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Jim Penders - Selection Show NCAA Baseball · Coaches Corner

• 0:01
  Well, what do you think. Yeah, it's hey, it's a tough
• 0:04
  job, but they're all tough this time of year. I mean, we
• 0:06
  were excited the fact that we're in it. This is the first time.
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  It's the second time in our history that we've gone to the NCAA Double A
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  Tournament five times in a row, So that's an accomplishment. I think it
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  was fifty seven through sixty one, so the last time we did it,
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  So none of these guys, I wasn't even alive for that one. So
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  um, but no, it's a data celebrate. Um, you know,
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  hopefully guys are taking a little bit of time also to acknowledge the fact that
• 0:29
  it's awesome Memorial Day and there's a lot of bigger things going on than the
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  selection show. But um, you know, I'm excited. I think the
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  guys are excited. You saw their reaction. It never gets old, you
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  know, seeing them get excited about wherever we're heading. And it's going to
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  be tough to get through. To get through that regional. I mean,
• 0:48
  Texas Tech has been to Omaha, bunch and Tim tad Luck does an amazing
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  job with these ball club. We went down there a few years ago and
• 0:54
  took it on the chin. Four games in a row, three walk offs,
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  I think, so, uh, we got some work to do to
• 1:02
  get back at them for that. But we're just going to take it one
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  pitch at the time and hopefully get a good start from our starter on Friday
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  and worry about Saturday when it gets here. This team seems like a resilient
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  bunch, given the battles that you had to get through Friday and Saturday just
• 1:15
  to get to the night inning on Saturday, Was it like coming home?
• 1:18
  And then in the body language and just the reaction that you saw from your
• 1:22
  players, Yeah, people my age, people older than me talk a lot
• 1:26
  about kids today not being tough, and I don't know. The forty guys
• 1:33
  that I got are pretty darn tough. So I was proud of the way
• 1:34
  that they fought, proud of the resilience we just ran out of. You
• 1:38
  know, a good friend send me a text. It said, you know,
• 1:42
  sometimes the tank just runs dry, and it was. It was full
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  for seventeen innings and we were clicking and in that eighteenth inning on Saturday.
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  That's not going to ruin today. It's not going to ruin our opportunity to
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  go in a national championship, and um, you can only do that by
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  going one step at a time. But I'm really happy with our resilience and
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  that's that goes along with being a Yukon Husky, you know. I mean
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  you're kind of have to be. You're kind of embracing this. You should
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  just talk to the kids embracing not being biggist Jim Conference Tournament James. Yeah,
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  you know, you just you want to set up there's a precedent set.
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  I mean, it's just it's as easy as it gets right here on
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  campus. You know, they just look right down Jim Calhoun Way and see
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  some guys who didn't win a BIGG East championship that won the big one.
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  Nobody remembers that they didn't win the biggest championship in Madison Squarger. I'm sure
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  they remember, but it's not talked about all that much. Right now,
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  when you're visiting the White House, I don't think too many people character too
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  much about that. You know, look at Louis an example, Hey,
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  let's celebrate that a college yeahampion us. Now, yeah, what does it
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  mean for you to point them? Oh, you know, he's he's a
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  special kid to begin with, a special young man. He's going to be
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  twenty five years old this year, so it's not a kid anymore. But
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  they're all kids to me, he h, you know, I every chance
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  I get, I referenced the fact that he's won a national championship, and
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  that's something that all the rest of us are after, so why not take
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  advantage of that. And he's been there, done that. It was a
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  different venue, it was in Iowa and not Nebraska, but next stayed over
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  and we're going to rely on that experience to a certain extent. And he
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  knows the way. But I want to acknowledge him and I can't can't acknowledge
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  him enough. And what he's done for us in a short amount of time
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  that he's been here and his whole path is just such a great story.
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  And I want other kids in Connecticut to hear about his story too, because
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  you know, sometimes guys aren't quite ready to help us win as freshman.
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  It's very difficult to help us win as freshman, but as seniors, as
• 3:38
  graduate students, it's a little bit easier. And he's done all the work
• 3:43
  to deserve this, and I hope he gets to win a second one.
