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Even if Erik Bakich won't say it, Clemson baseball's first-year coach has Tigers back in NCAA field
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- Even if Erik Bakich won't say it, Clemson baseball's first-year coach has Tigers back in NCAA field
CLEMSON – After a not-so-promising start to the season, Erik Bakich is on the cusp of returning Clemson baseball to the promised land.
At Clemson, the understood expectation for the baseball program is to finish atop the ACC's Atlantic Division, win the ACC Tournament, host an NCAA Tournament regional and punch a ticket to the College World Series.
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With the exception of winning the division, each of those goals remain in play in Bakich's first season as coach despite an underwhelming first month-and-a-half.
On April 1, following a series sweep at the hands of Wake Forest, the Tigers appeared headed toward a season of frustration at 16-13 overall and 2-7 in the ACC.
"We snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory many times early in the season," said Bakich, who guided Michigan to the College World Series in 2019. "And now it's a totally different feeling."
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The Tigers' rough start wasn't all that surprising given that Clemson was picked for a fifth-place divisional finish in the preseason coaches poll, but Bakich saw something in his team despite myriad blown leads and close defeats that many others did not.
Apparently a bit of adversity is good medicine if administered in the proper dosages.
"We will get through this," he said at the time. "We're close. It's going to turn, and when the turning point does happen and we do get hot, it's going to be hard to stop us."
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Bakich proved prophetic.
The Tigers have gone 20-4 since and will carry a nine-game winning streak into a regular season-ending series against North Carolina beginning Thursday at Doug Kingsmore Stadium. After losing its first three ACC series of the season, Clemson has won six straight, including three sweeps, and at 36-17 overall has resurfaced in the national conversation.
A prime example of going from the outhouse to the penthouse, the Tigers are now strongly positioned for the postseason and in line to host a regional for the first time since 2018.
Clemson's resume is worthy, despite Bakich's contention that he "never tries to think that way."
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So I'll do the thinking for him.
The Tigers have won 14 of their past 15 games during their late flourish, which has elevated them to second place in the ACC behind only Wake Forest, the nation's No. 1-ranked team. Clemson also owns a lofty ranking of No. 8 in the RPI and has a 14-5 road record, which represents the second-best winning percentage among the country's Power 5 teams.
Clemson baseball has never been in a state of disrepair, but was in dire need of some adjustments after lagging behind many of its ACC brethren in recent years. The Tigers' last ACC Tournament title came in 2016.
Bakich, whose first college baseball job was as a graduate assistant at Clemson in 2002, served as an assistant at Vanderbilt for seven years before successfully tackling rebuilding efforts at Maryland and Michigan.
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Now he's savoring the chance to restore Clemson to its former glory.
"The pieces were here," Bakich said. "We just had to put them in the right places."
Mission accomplished.
Scott Keepfer covers Clemson athletics for The Greenville News and the USA TODAY Network. Email him at skeepfer@gannett.com and follow him on Twitter @ScottKeepfer
This article originally appeared on Greenville News: Why Clemson baseball is suddenly in position to host NCAA regional
