If I'm going to be eliminated by someone I would much rather it be by someone that wins the whole thing or goes deep as opposed to someone that goes two and bar-b-que.

That said I'd rather win the whole damn thing.

But I think winning is a process in baseball and for some reason no matter what level it is, the teams with experience usually end up winning the whole thing. That's the worst part about us not making it to Omaha IMO because now Mangum, Marrero, Pilkington and etc. could have used the experience of going to help us win later. Hopefully we at least get that experience the next two years.

We had never been to Omaha until 1971 as a program and we really haven't started going once every 4-5 years until Polk came along and did it starting in 1979.- so we're still relatively new compared to a program like USC, Texas, or even Arizona. We didn't become a regular at hosting regionals until the 1980's and even then we lost most of those regionals until the 1990's where we have won almost all of our regionals at home since 1997 and we're 1 out of 2 in SR at home since then as well. So, the past 20 years or so we have just now gotten to the point where if we host a regional we're likely winning it.

For most of Polk's tenure we just didn't have the pitching depth we needed to win the whole thing- which I think in part influenced his decision to keep Morgan in the game in 1985 after getting hit with that line drive. We have that kind of depth now but now the past few times we have been in a big game situation our hitters have locked up and tried to do too much and it resulted in a lot of bad AB's and weak fly balls this year in the SR and in the Finals in 2013. So, to me it's just a matter of our guys relaxing and just playing the game like they have and not trying to do too much. If they do that, then everything else takes care of itself.

And in 2013 Brandon Woodruff being hurt really KILLED us in the finals as well. If we had been able to start him along with Graveman we don't have to start Pollorena.

I think our group of freshmen this year are going to have a chance to make some noise in Omaha as well. Pilkington is turning some heads in the Cape. We've seen what Mangum can do and he is a special player who is only going to get better. Marrero was nominated for the Johnny Bench Award as a freshman- and he's only going to get better as well. LA is showing some power as well and Stovall is a good player. Breaux and Small are going to be elite starting pitchers as well and Padgett is getting better in the Cape. Very excited about our rising sophomores- we just need to hope the JUCO's coming in supplement the power hitters we have lost to the draft over the years.