What is the path forward for Lamar Baseball

This may be similar to a thread earlier this year about the men's basketball program, but a 1-5 start to the conference season brings out the questions. The Cards were up 4-0 today before ultimately loosing 4-6 at McNeese. With a young coach in just his second year as the head coach, some including me (even though I really want to be patient) will question if Will Davis was the correct hire. How patient should the fan base be? After all the last several years of the Gilligan era were less than stellar and many thought he should have retired sooner. Also the appearance was that Gilligan was in on the hire. I think I can evaluate basketball and it seems fairly simple, but baseball and football are more complicated. In basketball one super player can carry the whole team, but football is a combination, offense defense and special teams all have to improve. Baseball is similar to football in you have hitting, fielding and pitching and unless all three are working together. Occasionally a pitcher can have a day and performance that really doesn't need help but at the end of game there are no ties, so unless the hitting can deliver at least one run you can't win the game. The start of this season is less than I had hoped for but I have looked at the roster and 2/3 of the players are freshman and sophmores, so I will try to be more patient. How about the rest of us.

The question is, what is the path forward for Geezer? I salute you, sir. You and others, on this forum, are rock solid boosters, of the Lamar Athletic Department. You get frustrated because you want Lamar teams to do well and this past week must have sent your blood pressure soaring.

 

The answer, to your baseball specific question, is how well is Lamar Athletics doing as a group and my answer is summed up in two parts: up and coming and Marco Born. The MBB team finished a 20 win season and a trip to the Southland Conference Tournament, the WBB team looks like they will be making a trip to the big dance, and Lamar football looks like it has turned around and the sky is the limit. As for the rest of the Men's and women's team's, they look like they are competitive and that is the first step. As for Marco Born, he looks like he is the real deal. Personable, a fund raiser, and not scared to jump into the deep end of the pool. Hitch your wagon to this young man, hang on, and pray that he is going to stay for a while. Does anybody know if he is under contract and, if so, for how long? He'll do what he needs to do, in order to make LU athletics, the monster of the Southland Conference. If that means replacing underperforming coaches and trying someone new, he will. Sit back and let him pull the wagon, he'll get you there and your blood pressure will appreciate it.

This may be similar to a thread earlier this year about the men's basketball program, but a 1-5 start to the conference season brings out the questions. The Cards were up 4-0 today before ultimately loosing 4-6 at McNeese. With a young coach in just his second year as the head coach, some including me (even though I really want to be patient) will question if Will Davis was the correct hire. How patient should the fan base be? After all the last several years of the Gilligan era were less than stellar and many thought he should have retired sooner. Also the appearance was that Gilligan was in on the hire. I think I can evaluate basketball and it seems fairly simple, but baseball and football are more complicated. In basketball one super player can carry the whole team, but football is a combination, offense defense and special teams all have to improve. Baseball is similar to football in you have hitting, fielding and pitching and unless all three are working together. Occasionally a pitcher can have a day and performance that really doesn't need help but at the end of game there are no ties, so unless the hitting can deliver at least one run you can't win the game. The start of this season is less than I had hoped for but I have looked at the roster and 2/3 of the players are freshman and sophmores, so I will try to be more patient. How about the rest of us.

 

It's a lot easier to be patient if you see progress. Right now I see historic lows for baseball. I'm glad you pointed out the youth of the team but how long do you let losing at an epic rate continue?

For the record, I am not satisfied with the state of LU Men's Basketball either. Twenty wins sounds nice, but remember four of those wins are versus non-D1 opponents so it was a sixteen win season as far as the NCAA D1 rankings are concerned. Also record wise yes the men tied for third but reality is they were fifth and including the tournament lost five of six games against the teams ahead of them in the conference. The ladies are doing ok but have not made it to the NCAA tourney yet and is next year a rebuild or reload season. Barrs and Kinard are a lot to replace. Baseball where this thread started from did win last night against Southern but must do something in conference play. I think Marco Born has a lot of work to move LU to the top of the SLC pile in the All-Sports category. I will be patient, just probably not completely quiet.

