BearsTruth Board

Touché. But they were in Omaha last year....and we were blowing a 5 run lead to Cal...

With all due respect, winning the Big 12 should not be our goal. Going to Omaha should. We failed to meet our goal. We have been mediocre to good for 17 of the last 18 seasons. At what point do you realize that you are faced with a glass ceiling?

+1.

My personal opinion, going to Omaha was the goal and anything less isn't failure by any means, but to me is the difference between a good and a great team. Baseball had a good year, but fell short of Omaha. I guess Baylor spoiled me this year.

^^^^ probably pretty accurate above imo too.

Only complaint I have is that it seemed Smith got a little tight as team didn't seem to play loosely those last couple games. He also made a bad decision on the pinch hitter late that led possibly to a lite lack of defense the following inning that cost him the game! So, imo he got outcoached with a sort of, lack of patience/wisdom on the pinch hitter and BU's now paying for it.

Quite frankly, I don't expect nerves to get better of a long time coach!

Stop comparing our baseball program to K-State and the like.

I guess it makes your feel better that A&M and UT aren't playing right now. But if you don't make it to the CWS we basically made it as far at Aggy did. Regionals and Super Regionals - not much difference. Putting up CWS banners is the goal.

Let's compare ourselves against the LSU's, the FSU's and yes, the UT's of the world. How often do they make CWS trips.

We have no excuses not to be at that level. No excuses to not go to AT LEAST 2 CWS every 10 years.

people talk about the difficulty of Baylor's (Smith's) position in college baseball relative to private school tuition and the 11.7 scholarship limit - I agree, it is difficult.

But people also tend to overlook other factors that lean in Baylor's direction that Smith benefits from...

1) located in the South (weather, baseball culture, recruiting advantage). i.e. Before Colorado left, there were 2 Big 12 (read "power conference") schools that did not even FIELD A TEAM in baseball - Colorado and Iowa State. 2 other teams throw pocket change at their programs to minimally satisfy Title IX - Kansas and Kansas St. For that matter, the entire Big 10 (top 3 football and basketball conference) is virtually non-existent in the ENTIRE sport. Point being - Baylor has some challenges, but let's face it... Penn St, Michigan, Notre Dame, UConn, Michigan St, Syracuse, and many others finance their hockey and wrestling teams as much or more than their baseball teams.

2) located in Texas - recruiting hotbed. California, Texas, Florida, Georgia, and Louisiana are far and away the recruiting hotbeds of the country. But baseball doesn't have the same national recruiting culture as football and basketball. Much, much more regional or even "extra-local". In Texas, true recruiting competition is (first with MLB and then) with UT, ATM, Rice and LSU, and then with OU, Okie Lite, Ark, TCU, and Tech (and then with jucos in some instances).

3) Baylor athletic dept committed to baseball years ago - as evidenced by the Ballpark and by Smith's extremely competitive salary. Tech is just now starting to put more into baseball. Same with TCU. UT, ATM, Rice, and Baylor have been the gold standards in Texas, followed from distance by TCU, UofH, and Tech (again, SMU does not even field a team!).

I'm not suggesting that Baylor/Smith are given anything on a silver platter, but I am suggesting that Baylor has more advantages than many seem to realize/acknowledge.

In fact, part of the reason that I argue that we should be making the NCAA tourney every year is because there really are only 4 conferences to speak of (PAC 12, Big 12, SEC, ACC), in contrast to 6 conferences in football and basketball (adding Big 10 and Big East). This year: 7 from SEC, 7 from ACC, 4 from PAC 12, 4 from Big 12.

Very good points.

I care way more about baseball than I would like to admit. I was way more upset about this loss than the loss to Kentucky in MBB, simply because they were so good and they outplayed us up and down.

I don't know if it's my affinity for baseball or the manner in which we lost (likely a combination of both), but man....this was a huge punch in the gut for me.

It has been said several times on the board, but I think we are realizing the true ceiling with Smith. What he is capabale of and what we (should) expect are not the same.

I feel with everything Baylor offers we should expect the following:

Regionals - Every year and hosting most of those years

Supers - At least every 2 years

CWS - One every 5 years minimum and compete for title at least once in that span.

I would be pleased with all of that, until I get complacent with that and then I'll want more. :)