Probably depends on the rest of the season. Crazy to think about, but we win 4 of the next 6 and 1 in the tourney and I think we have a shot at making the postseason.
Cats vs Vols (Game 2)
- Thread starter Big_Blue_1018
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Win 13 games and you've got an outside shot. Maybe the SEC tournament game helps with that. Win 14 regular season and you're practically a lock, even with a loss in the tournament.
Yea. Just think it's a pretty big outside shot that 13 and an sec win gets us in. RPI sitting at 61 right now. Will take another 20+ to get us into that discussion.
I would say I'm 80/20 on firing him, but it improved. I was absolutely 100% on board with getting rid of him after the season, but a series win vs. the #1 team in the country helped a little. We'll see how we finish the season and if we'll make a run at the postseason.
Think how he has managed the roster for next year. We are in deep trouble. We'll be at the bottom once again striving to make it to the SEC tournament.
This series? No. But I think if anyone was being honest with themselves, there was never a chance he was going to be fired anyway.
Why do you think that? Joker was a mistake and a good friend fired Billy was a mistake fired. Seems to me Mitch did that idk
Because there’s no incentive to fire him. Baseball is a small fish in a large pond. There’s no pressure from the media or any boosters to do it. Outside of a handful of fans, the baseball team is an afterthought. Plus, the reasoning will be well, this team had to deal with injuries and look, we beat Tennessee.
The one thing about Joker and Billy Clyde was there was a ton of money that was going to be lost if something wasn’t changed. There’s not the concern with baseball.
And one thing I want to add to this discussion. I wanted Mingione to succeed. That 2017 team was awesome to be a fan of. And the thought around the program was this was just the beginning. But all those good feelings have been lost. It’s not just the results from this season that I think people have lost hope in this coaching regime.
Ok, a little devils advocate this Mother's day...everybody knows I think it's time for a change, but this.
They're 7 teams in the league with 20+ season wins with UK being one.
UK is one of seven teams with 9 -10 wins in the conference standings which is contention for 8th/9th in the conference standings. IF they could win the last two series against SC and Auburn who knows.
Fla 10-13 Mst 9-14
SC 9-14 Miss 9-14. UK9-15
Mizz 7-16. Ala. 10-13
They're 7 teams in the league with 20+ season wins with UK being one.
UK is one of seven teams with 9 -10 wins in the conference standings which is contention for 8th/9th in the conference standings. IF they could win the last two series against SC and Auburn who knows.
Fla 10-13 Mst 9-14
SC 9-14 Miss 9-14. UK9-15
Mizz 7-16. Ala. 10-13
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There is a big jump possible there thanks to these two wins. But, as it sits right now... we're ranked 13th.
We control our fate. Win 3 more and we're probably in the SEC tournament. Win 4 and we're knocking on the NCAA tournament.
I like Mitch. I'm just not confident he makes the change. He gave an extension just a year ago. I think that if you're willing to listen to them, that the excuses of why Mingione has been less successful can be compelling. For instance, the injuries this year.
I'm personally done with the excuses. I don't like how Mingione runs the program. I don't like that we largely have to rely on JUCO and transfers and we're constantly playing for one good year instead of program building. I don't like that we have regularly ran off or lost many of our HS recruits, especially the fielders. We run them off by playing them very little, not developing them, and by playing transfers/juniors over them.
I think when you do this type of thing you might have those random good or even great years, but a lot of the time you're going to miss. You'll lose too many and won't have the ability to replace them and you'll be sitting at or near the bottom. I want consistency. I want to be able to expect we make the SEC tourney and the NCAA tourney. We can have some bad years, but those should be the exceptions and right now they feel more like the rule.
This is a long winded rant. I apologize for that, but in short... I'm just not convinced that Barnhart won't buy into the excuses and that he will look at those in terms of yearly success rather than how the program is being ran.
I've wanted Ming gone for most of this year, but if we make the NCAA tourney he deserves to come back. Simply beating UT is not enough. If we win five more SEC games, we will likely get in. Four more and it's borderline (leaning toward being out). If we miss the NCAA, then he should be gone.
I think if he makes the tournament, then he deserves another year. And that pains me to say. But, he has got to change his philosophy on recruiting and how he builds a team. Like comeback said, you cannot rely on jucos and the transfer portal to build a consistent winner. But you have to wonder if he has burned so many bridges is that even possible.
Kind of a mixed bag I think:
South Carolina looks like they'll take the win against TAMU. So, they will have 10 wins to our 9. Of course, we still play them, at USC, so the winner of that series is the key.
Florida beating Miss State 6-2 is actually favorable to us. Miss State has a tough schedule remaining (still have to play Tennessee). If we finish tied with them then the tie breaker would be who has the most wins against Tennessee. I imagine that they aren't likely to beat Tennessee twice. So, if we finish tied with them, we get the tiebreaker and finish 12th instead of 13th.
Ole Miss sweeping Missouri pretty much ensures that they will finish last in the league. I just don't see them getting enough wins in the last two weekends to make up a 2 game deficit. However, that does make it harder for us to catch up to Ole Miss as they have 10 wins, which would by all intents and purposes put them 2 games ahead of us due to them having the tie breaker.
Alabama now has 10 wins and 14 losses. They got swept by USC and then lost 2 of 3 to LSU. They finish with Auburn and Arkansas. So, we could conceivably finish above them. Again, the tiebreaker if we finish tied with them would be wins over Tennessee. They have 1 and we have 2, so we would finish ahead of them.
Not sure what will happen from here on out, but I think that we will make the SEC tournament. I think either Alabama or Miss State end up in that 13 spot and UK probably finishes closer to 11th. Not sure how our RPI will look at that point, but it probably needs to be into the 30s to get an invite to the NCAA tournament. In 2016 UK was 15-15 in league play, but won just 32 games overall. We won't get to 32 wins this season. To get to 32 we'd need to win both OOC games and then win both weekend series (or get a sweep and 1 win). That seems unlikely. Getting to 15 wins is even less likely given that it requires us to sweep both weekends. Of course, every year is different, but our OOC may leave us out of the tournament even if we get close to that 14 win mark.
He could add a lot from the portal and I don't know what our recruiting class looks like because, unfortunately, College Baseball doesn't have great recruiting services.
https://www.perfectgame.org/college/CollegeCommitments.aspx?Grad=2022&college=1784
This is our upcoming class, and you can't really get any info unless you subscribe, which is understandable.
This is our upcoming class, and you can't really get any info unless you subscribe, which is understandable.
This is a good tool, but isn't necessarily correct. For instance, it still lists us as having a commitment from Zibin, but I believe that may not be the case. It is hard to tell, but he has also been mentioned as a South Carolina commitment. I also do not fully even understand what class he is in as some have him as 2023 and others as 2022. One thing seemed to say he was draft eligible in 2022, but wouldn't be eligible for school until 2023. Not sure how that works. Either way, seems unlikely that he's at UK in the fall of 2022.
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