Some people are raising the bar

[Jacknut]

It gets old riding the message board roller coaster. We lose - fire everybody up to the university president and go kick the player's dogs. We win - we should never lose again and I'm selling my prosthetic leg for a room and tickets to Omaha. There's no middle ground. There's a few people on this board who are grounded and know baseball. My advice is to pay attention to what they say and don't get too high or too low. The Dogs played really well last weekend. Let's hope it carries over to this weekend, but there's no guarantee.

[Coach34]

Braden Montgomery > Bryce Chance. Lemonis had 2 opportunities to get Montgomery and failed both times

He didnt fail. Montgomery never wanted to come back to Mississippi. This was all started by the kid's parents- not him. Parents wanted him back home- he said "**** that"

[State82]

He didnt fail. Montgomery never wanted to come back to Mississippi.

And he apparently wanted to leave Mississippi from the start. He had three consistently top 25 programs to choose from in this state, in addition to the top program in the country less than a three hour drive away. So he obviously cared nothing at all about playing close to home. A Stanford education opportunity will do that however.

[MaroonFlounder]

He didnt fail. Montgomery never wanted to come back to Mississippi. This was all started by the kid's parents- not him. Parents wanted him back home- he said "**** that"

I was hearing his girlfriend was at A&M.

"You know what" is undefeated. LOL

[Dukedawg]

I haven?t seen the 14 game benchmark BUT if we don?t host a regional I think it?s time for him to go.

[Commercecomet24]

Yeah Montgomery was never coming back to Mississippi. Some of these kids just want to get away and no amount of money or anything else will change their mind. I've known more than one in my life. Didn't understand it when I was younger but it's different world now. Montgomery is not a fail by Lemonis

[Commercecomet24]

I was hearing his girlfriend was at A&M.

"You know what" is undefeated. LOL

This too lol!

[ArrowDawg]

Everyone is entitled to an opinion but if we make the tournament, he's not getting fired. Nor should he.

You may be right, but just "making the tournament" is an extremely low standard for our baseball program and it's sad that so many of you are willing to be pleased with that. You make it sound the same as making the tournament in basketball, and of course it isn't. Hosting is our standard. Beyond that I accept the results of wherever we go, but not having post-season baseball at Dudy Noble for 3 years in a row is not acceptable. If we go on the road for a regional this year, Lemonis better damn well give us something more than that. A super regional at least.

[BB30]

I just hope at season's end it is black and white. I don't want it to be a barely sneak into a regional and get bounced to where it is a tough decision on the AD of if we keep Lemonis or not. I know more than likely we will be a middle of the road SEC team and that is improvement. I guess as long as we are getting better as a program he needs to stay. That being said, it's a marathon, lets see where everything shakes out at the end of the regular season. Baseball is a funny sport, we made it to the cws in 07 right before Polk's fall off and that 07 team had no business making it to the CWS just got hot at the right time. The best metric for college baseball is looking at a 5 year span from the start of a new coaches tenure. If we are consistently getting to supers we are in good shape.

Put yourself in position enough times and you'll eventually luck into winning it all. Just have to get there consistently. If this staff can't do that they need to go, If they can, great lets roll with them.

[R2Dawg]

You may be right, but just "making the tournament" is an extremely low standard for our baseball program and it's sad that so many of you are willing to be pleased with that. You make it sound the same as making the tournament in basketball, and of course it isn't. Hosting is our standard. Beyond that I accept the results of wherever we go, but not having post-season baseball at Dudy Noble for 3 years in a row is not acceptable. If we go on the road for a regional this year, Lemonis better damn well give us something more than that. A super regional at least.

I don't think anyone is saying just making the post season is the normal bar for MSU. For 3 years, normal must be adjusted down for this year to climb out of the hole we are in. Can't expect us to make all the ground up in one year. We should be solid in post season regional this year and build to shoot for super next year. If we keep improving, yeah a super or regional host looks possible this year.

If any program can go from so bad to hosting regional, MSU is one of them. Just being reasonable, we are a two year climb up from the bottom of pit because that is where we have been.

[preachermatt83]

I don't think anyone is saying just making the post season is the normal bar for MSU. For 3 years, normal must be adjusted down for this year to climb out of the hole we are in. Can't expect us to make all the ground up in one year. We should be solid in post season regional this year and build to shoot for super next year. If we keep improving, yeah a super or regional host looks possible this year.

If any program can go from so bad to hosting regional, MSU is one of them. Just being reasonable, we are a two year climb up from the bottom of pit because that is where we have been.

OUTSTANDING post!!!

[Coach34]

You may be right, but just "making the tournament" is an extremely low standard for our baseball program and it's sad that so many of you are willing to be pleased with that. You make it sound the same as making the tournament in basketball, and of course it isn't. Hosting is our standard. Beyond that I accept the results of wherever we go, but not having post-season baseball at Dudy Noble for 3 years in a row is not acceptable. If we go on the road for a regional this year, Lemonis better damn well give us something more than that. A super regional at least.

Getting in should be good enough. It always has been at State because before him we never won a title. Making the Tourney was enough. If you keep making the Tourney you will advance from time to time- as we have done in our baseball history. We only have 10 CWS appearances in the last 45 years.

Now he makes it this year- keeps his job. He misses the Tourney next year? He needs to be fired- thats 3 misses in 4 seasons. Getting in this year doesnt start everything over. But getting in is the standard at State. Not some made up arbitrary view of Tourney success.

[The Federalist Engineer]

Braden Montgomery > Bryce Chance. Lemonis had 2 opportunities to get Montgomery and failed both times

Stevens is better hitter and pitcher than BM. Just got to play him.

Still would love to have BM too, just saying.

