Hatters Finish Off Pack Nine, 5-3 [Updated]

General Non-Revenue20

Our rally in the bottom of the 9th falls short. Link to N&O. Errors and overall sloppy defensive play kill the Pack this afternoon…and with that, the season. State never seemed to recover from the marathon loss to Georgia Tech at the ACC tournament. Oh well

StateFans Comments

…another season and another failure to advance to the College World Series for Coach Avent.

FIFTEEN YEARS in the dugout and not a single ACC Championship, first place finish or or College World Series to show for it (despite 11 NCAA Tournament berths).

Since Avent took the reigns at NC State, SEVEN different programs have won an ACC Baseball Championship. NC State has not. In fact, more schools have won ACC baseball championships than have not….

…and, SIX other Atlantic Coast Conference programs have managed to advance to at least one College World Series.

Since 1996:
* Miami has attended 8 CWS
* Clemson has attended 5 CWS
* Georgia Tech has attended 2 CWS
* UNC-CH has attended 4 CWS
* Florida State has attended 5 CWS
* Virginia has attended 1 CWS
* Ray Tanner’s South Carolina has attended 4 CWS

I just find this^ relative performance to be too far from our competition to be as agnostic as many.
Coach Avent has compiled a record of 197-198 in ACC regular-season play and hasn’t had a winning season in the league since 2008, going just 40-50 in the last three seasons.

Oh well…I will sign off the exact same thing I have signed off on at the end of baseball season since SFN launched — wait til next year!!!

Parting shot:

Particularly in the summer when things can be slower in the college sports world for everyone, we really want to drive traffic to our message boards and encourage you to make them a routine part of your morning and afternoon internet surfing.

About BJD95

1995 NC State graduate, sufferer of Les and MOC during my entire student tenure. An equal-opportunity objective critic and analyst of Wolfpack sports.

General Non-Revenue

20 Responses to Hatters Finish Off Pack Nine, 5-3 [Updated]

  1. graywolf 06/05/2011 at 4:04 PM #

    Avent = Sendek……….wtny

  2. ncsslim 06/05/2011 at 5:15 PM #

    The top of the eighth was plain f’ng pitiful. Overman got three straight ground balls, one each to short, second, and first and each resulted in a total gag. Other than the three errors at third in the Clemson ACC championship game a few years ago (by the kid from Apex – Mangini?), I don’t know that I’ve ever seen anything quite like it. And right after their SS made a great play taking a run from us in our previous at bat.

    We don’t do the little things well, and never will under Avent. I don’t know why, but like most of the others in the program, always a dollar short. Always next year………

  3. backnine 06/05/2011 at 5:33 PM #

    Not worrying about this in the least. I believe this program will have a new skipper before Independence Day arrives. Change is in the air. There’s just too much data to think otherwise. To do nothing is to say this program is not a priority. I do not see our leadership conceding that. We’ll make a change first. There’s nothing to gain by holding the status quo. And certainly, NO ONE can say we haven’t been patient and supportive of Avent. He’s had his chance and then some.

  4. thekind 06/05/2011 at 5:42 PM #

    backnine,
    I loved your post and I too am optimistic for change. 15 years of this crap is enough. Pack your bags Avent!

  5. old13 06/05/2011 at 5:54 PM #

    Just goes to prove that it is past time for a coaching change!

  6. FuquayWolf 06/05/2011 at 6:29 PM #

    This season leaves me feeling like “meh”. Some highlights (beating our rivals, including sweep of UNC-CH), some lowlights (early season losses to Duke, Penn State, and Elon), and some missed chances (just missing out on the series win @ #1 UVA, losses to GT and Clemson in the ACC). Overall, feels like a typical season for NC State baseball, which can never seem to put it all together. We’ve either got a great lineup and not enough depth in the pitching staff, or vice-versa; or we’re great at the beginning of the year and tail off down the stretch, or start off lukewarm and finish strong. Whenever the team can finally put together a complete season, we’ll get that Omaha season.

