POSTGAME QUOTES
Auburn 11, UCLA 4
Auburn, Ala. (Plainsman Park)
NCAA Auburn Regional
June 6, 2022
UCLA head coach John Savage
opening remarks
“First off, I can’t say how proud I am of this team. We went 40 games. Our pitching staff gets completely destroyed halfway through the year, and they didn’t blink an eye. The pitchers didn’t blank and eye. The players didn’t blink an eye. We went through a very difficult conference season and won 19 games. We played very well in the Pac-12 Tournament, went to Corvallis and won two out of three. And then we came here to a difficult regional. In terms of our team, I can’t tell you how good we feel about the future. We have a lot of really, really good young players and certainly the future is very bright.
“Just on behalf of our program I’d like to congratulate Butch [Thompson] and Auburn. They clearly were the best team at the end of the day, this weekend in this tournament. They had offense, they pitched, and they played good defense. They were tough outs. They were everything you’re looking for in a Super Regional team. This game was really a tale of getting behind the eight ball really early. I still think we back picked the guy at third. I’d like to have somebody explain to me what that call was, what that camera angle was. Last night, that could have been a 6-0 game, going into tonight. Then it’s a 6-4 game, a whole different ballgame instead of a 9-4 gig. No one has really given me a great explanation. But there are no sour grapes here, by no means. At the end of the day, Auburn was the best team. They deserve to move on. We have been in this position quite a bit and it's difficult to end your season in the regional final. We did that last year at Texas Tech and we did that again this year. At the end of the day, it's about growing. It's about development. And ultimately it's about winning. So very proud of our program and congratulations again to Auburn.”
on what he expected from his team after Sunday night’s suspended game
“Just I knew that we’d fight. We have such great character. We have been down before. Everybody saw what we did at the Pac-12 Tournament. We won some games there that were really incredible college baseball games. I knew that we’d fight and come back. We outscored them today, if it means anything, but at the end of the day, a 9-0 deficit is pretty hard to come back from. But we’ve got a bunch of winners, a bunch of guys who really care about the program and care about competing. Ultimately, I didn’t really say a whole lot. I knew the character of this team would come out and fight.”
on Auburn’s offense
“We’ve watched them on video, watched them on tape to learn as much as we possibly can. I knew that they were dangerous. I knew that they were ag ood team. You would have to ask Butch that. I just know that they scored 40 runs in the first two games. They had their way with the pitching in this tournament, so again, you see through the country the runs that are being scored. It’s just, I don’t know. I don’t know. I think that they need to take a good hard look at the bats. There are 2009 bats, there are 2013 bats, there are 2017 bats, I mean it’s a problem. It’s the – what do they call it – the elephant in the room. They really need to take a good look at that. My proposal is that everybody uses that year’s bats from the year we’re playing in. You see a trampoline effect [with bats] after several years. It’s no secret. But they need to do something about it. You are seeing guys who throw 95, 96 and 97, getting hit all around the ballpark. And I don’t know, it just seems a little bit off to me. I don’t mean to be going off on a tangent. I just believe that Auburn swung the bats very well and they looked good to us.”
on what made Auburn starting pitcher Mason Barnett so effective on Sunday night
“I think he was the story of the game. It kind of gets lost in the two-day deal. But Barnett was clearly the story of the day. Leadoff double, doesn’t give up a hit the rest of the way, he strikes out 10. He walked a few people. At the end of the day, I really think that he was the story.”
on thunderstorms forcing a suspension of the game (Sunday) and how that weather affected his team
“It’s not an issue. I mean, if you want to get to Omaha, you deal with anything anywhere anytime. We had good weather here all weekend, really. It was just kind of a blemish last night. But overall, I mean, if you look at the Miami Regional and a couple of the other regionals, they had a lot worse weather than us. The temperature was good. The ballpark played well, there were a lot of good fans. I thought the atmosphere was terrific. We thrive in an atmosphere like this and we enjoy and like playing in it. The weather was not an issue. We wanted to finish the game last night. I think that everybody did, but it didn’t happen. It gave [Alonzo] Tredwell another day, so that helped. But at the end of the day, the 9-0 deficit was the difference.”
on the atmosphere and fans at Auburn’s Plainsman Park
“Very respectful. Really good fans. I liked it. That is really what college baseball should be all about. They get on umpires when they want to get on umpires. I thought that it flowed really well. I’ve been at a lot of different environments throughout the country and this one ranks right up there. Like I said, it is not a hostile crowd, whatsoever. I think it’s a really good crowd that supports their team, and at the end of the day, it’s healthy for college baseball.”
