Erik Bakich reflects on NCAA Tournament exits: ‘We’re not going to play the victim’

Clemson exited the 2024 NCAA baseball tournament in somewhat infamous fashion, falling to Florida during a Super Regional full of controversy. But head coach Erik Bakich wasn’t going to say the Tigers were victims of umpires calls or a few ejections.

Along with the rollercoaster Super Regional in 2024, the Tigers fell during the Regional round of the 2023 tournament. For Bakich, the goal is to avoid getting caught up in what might’ve gone awry, and focus on being so good that obstacles like a bad call or ejection are a non-factor.

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“I don’t know. Umpires, weather, things you can’t control. It’s really tough to harp on that, focus on that,” Bakich said during an end-of-season press conference. “So I think I don’t have a solution, I don’t have a good answer. I know that we’re just going to stay locked in on what we can control and try to be the best at it and try to be in a position where we play so well that we don’t need the calls and a few bad calls or an ejection, we can absorb it and it doesn’t impact the outcome of the game.”

One way or another, though, Bakich wants to make sure his team doesn’t play the victim going forward.

“We’re not the victim,” Bakich said. “We could’ve won those two games by playing better. We let them score more runs than we scored. So we’re not — just circumstances that are unfortunate, but we’re not going to play the victim.”

As he looks ahead to the 2025 season, Bakich also knows he’d like to leave these sorts of discussions — about how Clemson fell short, and the various issues on the way to such a shortcoming — as a distant memory as the Tigers roll deep into the postseason and make an appearance in Omaha at the Men’s College World Series.

“So, it’s unfortunate we’ve had so many ejections in the last two postseasons, but hopefully it’s just pure coincidence, we can move forward and we’re still playing this time next year and nobody’s talking about what happened last year,” Bakich said. 

Bakich is already angling to improve his squad for next season

Bakich recently shared what Clemson will be looking for in the transfer portal this offseason as the Tigers look to improve their roster.

“Getting some power out of the portal is certainly a big area of focus for us – maybe a left-handed bat with power. Who doesn’t need that?” Bakich said.

Clemson is losing its top two power bats from the 2024 team in Jimmy Obertop and Blake Wright and will turn to the transfer portal for help.

The Tigers are also in need of pitching, Erik Bakich revealed. Sophomore pitcher Tristan Smith and junior pitcher Austin Gordon are both draft-eligible and seem likely to turn pro.

“And then pitching, you can never have enough pitching. And that’s the one part where, assuming Tristan Smith signs and Austin Gordon signs, that’s a premium weekend starter and premium closer,” Bakich said. “We’ll develop our current roster. We’ll let the guys that we have develop. But you can never have enough good pitching.”

It sounds as if Clemson will try to land the best pitchers it can, regardless of what their role was elsewhere this past season.

“We’ll certainly be looking for any lightning bolts that are like shut down, swing and miss, high strikeout guys on the back-end,” Bakich said. “Best available, really. Just best available portal players if that’s what it comes down to, managing our own roster.”

While Clemson will be active in the transfer portal, the Tigers are also going to lose some players to the transfer portal. Still, Bakich feels good about the Tigers’ chances of putting together another strong roster that can potentially get to Omaha and the College World Series.

“We’ve had a couple of kids announce that they’re leaving, and that’s to be expected. There’s always going to be some attrition. So it’s just managing who’s leaving, who’s coming, the draft. Those questions will all be answered over the next month or so,” Bakich said. “But we absolutely are looking at it from an objective standpoint of, ‘How are we going to replace these innings? How are we going to replace this power? How can we make sure that we’re still playing this time next year.’”