Sat Ole Miss lost to Otis in baseball 4-0 and there was 10,500 fans stands!!! This is kind of stand MO in the SEC except or UK. We have a long way to go!!
Baseball In The SEC...Vs UK
- Thread starter sluggercatfan
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Being the northernmost school in the SEC definitely hurts us. Tennessee has some pretty low numbers as well. About the best we can hope for is probably around 3-4k fans on a regular basis. That's about what Vanderbilt gets, and they have a championship caliber team.
Kentucky and Missouri are co-northern most SEC schools, with UT a close 3rd. These 3 schools will never have big crowds in early March.
This brings me back to my last seasons' pitch for a multi-purpose domed stadium to be used for both Baseball and womens hoops. Crowds would be significantly better in an indoor weather friendly atmosphere. throw in a retractable roof and behold..... One facility for 2 sports !!!
This brings me back to my last seasons' pitch for a multi-purpose domed stadium to be used for both Baseball and womens hoops. Crowds would be significantly better in an indoor weather friendly atmosphere. throw in a retractable roof and behold..... One facility for 2 sports !!!
Dosen't seem to be hurting Otis and to some degree IU at all...now Otis Dosen't have that Lind of attendence, but the ADMINISTRATION takes it seriously and I think their results are proof it can be done at UK...priorities and commitment is the key. I doubt UK admin has either when it comes to bb and it took a fan revolt for FB something that wouldn't matter in bb..and I'm not talking attendance I'm talking commitment...build a new stadium and win and the attendance will take care of itself
I was talking about attendance. Even with a new stadium I don't think we'll ever see attendance numbers around 10k for an early season regular game. I don't think that being this far north is an excuse for playing poorly. I think that Louisville is definitely a testament to the fact that you can be this far north and still compete. However, Louisville is doing it with an amazing coach. UK has to get an amazing coach, and to lure one we need to show that we care about our baseball team and show that we want to have the best team possible. UK was moving in that direction, but I think they stopped showing that commitment when they hired Henderson, and Henderson has done very little to make the administration want to financially commit to the team.
They are supposedly spending 42 million for the new Baseball stadium, add a measley 14-15 million and build the dome. Womens hoops draws well at the Coliseum, 7,000-game this year. Baseball attendance would jump greatly if the weather equation was completely taken out.
I think if you had no weather issues then you would have the same number of fans that come now on warm days coming on bad days. So, right now we might get around 2,400 on a sunny day. We'd see that number more consistently with a dome, but I don't think we'd start to see higher attendance numbers, especially not that much higher unless we start to put together a competitive team.
I know you were talking attendance, but like I said if you take care of the stadium thing and hire the right coach then winning will take care of the attendance and I'm certainly not talking in the 10k area and I was just using that to show the popularity of baseball at other sec schools, but I truly think Lexington --I live in Lou--is a great baseball town and they could average 3-4k a game if they are winning...being retired ,along with a couple of buddies of mine ,that we would make the trip to watch several games a year
The year we won the SEC, the crowds were great. In the NCAA tourney, they had to bring in extra bleachers. UK fans would support baseball better than UL fans. There are more of us. It's like football. We have had a taste of success, but we play in a murderous conference and just need a reason to believe that A) we can win consistently (not sure many of us believe this with Hendo as the coach) and B) that the admin is committed to winning (no evidence of this).
UL has a good baseball program, so I'm not suggesting it's smoke and mirrors like their football has been for most of this century. But, A) The ACC is not the SEC (not even close) and B) their sample size is small. Let's see how UL holds up long-term in baseball before giving them too much credit for dominating the ACC.
I don't think they will dominate the acc, but evidently you don't want to give the ACC any credit as they are an excellent bb conf...in the last 20 years the sec has produced 7 NC and 8 RU while the ACC has produced 3&5 not the SEC but pretty Damn good...you want to talk about long term? Do you realize that UK has never been to a regional final much less a CWS and that makes them the ONLY sec school to not have done so...why? It is the same as football as we have been a one trick pony for too long...don't get me wrong as I hate Otis as bad as anyone, but you must give credit where it is due...it really pisses me off that this has happened and as long as UK has had the advantages of being in the SEC they have not taken advantage of it...why not?
I don't have to do anything. I never said that the ACC is a bad conference (it isn't), but it's nothing like the SEC. Virginia just won the ACC's first national title in baseball since the 50s.
There's no doubt that UK has underachieved in football and in baseball, so we agree on that. Administrative commitment just hasn't been there, coaching has been poor, etc. You would think that this would change at some point.
Strangely enough I was having this exact same conversation at the game today. A couple of reasons as to why UK is so behind in other sports. First, no other AD until Mitch gave two cents about any other sport besides basketball. You look around the athletic department at UK and it's easy to see. Football was never taken seriously here. Baseball has been an after thought. Basketball is king at UK. It has been that way since Beat Bryant roamed the sidelines. I would argue that in the SEC, basketball is not in second place. Football is obviously first. But I believe baseball is the number two sport in the league. Kentucky fans, not all, fool themselves thinking that the rest of the league cares about basketball as much as they do. It just doesn't happen. Secondly, I believe that Mitch is paying for sins from the past and he has had to pick and choose how he approaches each sport. What Cohen did at UK was nothing short of amazing. And I think the thinking with Henderson was the continuity would be beneficial but it hasn't worked. Another thing that UK has working against them, there really are no big boosters for the baseball program.
