"From Bad to Worse: Clemson Baseball......" (c/p)

Apr 9, 2015, 2:41 PM

(from the Charleston N&O)

From bad to worse: Clemson baseball historically lost at home
Aaron Brenner
Aaron Brenner Email @Aaron_Brenner
Apr 9 2015 12:27 pm Apr 9 12:30 pm

CLEMSON – Just the facts, man, on the inauspicious nature of this now-completed 10-game homestand (and wait’ll you see the overall body of work at home in 2015):

Forget messing with ranked opponents; seven of these ten games were against opponents not currently in College Sports Madness’ projected NCAA field of 64.

And yet, all Clemson could muster was a 4-6 record.

Take out the 2-1 weekend vs. North Carolina, and that’s five losses in seven whacks at Wake Forest, Furman, Presbyterian, Georgia and (gulp) Charleston Southern.

CSU was 0-17 against Clemson all-time. Was. The Buccaneers overcame a 3-2 deficit in the ninth inning, winning 4-3 in extras Wednesday night.

Clemson is now 3-6 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Those are nights major-conference teams – especially those perennially built to compete for College World Series trips – are supposed to win on the regular.

This might be the most sickening stat of all, if you’re a Clemson fan: yes, the Tigers won two of three over South Carolina, which always counts as brownie points. But Clemson is 2-5 against all other in-state programs, with wins over Wofford and Furman but losses to Winthrop, Coastal Carolina, Presbyterian and Charleston Southern.

The Tigers have been displaced from their normal digs while the player development center continues its ongoing construction. Life hasn’t been normal for Clemson players, but the program spends more than half a million dollars annually on gameday operational expenses according to Equity in Athletics Data Analytics. The Tigers are getting beat by programs that barely spend a fifth of that each year on baseball.

(The 2014 numbers: Clemson - $515,492 ... Coastal Carolina - $383,321 ... Presbyterian - $140,980 ... Charleston Southern - $131,128 ... Winthrop - $118,781.)

Finally: Clemson is 45-for-45 in winning records at home in Doug Kingsmore Stadium. Other than an 8-7 mark in 1973, Clemson has never failed to win fewer than 58 percent of its home games in any season, and all-time entered the year with a 79.3 winning percentage (1092-285) at the Doug.

Clemson is 8-11 at home this year. With 12 games left – including three each with Duke and Louisville – Clemson would need at least an 8-4 record to avoid the first losing home-field record in Doug Kingsmore Stadium history.

On the bright side, Clemson is 5-4 on the road, and the Tigers travel to Boston College for a 3-game set this weekend. On the not-so-bright side, the following five games are back at home.

-AB

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Leggett struggled to adapt with the changes in college baseball, as well as the changes to Clemson University - both from an academic and an economic standpoint.

For most of the 90's, and the early portion of the 00's, Clemson was consistently ranked among the top colleges and universities in the country with regards to best value - due to the relatively low tuition expenses. This was a large advantage to the baseball program, as the University could mine the Northeast, as well as the neighboring states, for talent - with no financial disincentive to look elsewhere.

With lottery scholarships taking hold in our neighboring states, and the shift in the state funding model for higher education within South Carolina causing tuition at all in-state schools to explode, that advantage evaporated. Neither the athletic department, nor the coaching staff, adjusted - the first substantive steps in that direction were made with the implementation / participation of the academic common market last offseason, but that doesn't address the issues with academic / endowment scholarships.

And quite frankly, the same issues of a lack of Junior College friendly majors that plague the football and basketball programs have the same effects on the baseball team - it effectively eliminates the JuCo ranks as a source of players.

Beginning in 2009, college baseball changed the transfer rules (4-year players must sit out a season, with only graduation waivers beginning in 2016) and instituted a scholarship floor (all players must receive a minimum of 1/4th of a scholarship) - further limiting a source of talent, while eliminating the ability to split the 11.7 scholarships to make up for competitive-bidding situations.

Mix in some truly dreadful coaching hires [Riginos was a truly dreadful talent evaluator and recruiter, but reputedly a strong hitting coach; Pepicelli is a former centerfielder (as a player) and a Division III head coach - the two of them together was akin to fighting a boxing match with both hands tied behind your back] and you have the makings of the slow, downward spiral we've seen.

Changing the staff should address the player development issues we've seen. If the search is conducted in a reasonable manner, it should give us insight into how to creatively close the gap on the financial issues, as well.

My main concern is that we'll conduct the search in the same manner Radkovich seemingly handles all of his staffing decisions, and we'll address half the problem, at best. But that concern isn't substantive enough to make me believe changes aren't necessary.

"From Bad to Worse: Clemson Baseball......" (c/p)

Objectively speaking, it's time to move on.....

There are a lot of records that are going to be broken.

good post***

Very well-written and informative.***

Wow! A reasonable, intelligent, well presented reply...

Clemson tuition is very competitive with tuition

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