UCLA third baseman Kyle Karros
on what made Auburn starting pitcher Mason Barnett so effective on Sunday night
“I think it’s that he had his curveball working. I don’t know if he normally has that. But I think he landed his first one and I think I heard their shortstop say, ‘I haven’t seen that all year.’ So, his fastball, his slider, that mix is good – it’s hittable – but once he is landing that slow curveball in there too, it is pretty tough to hit through that. It is such a differential in speeds.”
on his team begin able to show some resilience and fight back
“I would say that this group is extremely connected, and it is going to be special when we have a lot of the same guys coming back next year, too. If somebody is down, we just want to pick each other up and fight for the guy beside us. It’s a pretty special group that we’ve got going and it’s only going to continue to get better over the years.”
Auburn head coach Butch Thompson
opening remarks
“Super proud of our team. Three out of the last four years the Auburn Tigers can say they are going to a Super Regional. That’s a big deal. A great job to our program getting to host this finally. We proved it to ourselves that we can absolutely play well in this setting. Three great teams, and we got to compete against each team that was in this room – Southeastern Louisiana, Florida State with the tradition of Florida State and our history with them, and then a blue blood brand like UCLA. And I’m thinking as we are playing UCLA over this two day span of John Wooden, the basketball coach, when I was saying the score takes care of itself – running in straight lines and focusing on things like that, instead of overthinking. We all get caught up in that. It’s human nature. I think John Wooden's teachings had a lot to do with building this ballclub for Auburn. Seeing our fans show up even for a two o'clock game that is not on the schedule, and for people to come here and help us to get to the finish line. This was a special three days, four days for a program. A ton of players contributed, top to bottom of our lineup defensively. I think at the end of the day, our offense was the number one key. Number two was our three starting pitchers. That was the key. I thought we left a little bit on the table maybe from our bullpen. But one and two are absolutely our starting pitching and our offense. And there was actually some stellar defense played by our guys over three days, as well. It’s nice when you're at this stage, and you play your best baseball of the year as far as the series goes or a collection of games in these three games. I thought we did that.”
on the atmosphere at the ballpark
“Yeah, there was electricity. We have had great crowds. This one was engaged. This one was like I see at some of our other sports where I’ll go yell for some of our other teams, probably football or basketball. This one was electric. I think that I saw somebody, a guy, who was in like a coconut bra top of something, that went from like Operation Atmosphere to get a few people out there to now like, I’m scared I’m going to get in trouble, a bit old-fashioned. But it felt like over the last 20 years of going around the league and playing in the Southeastern Conference, it was amazing. It was amazing to see, it’s so gratifying and fulfilling for me and the players. And yeah, I thought that lap was really neat, for these people to be here. But we have tried to thank them all along. You know, we kind of set the table for this team early on in August and at the beginning of the year with our fans, and to see it reach a fever pitch this weekend was amazing.”
on UCLA head coach John Savage being complimentary of the atmosphere at Plainsman Park
“I respect John Savage as a pitching coach. I’ve been a pitching coach a lot longer than I have been a head coach. And in 2013, the last time I encountered UCLA was getting beat in the national championship [while at Mississippi State]. And four days later, he allowed me to fly to California and meet with him four days after they had beat us in the World Series. He invested in me, spent time with me, so I am glad to hear that he was complimentary because he means a lot to college baseball. He has set the bar very high. I mean, we got to play Florida State, we got to play UCLA in a home regional. It just doesn’t get any better than that. So I respect him as one of the best. And when you have success competing against a program like that, I hope that gives our guys confidence moving forward for what’s next.”