We recieve a huge amount of income from the SEC, thru the revenue from mostly football, not to mention our Basketball team also turns a large profit. Up until Mitch Barnhart became AD, the baseball program operated on somewhat of a shoe string budget. He has at least done some good things ie. hiring John Cohen, who like Moses, led us out of the wilderness for at least a few years.
We apparantly are going to get a new $40 plus million dollar stadium in the next couple of years, I cannot understate how important that will be to our Baseball program. We have completely renovated CWS, built a new track facility, new Softball stadium, and a new soccer stadium. We are building a new $45 million dollar training facility for football. We are also getting a new Tennis facility. It is long overdue for a new Baseball stadium.
This will be a huge boom for baseball, although we have recruited very well since Cohen came in 2004, if we don't make the post season this year, it could be time for a new HC.
We apparantly are going to get a new $40 plus million dollar stadium in the next couple of years, I cannot understate how important that will be to our Baseball program. We have completely renovated CWS, built a new track facility, new Softball stadium, and a new soccer stadium. We are building a new $45 million dollar training facility for football. We are also getting a new Tennis facility. It is long overdue for a new Baseball stadium.
This will be a huge boom for baseball, although we have recruited very well since Cohen came in 2004, if we don't make the post season this year, it could be time for a new HC.
It has been time for a new coach for several years now CC...GH should never have been given an extension. That is on MB
How well do you guys think that Henderson does at player development? Particularly with pitchers. I don't get to see many, if any, of the games, so it is hard for me to tell how much the guys actually improve. Do you guys see that he is making them better pitchers?
Player development across the board for Hendo is really bad. Now, there a few exceptions to that as UK has had some really good players come through the program. But after talking to some parents, I feel like the majority of that development has to be accredited to Brad Bohannan and Brian Greene.
Now, what Hendo is known for is a pitching coach. But since he has became head coach, not one team of his has had a sub 3 era. But the biggest head scratcher with pitcher development is Kyle Cody. You have a guy who is highly talented, scouts love him and as pitched well in summer leagues but at UK, he has struggled mightily. You look at the USA all star team that Henderson coached this year. Even though they went undefeated and threw a no hitter, they finished with the highest ERA in 9 years. Another spot that I think Henderson has failed at is the catching position. For the last two seasons, our catching has been bad.
Sorry for the long post, but that's my two cents.
Good post. Cody was actually the one I was thinking about when I asked the question. His results certainly haven't shown me that he's improved. However, I don't know if his individual pitches, etc. have improved because I don't have anything to really compare. It really makes me wonder if some of our pitchers would be better if they were being coached by someone else.
I had forgotten about the team USA thing from this summer. The evidence against Henderson is overwhelming.
He is almost always dealing with pitchers, which he has had mixed results. The hitters were developed by Brian Green and Rick Eckstein, which has had better results ie A J Reed, Austin Couisino, Luke Maile, J T Riddle, JaVon Shelby, Evan White etc. We have had some pitchers do well, but more have actually under achieved !
Yea, I think you can name a decent number of guys that improved as hitters and as players in the field, but I feel like most of our pitchers have under performed. However, like I said, I don't see any of the games to really be able to compare how well someone's fastball was as a freshman as opposed to a junior, or to see how much break someone has developed on their off speed pitches, etc. I've seen the stats and heard the body of work of the pitchers and that leads me to believe that many of them have not improved, but I'm not sure about their individual skills to be honest.
I believe that if Hendo could strictly concentrate on the pitching staff, then he would be a pretty good coach. The problem I have with him is he is not a real good in game coach. He tends to leave pitchers in too long. Use pinch hitters at the oddest times. Using pitch runners when not needed. It just seems that he forgets there are other parts of the game.
I personally don't think he did that great as our pitching coach when Cohen was here. At least I don't think that our production on the mound was that much better than it is now, if any better. Especially not as good as it could be. Of course, you could make some arguments that the difference in the bats have have affected the numbers. However, if that is the case then he is doing especially terrible now.
That being said, I definitely agree with the rest of your post.
The bats are the only example that could be skewed. It would be interesting to see what the national average of ERA was during his time as the pitching coach. In 2006, the year UK won the SEC, Kentucky hit .299 as a team with 99 home runs. The ERA for the pitching staff, was 3.99 with only two guys below 3.00.
Here is an interesting story about Trevor Gott. At least one person seems to believe there was some development:
http://www.kentucky.com/sports/college/kentucky-sports/ex-cats/article63862087.html
http://www.kentucky.com/sports/college/kentucky-sports/ex-cats/article63862087.html
He threw fb 84% as rookie. He admitted he still needed to work on his change up. Idk where that says development.
Well, the article seemed to state that he became more of a pitcher with more pitches at Kentucky. While I think he still relied on his fastball most of the time, he developed a curve while here. He's trying to add a changeup now. I think you can take that one either way. You can look at it as Henderson doing a good job at development, or you might even look at it as Henderson struggling to develop him more.
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