• 3:46
  What about Submitty. He's been such a big key of the lead on hell
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  he had six hits over the weekend. Yeah, he's just our catalyst,
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  you know. He he struggled for a good part of the year getting on
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  in the first at bat of the game. He seems to have gotten over
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  that and he's kind of clicking on all cylinders right now. He had an
• 4:01
  oblique in our trainer. We have a best trainer on campus, best trainer
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  you know that I've ever had. I shouldn't say on campus. We've got
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  some really good things that I haven't had a chance to work with. But
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  I got one of the best trainers in the country and Katie in and she
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  got him ready fast, as fast as possible. She got ben Huber ready.
• 4:19
  She's She's had a lot to do with our success this year. But
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  I forgot who you asked. He was ready Smithy. Sorry, he's gonna
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  talking about everybody else's. He's just whatever Smitty does. If he's over four
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  or he's four for four, if we're down ten nothing, up ten nothing,
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  if it's five to five, he's the same guy. And I think
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  that's why he was voted captain, along with some other reasons. But he's
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  never had a bad day, and you can never He's so unselfish, he's
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  such a great teammate. And now he's starting to really click, not just
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  defensively he's always there defensively, but offensively. He's starting to really swing the
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  bat really well from the left side and the right side. Right side always
• 5:00
  has been a little bit stronger, but this weekend he really figured it out
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  from the left side and stayed on some balls really well, hit a lot
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  of line drives and hard ground balls. What about the pitching situation, You've
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  got some confident things, like Garrett was. It was huge over the weekend.
• 5:14
  But you know, you're trying to figure that out. That's probably gonna
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  be the biggest puzzle to try. Yeah, you know, it's it's funny,
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  you know, maybe we're slow learners. Let's speak for myself. I'm
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  a slow learner. I mean, I mean, Garrett com he's a horse,
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  you know, and we always knew that we had that guy in the
• 5:28
  pen. So it was such a nice thing to have back there because our
• 5:30
  starters work getting it done. You'd think that, well, Widen should just
• 5:33
  make him a start. Well, we finally figure that out, you know,
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  and it just took me a little while, but a little almost too
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  long. But now I feel we should all feel very confident that we got
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  a horse. You know, whether he pitches game one or game two,
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  you got a guy back there that he's gonna be tough to get through.
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  He's very unconventional. He's different, really, you know, he just he
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  doesn't throw three pitches all that. He throws two pitches, but he masters
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  those two pitches. The biggest thing he does though he has a slow heartbeat,
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  controls the running game, pretty athletic off the mount for a really big
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  body. Um it does a good job defending his position, and the guys
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  just rally around him. The guys want him out there, you know.
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  You know it's a line from a few good men. You want me on
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  that wall. You need me on that wall. We need Garrett Coo on
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  that wall. Hand that point a little bit about the earlier this season,
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  but yeah, what is it off of the fields that is in his personality
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  that just makes these guys want to rally? You know, he's so physically
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  imposing and yet he's a you know what the people at Ted's don't want you
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  to know, because he also bounces at Ted's is that he's a big softie,
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  you know, And but I think that also probably makes him pretty good
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  bouncer, you know. I mean, he knows how to handle people in
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  situations. He is the best kid that I think I've ever had with regard
• 6:53
  to handling our team impact kids or you know, if there's um a little
• 6:57
  league team that needs to talking to, or a tour around our facilities,
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  Garrett Coast guys, he's just the guy that immediately comes to mind, you
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  know, and the kids craning their next to look up at him. You
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  know, he looks like this big, tough guy with the beard and two
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  hundred and seventy plus pounds, But he's a big soft that his parents had
• 7:13
  done a wonderful job with him and just an easy guy to get along with.