Auburn 11, UCLA 4
Auburn, Ala. (Plainsman Park)
NCAA Auburn Regional
June 6, 2022
UCLA head coach John Savage
opening remarks
“First off, I can’t say how proud I am of this team. We went 40 games. Our pitching staff gets completely destroyed halfway through the year, and they didn’t blink an eye. The pitchers didn’t blank and eye. The players didn’t blink an eye. We went through a very difficult conference season and won 19 games. We played very well in the Pac-12 Tournament, went to Corvallis and won two out of three. And then we came here to a difficult regional. In terms of our team, I can’t tell you how good we feel about the future. We have a lot of really, really good young players and certainly the future is very bright.
“Just on behalf of our program I’d like to congratulate Butch [Thompson] and Auburn. They clearly were the best team at the end of the day, this weekend in this tournament. They had offense, they pitched, and they played good defense. They were tough outs. They were everything you’re looking for in a Super Regional team. This game was really a tale of getting behind the eight ball really early. I still think we back picked the guy at third. I’d like to have somebody explain to me what that call was, what that camera angle was. Last night, that could have been a 6-0 game, going into tonight. Then it’s a 6-4 game, a whole different ballgame instead of a 9-4 gig. No one has really given me a great explanation. But there are no sour grapes here, by no means. At the end of the day, Auburn was the best team. They deserve to move on. We have been in this position quite a bit and it's difficult to end your season in the regional final. We did that last year at Texas Tech and we did that again this year. At the end of the day, it's about growing. It's about development. And ultimately it's about winning. So very proud of our program and congratulations again to Auburn.”
on what he expected from his team after Sunday night’s suspended game
“Just I knew that we’d fight. We have such great character. We have been down before. Everybody saw what we did at the Pac-12 Tournament. We won some games there that were really incredible college baseball games. I knew that we’d fight and come back. We outscored them today, if it means anything, but at the end of the day, a 9-0 deficit is pretty hard to come back from. But we’ve got a bunch of winners, a bunch of guys who really care about the program and care about competing. Ultimately, I didn’t really say a whole lot. I knew the character of this team would come out and fight.”
on Auburn’s offense
“We’ve watched them on video, watched them on tape to learn as much as we possibly can. I knew that they were dangerous. I knew that they were ag ood team. You would have to ask Butch that. I just know that they scored 40 runs in the first two games. They had their way with the pitching in this tournament, so again, you see through the country the runs that are being scored. It’s just, I don’t know. I don’t know. I think that they need to take a good hard look at the bats. There are 2009 bats, there are 2013 bats, there are 2017 bats, I mean it’s a problem. It’s the – what do they call it – the elephant in the room. They really need to take a good look at that. My proposal is that everybody uses that year’s bats from the year we’re playing in. You see a trampoline effect [with bats] after several years. It’s no secret. But they need to do something about it. You are seeing guys who throw 95, 96 and 97, getting hit all around the ballpark. And I don’t know, it just seems a little bit off to me. I don’t mean to be going off on a tangent. I just believe that Auburn swung the bats very well and they looked good to us.”
on what made Auburn starting pitcher Mason Barnett so effective on Sunday night
“I think he was the story of the game. It kind of gets lost in the two-day deal. But Barnett was clearly the story of the day. Leadoff double, doesn’t give up a hit the rest of the way, he strikes out 10. He walked a few people. At the end of the day, I really think that he was the story.”
on thunderstorms forcing a suspension of the game (Sunday) and how that weather affected his team
“It’s not an issue. I mean, if you want to get to Omaha, you deal with anything anywhere anytime. We had good weather here all weekend, really. It was just kind of a blemish last night. But overall, I mean, if you look at the Miami Regional and a couple of the other regionals, they had a lot worse weather than us. The temperature was good. The ballpark played well, there were a lot of good fans. I thought the atmosphere was terrific. We thrive in an atmosphere like this and we enjoy and like playing in it. The weather was not an issue. We wanted to finish the game last night. I think that everybody did, but it didn’t happen. It gave [Alonzo] Tredwell another day, so that helped. But at the end of the day, the 9-0 deficit was the difference.”
on the atmosphere and fans at Auburn’s Plainsman Park
“Very respectful. Really good fans. I liked it. That is really what college baseball should be all about. They get on umpires when they want to get on umpires. I thought that it flowed really well. I’ve been at a lot of different environments throughout the country and this one ranks right up there. Like I said, it is not a hostile crowd, whatsoever. I think it’s a really good crowd that supports their team, and at the end of the day, it’s healthy for college baseball.”