    I do feel good about the future though, because Yow mentioned that she believes baseball is one of the top 4 sports, and should be funded and perform as such. This makes me think that she’ll give Avent the budget he’s lacked, but once receiving that budget, he better deliver. I doubt that a season like this would count as “delivering” over the long haul.

  7. Wulfpack 06/05/2011 at 7:00 PM #

    Stetson ends the Pack’s season with two straight. Enough said. I know they are a solid team, but if you go o-for-Stetson when it really counts, then you don’t belong with the big dogs. Another disappointing season.

  8. 61Packer 06/05/2011 at 9:24 PM #

    Wolfpack fans should be mad as a Hatter over the current State of NCSU baseball. I guess I was wrong when I insisted that this team wasn’t very good. They’re a mediocre team, with bad coaching.

    Someone above was right about the GT game starting this latest slide. Good teams don’t lose like that when they’re the home team. My high school coach would’ve had us running laps all night long had we given a game away in the 15th on a clean steal of home plate.

    So next season I guess we Wolfpack Club members will get another season ticket application, filled with sub-BCS level opponents like Stetson, who we can’t beat, and no home games vs UNC. No thanks (again).

  9. packalum44 06/05/2011 at 10:35 PM #

    Well our facilities just can’t compete with Stetson’s so chill out its not Avent’s fault its our fault for going to NC State we should have known that CWS are only for good schools State is not one of them.

  10. PackMan97 06/06/2011 at 7:14 AM #

    I really have no idea what Yow has expressed to Avent with regards to short term and long term goals. I’d have to imagine making the ACC tournament and the NCAA were minimum job expectations this year and Avent met them. Like it or not, I believe that’s how Yow rolls. Next year will likely come with higher expectations (I hope). Either Avent gets the job done, or he doesn’t. If he gets the job done, yay! If not, we’ll try and find someone who will.

    I’d be fairly surprised if Avent were ousted this season unless we could do it without paying him much money. Yow has stated many times that our funding and budget are an issue and I have no idea what the payoff for Tarantini was, but we owe Lowe some money, Fowler is still collecting a check and maybe even that awful volleyball coach that was one of the few coaches Fowler fired. If we don’t have the finances in place to put together a great staff and pay to send the old one off…we are better where we are.

    Just saying.

  11. john of sparta 06/06/2011 at 8:23 AM #

    +1 PM97.

  12. tuckerdorm1983 06/06/2011 at 8:38 AM #

    mad as a hatter

  13. StatePhan4life 06/06/2011 at 9:36 AM #

    Am I the only person whose needle doesn’t move with regards to college baseball? Perhaps I am in the minority. But to be honest, it seems like we are at least competitive or we would not have been invited. Since I do not go to pack baseball games and do not support the baseball team at all, I will not bitch about the product. Just as I will never complain about any of the sports other than football and basketball, since those two are the only ones I support with both my body in the seat and my check in their hand.

    So frankly as long as we are competitive and not a joke, I don’t mind us being okay. If you guys go to all the games for this or any other sport then, sure, you are a much bigger stake holder than I am. But really I cannot get worked up and act like my day will be any different over a baseball team that lost in the post season regardless of the round.

  14. 61Packer 06/06/2011 at 10:02 AM #

    Loved Avent’s comment in the morning paper, that it took this team about 50 games before they found themselves this season.

    There are a lot of good high school coaches out there who’d take this job for the current salary, or less, and I believe most of them would make State better.

    Apparently, .500 baseball at NC State is what Wolfpack administrators expect these days. The schedule indicates this. So do the results.

  15. hball57 06/06/2011 at 10:32 AM #

    Those who are predicting a change in the Baseball Coach this year will be sadly mistaken I believe. I believe the reason is economic. Avent has one more year on his contract which pays him around $120K. It is one thing to pay off a Basketball Coach because it can positively affect income. Firing a Non-Revenue coach in bad economic times that involves a buy out would not make good sense for the department as a whole. JMHO.

