Coming into the NCAA Tournament, there was a belief that the Florida Gators were one of the sneaky picks to make it to Omaha. The ghosts of starting SEC play 1-11 had seemingly been vanquished, and in the six weeks between starting 1-11 and the SEC Tournament, the Gators were playing some much better baseball.
But it turns out you can never truly kill a ghost and this weekend in Conway the Gators were undone by some of the same bad fundamental baseball that caused them to hit rock bottom in the first place.
Florida Baseball has their season end after losing to ECU
Florida lost to ECU 11-4 to eliminate the Gators from the NCAA Tournament.
Back on April 7, after the Gators were swept by Vanderbilt, we wrote a piece called "Bottom has fallen out for Florida Baseball, and no one is coming to save the Gators."
In it, we said the following:
"But beyond just stat lines across the board from both the pitchers and batters looking anemic, what has been the most troubling thing for the Gators and what has been inexcusable all season long has been their complete inability to do any of the little things correctly."
In truth, we could copy and paste that line and apply it to this weekend.
In their two losses to ECU, Florida:
- Couldn't locate a fastball
- Couldn't field a bunt
- Couldn't squeeze a tag
- Couldn't make a throw from 3rd to 1st
- Couldn't catch a fly ball
- Couldn't work counts any deeper than 1-1
- Couldn't have the plate discipline to not ground into a double play on a 3-0 count
ECU won both games, and to the victor goes the spoils, but it's not like the Pirates came into the Conway Regional as a juggernaut. They were 6th in the AAC and were north of 80 in RPI before going on a run in the AAC Tournament.
And while injuries played a part all season for the Gators and had some guys in positions that were not their primary position, the reality is that the plays that doomed Florida were basic fundamental baseball plays the Gators just didn't execute.
Florida could have played Norfolk State this weekend and still found a way to lose, given the lack of fundamentals.
It's a shame because this weekend leaves a sour taste in what was a great turnaround story in college baseball, and it leaves more questions than answers as to what the future of the program holds.