UCLA third baseman Kyle Karros
on what made Auburn starting pitcher Mason Barnett so effective on Sunday night
“I think it’s that he had his curveball working. I don’t know if he normally has that. But I think he landed his first one and I think I heard their shortstop say, ‘I haven’t seen that all year.’ So, his fastball, his slider, that mix is good – it’s hittable – but once he is landing that slow curveball in there too, it is pretty tough to hit through that. It is such a differential in speeds.”
on his team begin able to show some resilience and fight back
“I would say that this group is extremely connected, and it is going to be special when we have a lot of the same guys coming back next year, too. If somebody is down, we just want to pick each other up and fight for the guy beside us. It’s a pretty special group that we’ve got going and it’s only going to continue to get better over the years.”
Auburn head coach Butch Thompson
opening remarks
“Super proud of our team. Three out of the last four years the Auburn Tigers can say they are going to a Super Regional. That’s a big deal. A great job to our program getting to host this finally. We proved it to ourselves that we can absolutely play well in this setting. Three great teams, and we got to compete against each team that was in this room – Southeastern Louisiana, Florida State with the tradition of Florida State and our history with them, and then a blue blood brand like UCLA. And I’m thinking as we are playing UCLA over this two day span of John Wooden, the basketball coach, when I was saying the score takes care of itself – running in straight lines and focusing on things like that, instead of overthinking. We all get caught up in that. It’s human nature. I think John Wooden's teachings had a lot to do with building this ballclub for Auburn. Seeing our fans show up even for a two o'clock game that is not on the schedule, and for people to come here and help us to get to the finish line. This was a special three days, four days for a program. A ton of players contributed, top to bottom of our lineup defensively. I think at the end of the day, our offense was the number one key. Number two was our three starting pitchers. That was the key. I thought we left a little bit on the table maybe from our bullpen. But one and two are absolutely our starting pitching and our offense. And there was actually some stellar defense played by our guys over three days, as well. It’s nice when you're at this stage, and you play your best baseball of the year as far as the series goes or a collection of games in these three games. I thought we did that.”
on the atmosphere at the ballpark
“Yeah, there was electricity. We have had great crowds. This one was engaged. This one was like I see at some of our other sports where I’ll go yell for some of our other teams, probably football or basketball. This one was electric. I think that I saw somebody, a guy, who was in like a coconut bra top of something, that went from like Operation Atmosphere to get a few people out there to now like, I’m scared I’m going to get in trouble, a bit old-fashioned. But it felt like over the last 20 years of going around the league and playing in the Southeastern Conference, it was amazing. It was amazing to see, it’s so gratifying and fulfilling for me and the players. And yeah, I thought that lap was really neat, for these people to be here. But we have tried to thank them all along. You know, we kind of set the table for this team early on in August and at the beginning of the year with our fans, and to see it reach a fever pitch this weekend was amazing.”
on UCLA head coach John Savage being complimentary of the atmosphere at Plainsman Park
“I respect John Savage as a pitching coach. I’ve been a pitching coach a lot longer than I have been a head coach. And in 2013, the last time I encountered UCLA was getting beat in the national championship [while at Mississippi State]. And four days later, he allowed me to fly to California and meet with him four days after they had beat us in the World Series. He invested in me, spent time with me, so I am glad to hear that he was complimentary because he means a lot to college baseball. He has set the bar very high. I mean, we got to play Florida State, we got to play UCLA in a home regional. It just doesn’t get any better than that. So I respect him as one of the best. And when you have success competing against a program like that, I hope that gives our guys confidence moving forward for what’s next.”