• 7:17
  But heck of a competitor. So off the field, it's kind of
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  a juxtaposition with how he is on the field. I mean, on the
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  field, he's an animal of a competitor. Off the field, he's a
• 7:26
  guy that everybody just wants him to be around. He's got a right just
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  a real dynamism and magnetism to him, and UM just really glad that he's
• 7:32
  in our uniform. He's a guy that walked on you know, he's a
• 7:34
  guy that we recruited, but we didn't have a scholarship floor, and he
• 7:39
  earned it last year actually on the mound at Prasco Park. You know,
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  I told him that he had earned it a long time ago, and he
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  had another great, great week at Prasco this time around. So hopefully,
• 7:49
  you know, hoping for a little bit more magic from him, and you
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  know, we're gonna need him if we're gonna get out of that regional for
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  sure. What probably you know, I just had a quick time versation with
• 8:00
  coach Mac. I think, you know, we're probably gonna hold him,
• 8:05
  Probably gonna hold him, Probably have Stephen Quigley go on Friday. As of
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  right now, I haven't solidified that, but we want to take a look
• 8:13
  at their lineup if there's anything crazy that splits, and make them twice right,
• 8:18
  because you have the right end and lefty options. We also have Andrew
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  Sears. It could be a lefty option, but um, you know it's
• 8:24
  I think it's more likely right now that we'd start Stephen Quigley on the full
• 8:26
  tank on Friday. Your message to the team about what the basketball team.
• 8:31
  Yeah, Austin, Yeah, when did you formulate that I'm playing that five
• 8:37
  minutes ago? No, I just thought that, honestly, No. I
• 8:41
  think somebody actually said it to me yesterday. Hey to the tournament. You
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  know, not too many people are talking about the fact that we didn't get
• 8:50
  it done in Madison Square Garden. So there's bigger fish to fry right now,
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  and that's where focus has to be, and that just can't you know,
• 8:58
  Xavier beat up us. You know, they beat us Farren Square and
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  they're a good ball club, and you know, but we got to get
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  up off the mat now and that seeing them dogpiles should not hurt us.
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  That which does not kill us makes us stronger, and that could wind up
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  being a real catalyst for us moving forward here. Um, you know,
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  and get on to you know, I know that, And it's not that
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  hard to have these guys say, hey, just look right down Jim Calhoun
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  lay and see an example of a program that he was able to flush that
• 9:31
  loss and get ready for their next opponent and when to dominate the nation's running
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  out. I'm not gonna last year's experience helping you guys sea up close to
• 9:39
  get in the waters. Yet there's some guys that played on that team.
• 9:43
  Yeah yeah, well, especially you know the guy that wasn't with us that
• 9:46
  won the national championship in Luke Broadhurst, are going to rely on him.
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  Um, he's got such a slow heart beat too, and the guys should
• 9:52
  you know, talk to him and you know, just be around him and
• 9:56
  hey, how did you guys get through this? And he gives that off
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  anyway, it's just just him being in our lineup. I think through osmosis,
• 10:01
  you take take on some of those characteristics we've had, you know.
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  I mean we've had guys in national tournaments all over our roster, and guys
• 10:11
  that came from other places in Wheaton College or wherever it may be from that
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  have had that experience at other places that they got to rely on it now
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  and it's just one game at a time and survive in advance. And in
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  some ways you can stub your toe, you know. I think in some
• 10:26
  ways you can play freer and easier in the NSA tournament because we've been playing
• 10:30
  let's face it, we've been playing tight for like two months because it's all
• 10:33
  we read about is, oh, well they can't lose to Butler because then
• 10:35
  they won't host, or they can't lose to this team because they might fall
• 10:39
  out of the at large. You know, they can't lose to this team
• 10:41
  because it'll be a forty point loss in the RPI. They can't win this
• 10:45
  game. They can't even play this game because they might lose ten, twelve
• 10:48
  points in the RPI. So it's like, I mean, I try not
• 10:52
  to give that off, but it's it's the kind of thing that it can't
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  wear on it. And then at least in the NSA tournament, it's like
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  if you stub your toe, you got another shot. In twenty eleven,
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  we lost our first game, took holost to Carolina at Clemson, then came
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  back to win the whole thing. And in some ways it's just you play,
• 11:07
  you can kind of just the hard parts getting there, and now not
• 11:09
  to say that Texas Tech is not going to be a difficult matchup for us
• 11:13
  first round, but the hard parts getting there, I think now they can
• 11:16
  just play, hey, we're in this is it? This is you know,
• 11:18
  it's uh surviving advance and play loose and have fun.