Tanner ‘confident’ Holbrook will get Gamecock baseball back on track

South Carolina’s baseball team will not be in the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1999, but the man who coached the team that year doesn’t think the Gamecocks are in dire straits.

“We are going to miss it, but I am confident we’re going to be back in the mix next year,” South Carolina athletics director Ray Tanner said. “It’s not like our baseball program is so far away and has fallen so far. We haven’t. We just needed to win a few more game.

“We didn’t need to win 10 more, just two or three more, and we would have been in pretty good position.”

Tanner coached that 1999 team and went on to win back-to-back national titles at the school before becoming athletics director three years ago and turning over the baseball program to Chad Holbrook.

Holbrook is 48-41 in the SEC since taking over and was 32-25 overall and 13-17 in the league this year.

“I am like Coach Holbrook and our fan base. We are disappointed we are not playing,” Tanner said. “We are accustomed to having baseball this time of year. I think what happened this year at the end of the year is similar to what happens a lot of years.

“It’s close. You come down to a few games here and there that you needed.”

Asked if he still fully supported Holbrook, Tanner replied, “I was in that position I felt like a number of times. This year we came up a game or two short, but certainly I feel we will be in a better position next year.”

New format Women’s basketball coaches expect to be playing four quarters rather than two halves as early as this upcoming season, South Carolina coach Dawn Staley said.

“I think it’s great because it’s fresh, it’s different, it brings a new flavor to it,” Staley said. “It’s for this year. I think it will change. I like the fact that globally we will be more in tune with what everyone else is doing.”

Men’s college basketball will continue playing two halves.

Slive’s send off South Carolina football coach Steve Spurrier led a toast for outgoing SEC commissioner Mike Slive at Tuesday night’s conference banquet.

“I think all of us are very appreciative of the work he has done here. I said we’re going to give you a toast, and I said Mark (Richt) you have been here all 13 years, you need to say something. So he and I said a few words.”

Revenge game Kentucky football coach Mark Stoops expects to have his hands full when the Wildcats come to Williams-Brice Stadium on Sept. 12 for each team’s SEC opener.

“I was blown away at what a great environment it was, how loud it was and hostile it was (when Kentucky played in Columbia in 2013),” Stoops said. “It is always a challenge facing Coach Spurrier. We were fortunate enough to come away with a win this year, so I’m sure it will be that much more difficult.”

Kentucky beat South Carolina 45-38 last year in Lexington, Ky.

Indoor update Tanner expects South Carolina’s indoor practice facility to be complete Aug. 1, he reiterated Wednesday. That time frame was thrown into doubt Tuesday when Spurrier said it could be the end of the September.

This story was originally published May 27, 2015 at 9:09 PM with the headline "Tanner ‘confident’ Holbrook will get Gamecock baseball back on track."