[preachermatt83]

Getting in should be good enough. It always has been at State because before him we never won a title. Making the Tourney was enough. If you keep making the Tourney you will advance from time to time- as we have done in our baseball history. We only have 10 CWS appearances in the last 45 years.

Now he makes it this year- keeps his job. He misses the Tourney next year? He needs to be fired- thats 3 misses in 4 seasons. Getting in this year doesnt start everything over. But getting in is the standard at State. Not some made up arbitrary view of Tourney success.

I agree with this post

[preachermatt83]

Btw, raising the bar was the wrong terminology. I should have used the phrase, moving the goal posts. My bad.

[Quaoarsking]

If we had a modern coach who had 3 straight 13-17 seasons, I would expect him to be fired even if all 3 made Regionals (although if we made Omaha in that stretch, we probably wouldn't). With that in mind, I don't think it's controversial to say 9-21, 9-21, 13-17 is worse. I'd also still be comfortable letting him go at 14-16 because a "replacement level coach" should be able to match or exceed what he's doing at that point.

We have so many advantages in baseball that we don't have in other sports. Any halfway decent coach should be hosting more often than not and never having a season as bad as 9-21. Yeah stuff happens from time to time but not 3 straight losing conference seasons. The transfer portal takes the "it takes time to rebuild!" argument away.

Hopefully Lemonis gets 17 or 18 (or more) wins, hosts, and makes this whole discussion moot. Given our talent level and what seems to be a great mentality of the team, there's no excuse for not getting there.

[Todd4State]

Getting in should be good enough. It always has been at State because before him we never won a title. Making the Tourney was enough. If you keep making the Tourney you will advance from time to time- as we have done in our baseball history. We only have 10 CWS appearances in the last 45 years.

Now he makes it this year- keeps his job. He misses the Tourney next year? He needs to be fired- thats 3 misses in 4 seasons. Getting in this year doesnt start everything over. But getting in is the standard at State. Not some made up arbitrary view of Tourney success.

I just want to point out that there aren't very many teams that have been to Omaha that many times the past 45 years. We're tied for 12th all time as far as CWS appearances go. With the vast majority coming since 1990.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...rances_by_team

Which is why for me our standard is making a SR. If you do that you are an elite team by today's standards. The NC raised our standards because before 2021 there were many that didn't believe we would ever win one.

[R2Dawg]

If we had a modern coach who had 3 straight 13-17 seasons, I would expect him to be fired even if all 3 made Regionals (although if we made Omaha in that stretch, we probably wouldn't). With that in mind, I don't think it's controversial to say 9-21, 9-21, 13-17 is worse. I'd also still be comfortable letting him go at 14-16 because a "replacement level coach" should be able to match or exceed what he's doing at that point.

We have so many advantages in baseball that we don't have in other sports. Any halfway decent coach should be hosting more often than not and never having a season as bad as 9-21. Yeah stuff happens from time to time but not 3 straight losing conference seasons. The transfer portal takes the "it takes time to rebuild!" argument away.

Hopefully Lemonis gets 17 or 18 (or more) wins, hosts, and makes this whole discussion moot. Given our talent level and what seems to be a great mentality of the team, there's no excuse for not getting there.

I agree with that to a point. Talent hasn't been our issue though. We sucked in 2022 with a lot of NC players still on that team. But as bad as we were and bad at the top (coaching) that is hard to fix in one year. Takes a few at least. Looks like we are on our way and even have righted the ship. Floor is regional this year (kinda expected to host now). Question of making post season in baseball at MSU is not even a question. Making a regional is always the floor and hosting is kinda like par. Making a super is a goal. Anything can happen after that.

[CaptainObvious]

I don't think anyone is saying just making the post season is the normal bar for MSU. For 3 years, normal must be adjusted down for this year to climb out of the hole we are in. Can't expect us to make all the ground up in one year. We should be solid in post season regional this year and build to shoot for super next year. If we keep improving, yeah a super or regional host looks possible this year.

If any program can go from so bad to hosting regional, MSU is one of them. Just being reasonable, we are a two year climb up from the bottom of pit because that is where we have been.

"Can't expect us to make all the ground up in one year."


Why not? The same coach tore down the program "in one year" that you want to give multiple years to fix a problem you say cannot be fixed in one year.
But, this is year 2 of the fix. I think 2 years in the portal era is more than enough. So the question that everybody seems to be pondering, "Is showing improvement by making the SEC tourney, and by default (most years) making the Tourney regardless of Seed or where State gets to play in the Regional,
Enough? Looks to be a fairly even split on yay or nay. I guess how the team performs in the tourney could sway people on either side. So let's see if the team continues to look like a tourney team under Lemonis over the next few weekends. Both sides should be amenable to that.

[smootness]

I don't think anyone is saying just making the post season is the normal bar for MSU. For 3 years, normal must be adjusted down for this year to climb out of the hole we are in. Can't expect us to make all the ground up in one year. We should be solid in post season regional this year and build to shoot for super next year. If we keep improving, yeah a super or regional host looks possible this year.

If any program can go from so bad to hosting regional, MSU is one of them. Just being reasonable, we are a two year climb up from the bottom of pit because that is where we have been.

I completely disagree with this. Being awful for two years should not lower our bar for Lemonis; if anything it should raise it. Yes, it takes time to build something up. But he has had more than enough time to build it. Barely making the tournament once in 3 years is terrible. I would need to see a very good year with a SR to actually be on board with him remaining our coach. Obviously it will not take that in reality for him to stay, and that is fine. But the bar actually needs to be raised, not lowered.

If you win a national title, you get a pass for a while, as we have seen. Well, if you do the opposite, you should not get a pass. You should have to do more to prove you are still worth keeping.