Southern Illinoise University Athletics
Three Questions with Lance Rhodes
05/02/2020 | 7:40:00 | Baseball
The shortened 2020 Saluki Baseball season had started with great promise under first-year head coach Lance Rhodes. The Salukis were 12-6, the program's best 18-game start since 2012, and were riding a five-game winning streak. We caught up with head coach Lance Rhodes to talk about the abrupt end to the year, what growth he saw from the team, and what to expect for 2021.Â
Take us through the end of the season
It was a rollercoaster of emotions. We played on a Wednesday night and won a really close game. It was our fifth win in a row, and things were going in the right direction. You feel like you have all this momentum built up; and when you wake up on Thursday, the season is over. Initially, it was a huge shock, but then you realize that it's so much bigger than athletics. It's hard to swallow at the beginning because of the amount of hard work you have put into everything. You see the growth of the team as a collective unit and the growth of individuals. You would have loved an entire season to have seen what this group could have put together. It was tough. But through it, you try to find the positives. The core of our leadership — the guys who put in the extra time that it takes to be a really good college baseball player — most of those guys that took those core leadership roles were our seniors. They led by example. When you're getting those guys back for another year, along with a recruiting class, those guys can again take the reins of the team. They have seen what we potentially can do, and hopefully that lights the fire for next year to do even more.Â
It was only 18 games, but what did you learn about your team in those games?
The first weekend of the year, we played so much different than I expected us to play. We had turned into a really good practice team; but in that first weekend, it wasn't the same team, even though we ended up winning three out of the four games. When the game mattered, I thought we reverted back to thinking, 'Are we going to win?' instead of knowing that we were going to win. In the short amount of time, just in those 18 games, our guys had turned that corner from a mindset perspective. The dugout had a different feel to it. If you were in our dugout, nobody panicked. They truly pulled for each other. I think they really loved being around each other. I never felt like we were out of a game. I always felt that we were going to win, and I think our players felt that, too. That's what really good teams do; they show up every single day expecting to win instead of just hoping. That was the greatest part of our maturation. We learned how to win, and we expected to win.Â
Can you preview what to look for with the 2021 Salukis?
When you look at our recruiting class, it's different because we don't have a single high school kid coming in. Every one of our guys will be a junior college transfer or a four-year transfer. When we took over, we wanted our team to be an older, more mature team that was more physical. Mentally, we wanted them to be able to handle the game because they have already had a bunch of college ABs or a bunch of college innings. We wanted to be as old and mature as we possibly could. When you mix that in with our seniors and returners coming back, I think it's a perfect blend. When you look at most mid-major schools that have success in NCAA Regionals and beyond, a lot of those teams are old and mature. That's what we want to be. I think we have accomplished that with our recruiting.Â