For the record, I am not satisfied with the state of LU Men's Basketball either. Twenty wins sounds nice, but remember four of those wins are versus non-D1 opponents so it was a sixteen win season as far as the NCAA D1 rankings are concerned. Also record wise yes the men tied for third but reality is they were fifth and including the tournament lost five of six games against the teams ahead of them in the conference. The ladies are doing ok but have not made it to the NCAA tourney yet and is next year a rebuild or reload season. Barrs and Kinard are a lot to replace. Baseball where this thread started from did win last night against Southern but must do something in conference play. I think Marco Born has a lot of work to move LU to the top of the SLC pile in the All-Sports category. I will be patient, just probably not completely quiet.

 

 

When SWAC teams take you into the 9th, you got problems. PV and Southern.....

Cards have made their way to the bottom of the conference standings dropping three straight to Nicholls despite having leads late into the game. Cards gave up five runs in the eigth today. This stinks. Cards record sits at 2-10. Guess it could be worse.

Cards have made their way to the bottom of the conference standings dropping three straight to Nicholls despite having leads late into the game. Cards gave up five runs in the eigth today. This stinks. Cards record sits at 2-10. Guess it could be worse.

 

I've seen about enough of his de-Gilliganizing of the program. A 2-10 start to conference is not really an improvement over the 1-11 start last year.

Looks like the only path is up since it'll be tough for them to go down any further. So will they bring back Gilligan when he's in his 90s and using a walker to resurrect the baseball program again?

Lamar loses 23-2 to a mediocre utsa team.this has been a pat knight type of season.

Turrible

 

:flush:

Lamar sweeps the Islanders and knocks them down from third to fifth in the standings. Lamar did not move out of the cellar (only because the other bottom teams also won at least one game). Is this an indication of a begining or is it just a fluke?

This is just my opinion, but I think you give Will Davis two more years. He came in with the idea to build the program from the ground up using local high school talent. He is now seeing that it is not going to work. He is now recruiting more JOCO players and supplementing them with high quality high school talent. With this switch in thinking you have to give him two more years to see if there is any improvement. If there isn't then you let him go.

 

My biggest concern is his and his staffs ability to assess talent. I'm not convinced yet that they are able to look at a player and equate their swing, their wind-up, release, pitch quality to the NCAA level. I think they look at high school stats and go "hey this is a local kid who hit .500 this season we should go sign him" or "hey this kid has a 0.33 ERA we should go sign him." Just sitting in the stands the ball has a completely different sound coming off the oppositions bats than it does the Lamar bats.

This is just my opinion, but I think you give Will Davis two more years. He came in with the idea to build the program from the ground up using local high school talent. He is now seeing that it is not going to work. He is now recruiting more JOCO players and supplementing them with high quality high school talent. With this switch in thinking you have to give him two more years to see if there is any improvement. If there isn't then you let him go.

 

My biggest concern is his and his staffs ability to assess talent. I'm not convinced yet that they are able to look at a player and equate their swing, their wind-up, release, pitch quality to the NCAA level. I think they look at high school stats and go "hey this is a local kid who hit .500 this season we should go sign him" or "hey this kid has a 0.33 ERA we should go sign him." Just sitting in the stands the ball has a completely different sound coming off the oppositions bats than it does the Lamar bats.

 

I'm not sure what you mean by local but: Avery (sophomore) from Humble hitting .329; McCall from Mont Belvieu (sophomore) hitting .303; Durand from Jasper (freshman) hitting .299; Girouard (junior) from Port Neches .292; Coker (junior) from Huffman hitting .273. Seems like they are doing ok.

