Baseball: Steve Smith Quotes
5/30/2005 12:00:00 AM | Baseball
May 30, 2005
Steve Smith - BAYLOR HEAD BASEBALL COACH
NCAA REGIONAL SELECTION PRESS CONFERENCE
Baylor was chosen as the No. 4 national seed in the 2005 NCAA Baseball Championship and will host UT-San Antonio, TCU and Stanford in the Waco Regional Friday through Monday, June 3-6, at Baylor Ballpark in Waco, Texas. Following are quotes from Baylor head baseball coach Steve Smith at Monday's press conference:
"I'm really happy for our guys, particularly those players who went through the year we had last year. To come back and put together the kind of year they have, to earn the respect and rewrite their story is very, very rewarding and I'm really proud of them.
"Historically (there's been a home-field advantage) and that's why everyone fights so hard to host, because the percentages of advancing and going on to Omaha are very much on the side of hosting, but you still have to go out and play. The fans still have to show up, take ownership of their team and be a part of it. This is an exciting time, it was an exciting year but it's not over yet, so there's still time to come on board.
"I have a great deal of confidence in (the team) being ready to play. They will compete as hard and as well as any team we've ever had, but baseball is a strange game, it's a very interesting game. I believe the other teams are going to come in with a great deal of confidence as well.
"UTSA particularly, I made this comment earlier in the year, those kids have shown as much character and fortitude as any program in America. To get off to the start they did and come back and win their conference tournament is one of the stories of the year in college baseball.
"This is a senior-laden group, a group that came in and inherited a program that was a pretty frequent NCAA program. I think last year they were very disappointed and felt a little bit responsible for the fact that we didn't get it done. To be able to lead this program back and leave this program in very good shape is something they can be proud of and always remember.
"Certainly (our schedule) translated into a high RPI and that in combination with our record and our finish in the conference, those are the two things that have vaulted us to that high of a national seed.
"There are two things I would say about the selection process that I appreciate. One, is I appreciate that although Nebraska's RPI was fairly low that they were rewarded for being co-champion of the league as well as the tournament champion. What that means to me is the committee showed a lot of respect to the league, if they had not done that and strictly gone by RPI or gone on some other basis, that would have been a disservice to the league. The other thing I appreciate is the fact that Oklahoma got in. If the Big 12 is not good enough to get five teams in every year then we've really got an issue."