  16. highstick 06/06/2011 at 11:03 AM #

    “Adios Avent”, the Fowler Era is over! I guess the next sports story will be how NC State ran off another coach who just made it to the tournament!

  17. StewMan07 06/07/2011 at 8:09 AM #

    I have thought it’s time for Avent to go for a while now. However we need to spend some more money on baseball if it truly is a priority. We did Doak on the cheap when we remodeled it, but it needs to be expanded and have some bells and whistles added. Granted I know facilities don’t win games, but they do help you recruit and show commitment. I think any good coach that would want this job will want to see that level of financial commitment. With the buyouts already on the budget and one year left on Avent’s contract we may not be able to make this happen this year. Then again we may, I honestly think Yow has a plan already and it will be interesting to see what she does with it, but change is coming!

  18. hball57 06/07/2011 at 9:36 AM #

    I have made this point in the past (and it seems no one wants to address it whenever and wherever I post it). If a sport really matters to someone and they want to complain about the level of success (of lack there of), so be it. But I get really annoyed when people who couldn’t care less about a sport begin to complain about the team performance.

    The reason I feel this way is that people who are not invested in a sport only seem to care when something negative happens. They use it only to denigrate a team and/or coach; never to applaud their successes. I don’t know the challenges in building programs in most sports, so why would I make some comments about what a coach is or is not doing? An example to me is a comment in a previous post stating that “There are a lot of good high school coaches out there who’d take this job for the current salary, or less, and I believe most of them would make State better”. Really? A High School Coach with no experience in recruiting, NCAA rules, scheduling, player development on a higher level, dealing with the MLB draft and how that affects your team, etc. Now I am not saying that a their are not High School coaches who could do a great job at a D1 University, but to say there are a “lot” of HS coaches who could make the State team better seems to be a real leap.

    I have always said that, if we want the powers that be to care about a specific program, we need to demonstrate that we care about that program. We have shown we care about football and basketball so the administration cares. If only friends and family are in the stands for a women’s soccer match then why should the administration care?

  19. adwomack 06/07/2011 at 11:10 AM #

    I’m mixed about this. I go to a game or two a year usually, though I did not make any games this year, but I do follow the team during the season. I usually look at results and read articles on gopack.com a few times a week.

    Avent has been around long enough to show what he is capable of doing, and that is making the NCAA tournament at least 2 out of every 3 years, and once every 7 or 8 years, getting to a super regional.

    We always seem to be either a few pitchers short or a lot of hitting short. Part of the college equation is the MLB draft. If you recruit a lot of elite talent, they tend to get drafted out of High School, and they never show up to campus which is where the holes in the roster come from. But, if you get them to campus you get them for three years.

    Avent has had some great recruiting classes that have been devistated by the draft. But, that is part of the college coaching puzzle, and it does not seem like he has mastered it(if it is even possible I guess). Carolina and Virgina seem to have mastered it just fine over the last 5-6 years.

    And this year we have already had one recruit drafted in the first round(sandwich round really, but I think they consider that the first round), and one other that will probably go in the 2-3 round. If both of those go pro instead of showing up on campus, we’ll end up right where we always do, with a NCAA capable team, but with no chance to compete with the elite teams.

    Show we expect better? I think so. Otherwise what is the point of having the team? If we don’t have a chance at championships(ACC and then NCAA) every 5-6 years then I don’t see the point in having the team. I’m not saying we should win that often, but our expectation should be that we should be able to field at team capable of winning that often.

  20. BJD95 06/07/2011 at 12:00 PM #

    I’m not really vested. And I don’t think this is really the best sport to invest significant dollars. We have a competitive program on a shoestring. It would take a major, major commitment to get to championship level. I believe there are much lower-hanging fruit items to be picked.

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