Spring Sports off to Slow Start

hapapp · Unread post by **hapapp** » Sat Feb 22, 2014 11:53 am

Baseball, Softball, Men's and Women's Tennis are a combined 5-17. One would have to say to this point in the year, our athletic program is experiencing one of its least successful years across the board. Only two teams (outside of T&F/XC) have had winning records so far this season (Volleyball and Women's Soccer). No mens team has a winning record to this point. Collectively our teams are 67-108-11.

asu66 · Unread post by **asu66** » Sat Feb 22, 2014 1:29 pm

hapapp wrote:Baseball, Softball, Men's and Women's Tennis are a combined 5-17. One would have to say to this point in the year, our athletic program is experiencing one of its least successful years across the board. Only two teams (outside of T&F/XC) have had winning records so far this season (Volleyball and Women's Soccer). No mens team has a winning record to this point. Collectively our teams are 67-108-11.

One of the downsides of moving to an FBS conference is that we never really excelled in many of the SoCon's non-revenue sports. We always seemed to have XCountry, T & F and Football (and more recently WBB, Softball and Baseball) success to fall back on to keep rolling in those M & W conference athletics excellence awards. It really shows when everybody is having an "off season." No pun intended. The 2013-14 school term hasn't been much to write home about. (And that's across the board at ASU. Athletic teams underperforming; athletes making headlines for inappropriate activities; university academics making headlines over "academic freedom" battles with the faculty; administration [primarily new Provost Lori Gonzalez] under fire for overreach; and Chancellor Peacock's unexpected retirement.)

It's not going to get easier for our athletics teams in the Sunbelt. We're going to have to fully-fund all non-revenue sports to the NCAA scholarship limit; recruit like crazy, and hire better head coaches and assistants as vacancies occur. Most of us are impatient to win--and win big--in every sport. This will necessarily be a work in progress. It may be that most of our sports will take their lumps for quite a while. We're about to find out how patient we can be.

Speaking just for myself--patience has never been one of my strengths. I fear I have *many more* hard, hard lessons to learn.

hapapp · Unread post by **hapapp** » Sat Feb 22, 2014 1:37 pm

Agreed. I think the couple of sports that you mention have made our athletic program appear stronger than it is. I suspect we will find ourselves near the bottom of the SBC in the overall sports competition.

asu66 · Unread post by **asu66** » Sat Feb 22, 2014 1:53 pm

I had to go back and do an edit of my previous post. The entire year at ASU was tarnished in my mind. Very disappointing. Had to get it off my chest. Hope we never see another period like the last 18 to 24 months.

It's not like nothing good was happening in university classrooms or on the fields/courts of competition. It's just that the dirty laundry of a few makes everyone feel the need for another shower. And both the news media and our competition is always lurking--waiting for some scandal, failure or an edge of any sort.

WVAPPeer · Unread post by **WVAPPeer** » Sat Feb 22, 2014 4:43 pm

Time to clean house - Fire 'em all !!!

T-Dog · Unread post by **T-Dog** » Sat Feb 22, 2014 5:34 pm

Here's a crazy stat. App State has not won a SoCon Tournament since 2000 men's basketball. That includes men's and women's hoops, baseball, softball, men's and women's tennis, men's and women's soccer and volleyball. It's somewhere over 110 tournaments.