Charlotte SWEEPS NC State and eliminates the Wolfpack from the NCAA Baseball Tournament. Charlotte has now mustered TWO NCAA Tournament victories in the HISTORY of their baseball program — both against NC State this weekend.
You just wait til next year!!! By Coach Avent’s 12th year he will almost have had enough time to be expected to start beating powerhouses like Charlotte when it counts. He probably just needs a few more years to let the power of our recently renovated facilities to catch up with the Taj Mahals that the Charlotte’s of the world play in.
That’s it! It must be Charlotte’s superior facilities! Right? Thank God we spent all of that money on the new Doak Field after being told for years that we can’t even begin to hold our coaches accountable for performance until after they get world class facilities.
At least we beat Wofford!! Woo hoo!!
As we stated in this entry on Friday:
All seems to be status quo with Eliott Avent’s Wolfpack baseball program. Another ‘acceptable’ regular season with a middling finish in ACC play followed by nothing in the ACC Tournament or NCAA Tournament.
That kind of performance will typically get you an extension in Lee Fowler’s Athletics Department!! Oh wait…”Coach” Fowler decided not to even wait on this one and went gave Avent an extension through the 2010 season in the middle of this season.
Avent has qualified for seven NCAA Tournament appearances in his eleven years as skipper of the Wolfpack’s program. And, much like Herb Sendek on the basketball side of things…that is where Avent’s ‘success’ ends. Despite having coached 19 players who were named first-team All-ACC and having 40 players advance to play professionally, Avent has failed to win an ACC Championship or advance to a single College World Series in his 11 seasons as NC State’s baseball coach. He has advanced to but a single “Super Regional” (think Sweet 16 / Final 8 weekend in basketball).
But, hey…we made the tournament!! Perhaps we should go ahead and give him another contract extension just for being a good guy.
By the way, UNC-CH won the ACC Baseball Championship this year after playing for the National Championship last year. What a role reversal for the programs from when Avent originally took over. Thank goodness that we improved our stadium!! Imagine where we would be without all of that facility enhancement?
I don’t follow that much baseball…so, I would love to learn more about the correlation of the ‘progress’ NC State’s program over the last decade compared to the financial investment that we have made and similarly the correlation of the ‘progress’ Carolina’s program over the same time period compared to the financial investment they have made.