Personally I don't care about local, distant city U.S. players or foreign. For me going back ten years or more when LU was near the top of the SLC, you had multiple players hitting .340 or better. Looking at this years stats Sam Houston who is in first place has their top batter at .408 and seven of the top ten above .300 with an overall team average of .308 compared to LU with only four of the top ten hitters above .300 and a team average of .275. Lamar does have Berlof batting .392 It may just be a matter of depth. Sam has a pitching staff with a 4.98 era compared to LU at 5.12. Difference maybe relief pitching and fielding. LU has 54 errors compared to 38 for their opponents. For the record I despise Sam Houston but they are in first place and that's where I want LU to be.

Personally I don't care about local, distant city U.S. players or foreign. For me going back ten years or more when LU was near the top of the SLC, you had multiple players hitting .340 or better. Looking at this years stats Sam Houston who is in first place has their top batter at .408 and seven of the top ten above .300 with an overall team average of .308 compared to LU with only four of the top ten hitters above .300 and a team average of .275. Lamar does have Berlof batting .392 It may just be a matter of depth. Sam has a pitching staff with a 4.98 era compared to LU at 5.12. Difference maybe relief pitching and fielding. LU has 54 errors compared to 38 for their opponents. For the record I despise Sam Houston but they are in first place and that's where I want LU to be.

 

Really doesn't bother me one way or the other where the players are from as long as we at least attempt to recruit the best local talent. Looking at Southland season stats, Lamar is 4th in conference in hitting, 9th in pitching, and last in fielding. Suffice to say...it's pitching and fielding.

Got quite a few local pitchers. They're gettin lit up like Christmas trees.

Has baseball hit rock bottom? Can it possibly be any worse? WOW

Has baseball hit rock bottom? Can it possibly be any worse? WOW

 

How could it get any worse? When you're last in the Southland, it's time for a change. I'm one of the ones who is too patient with coaches most of the time but this is ridiculous! Our once proud program has become an embarrassment. Makes me long for the good old David Perkins days.

This is Will Davis’ second full year and there has been zero improvement. But I must admit I don’t follow baseball that closely so are there any signs that next year will be a turning point?

While I am extremely disappointed with this baseball season I expect Davis will be back next year and yes there will be improvement. Lamar's biggest weaknesses this year were pitching and fielding. Pitching is somewhat understandable as much of the pitching staff is Freshmen and Sophomores. I'm not sure how you correct fielding, is it a weakness in talent or something else. In expecting improvement I'm not just looking at finishing higher in the conference because they can't get lower.

The Cards need to win at least one of the two remaining games with UCA to avoid tying the school record for the most losses in a season. The 1990 team went 16-37-1 under David Perkins. After an initial 40 win season, Perkins had four consecutive 30 loss seasons. 1990 was the third one. I hope we don't have to wait that long this time.

The Cards need to win at least one of the two remaining games with UCA to avoid tying the school record for the most losses in a season. The 1990 team went 16-37-1 under David Perkins. After an initial 40 win season, Perkins had four consecutive 30 loss seasons. 1990 was the third one. I hope we don't have to wait that long this time.

 

I've tried to remain semi-patient. That series with Gonzaga was the final straw for me. What a freakin embarrassment. He needs to go!

I went to several home games and the issues I took away in several games was the base running fundamentals. Too many times players did not play smart baseball. Same with the fielding errors, trying to do too much in the situation. It is a fairly young team, so maybe their short comings will improve.

Everyone also needs to realize the program that last years under Gillian were a train wreck.

This season is finally over. Cards drop the last game of the year giving up three runs in the 8th inning. WE will se what happens in the off season. The Cards supposedly have a good recruiting class coming in so even with this years disappointments maybe the Cards will turn the corner next year. Baseball will probably cost the Cards the SLC Commissioner Cup

I went to several home games and the issues I took away in several games was the base running fundamentals. Too many times players did not play smart baseball. Same with the fielding errors, trying to do too much in the situation. It is a fairly young team, so maybe their short comings will improve.

Everyone also needs to realize the program that last years under Gillian were a train wreck.

 

How about defense. At A&M game for example, missing cut offs, throwing to wrong bases. Do they drill these situations. HS JV teams know these things. Really bad.