if we will be any good or not...

I think it's going to take another year to weed through the current roster.  Lots of seniors that aren't going to be contributors.  

I would also add...I know a couple of the pitchers on this team that my son played with.  I sure hope they've come a long way since high school.  

Since we can't seem to find it with basketball...it would sure be fun to make some noise with baseball again.

I ain't giving up on the Hoop Dawgs just yet.  This season reminding me a lot of Kirby's first season.  I know it's CMW's second season, but he's got a whole new roster and is basically a different team.  

That said, the current losing streak is tough when we could have won each of them.  Losing like that is usually a back breaker, but it hasn't.  These guys are still fighting hard and not rolling over.  That's the culture change we need.  A lot were saying the same about Kirby that first season after losing to Vandy and GT, but a lot of us saw that the foundation of "playing to win" was being established.  It was only going to take a few more pieces to get over the top.  

I could be wrong, but I see that happening with the Hoops team.  Playing with the desire to win, rather than "not to lose" is there.  More consistent shooting and we are at least .500 over the last 6 games.  shooting going ice cold at the end of the second half in all of those games has killed us.

I love your optimism and wish I could feel the same way.   I'm not giving up on White, but, this team, this year ain't making the tournament.  I mean, the NIT is an improvement.  But, this team looked like a new Honda Accord that ran straight into a brick wall.  (I say Honda Accord and not something nicer because they were just very solid for a few weeks).