Virginia Baseball Sticks To Same Formula

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UVA coaches have not altered their message as a new season dawns. ~ Ian Rogol

The University of Virginia baseball team begins its first season as a National Championship program this weekend in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina at the Caravelle Resort Tournament. But the only place you’ll hear talk about defending a title or the 2015 College World Series is among media and fans.

The team has focused its attention to the season ahead.

Asked if he’d had an opportunity to reflect on the accomplishments of last June, UVA’s award winning pitching coach Karl Kuhn said: “I will tell you no because I was shocked to hear it was seven months ago. It seems like yesterday; it really does. I don’t know. I’ve never won one before, so I don’t know. That would be nice. We’ll try and shoot for that. But no, I haven’t sat back on the couch, crossed my legs and gone ‘wow’. Not yet, I haven’t so, I’m hopeful that sometime I can at some point. Next time you do it, tell me how it feels.”

Five-time ACC Coach of the Year and three-time National Coach of the Year Brian O’Connor echoed Kuhn’s sentiment.

“We’ve never been in the scenario before where somebody’s had to talk about it,” he said. “It doesn’t really impact me. It doesn’t impact the players. I think they understand when they decide this is where they want to play baseball that there’s going to be high expectations and so I haven’t really thought about it.”

Catcher Matt Thaiss who started 67 of 68 games last spring and finished 14th in the ACC in batting says the team has moved on to this season.

“Last year … that said a lot,” Thaiss said. “Everything that happened last year was awesome. The guys on that team will never forget it and with that it’s a new year. In the fall we realized we had a completely different team from last year and no one was going to give us credit for what we did last year when it’s a new year. We’re not entitled to anything. It’s a totally different season. It’s going to be different teams out there, different opponents, and if we keep dwelling on what happened last year, it’s going to really hurt us this year. I think we did a really good job this fall of letting last year go and getting to work on this year.”

Thaiss said the approach of the coaching staff sets that tone.

“The coaches honestly didn’t mention [the CWS) once,” Thaiss said. “Coach O’Connor said there’s going be expectations like there always are. There’s going to be pressure like there always is, but he didn’t need to tell us to move on. I think the culture they’ve created here and everything the coaches have done for this program is wired into the team and players to move on from year to year. It wasn’t something anyone thought about. I mean, the guys on the team who were there last year sometimes we’ll joke about it, talk about it, but when we’re at the field with this year’s team it’s all about this year’s team and the work we have to do this year.”

Pre-season All-American Pavin Smith agreed.

“Last year is last year and this year is this year we haven’t done anything this year and last year doesn’t mean anything for this year,” he said. “Just because we won last year doesn’t mean we have it won this year.”

While the team may have moved on from the result, Thaiss says the Hoos are still dialed in to the mindset that got them there. The development process and team culture that were the drivers for success in the 2015 NCAA Tournament isn’t going anywhere.

That fact isn’t surprising. That Virginia clubs year after year seem to have a similar mindset and approach to the game is not by accident. Coach O’Connor says consistency in message, approach, and the type of personnel you bring into program are all part of the winning formula.

“That’s absolutely our foundation; it’s absolutely what I believe,” O’Connor said. “It’s that we’re very, very consistent with what we do on a daily basis, and what our expectations of the players are, and how this program is operated. Because of that I think that allowed us to end up doing what we did last year. It kept them together enough to give us a chance. If you’re inconsistent with how your program is run, or how you run your business, or whatever you do, that’s going to let you down at the most important times. There’s a big belief that I have that part of building the right team culture is being consistent with what your message is and how you do things as a program and it served us well last year. Do things vary? Do adjustments need to be made from time to time? Sure. Last season was a great example.”

“Do you adapt at times,” O’Connor continued? “Sure you do. I mean, if you don’t, if you don’t learn from your mistakes, you never gain wisdom. It’s pretty simple. So you have to adapt and tweak, here and there, but not your foundation, not your core for what your program stands for and how you’re going to play the game and in the case of say Tony Bennett you have an identity. And we have an identity for our baseball program and we don’t waiver from that. That gets you through tough times. I’m a huge, huge believer in it, and if you recruit players that believe in it, if people around you, the staff, believe in it, it’ll work out.”

With 16 freshman, two JUCO transfers, and 28 of 37 players in their first or second season on the squad, 2016 will require some adjustments. O’Connor, Kuhn, and Associate Head Coach Kevin McMullen are not intransigent in their approach but the core philosophies must remain the same. That’s especially true with so many new faces moving into new roles this season.

The consistency with the program’s recruiting, philosophy, and more comes from a coaching staff that ha been together for 12 seasons. Senior catcher Robbie Coman says it is impossible to overstate the value of that coaching continuity over the last 10 years.

“I’ve never met four or five guys that know each other better, they know how each other operate and really get across that winning culture,” says Coman. “They go out there with a strict practice plan, they know what their goals are, they know what they want to do, and they do it very successfully. That culture has been embedded in me and every day that you’re here you get more and more and it’s hard, after four years to not have that culture in me. It’s just the way that it supposed to be done in my eyes.”