Head Coach Steve Smith
On being placed in the Rice regional:
"I'm disappointed for our league, but I'm extremely excited for our players. This may be one of the few regionals where everybody has played everybody, save Rice and TCU playing each other. We've played them all, so we're very familiar with the opponents."
On the Big 12 getting six teams into the tournament:
"We clearly had seven teams that were deserving to get in. There's so much subjectivity in the selection process. Fortunately, there's no more subjectivity involved once the tournament field is set, and it'll all be decided on the field. Prior to that, there's a lot of subjectivity. In years past RPI seemed to be the dominant factor when it benefitted certain leagues. This year it wasn't because it couldn't benefit a certain league. I'm very disappointed for the University of Oklahoma and for Kansas State."
On if he thinks Saturday's win over Oklahoma is what got Baylor into the tournament:
"That makes no sense to me at all, but that is obviously what it looks like. Again, there's a lot of subjectivity and it's not a perfect process. In our sport there is too much emphasis on the financial aspects of it. The men's basketball tournament and the baseball tournament are the only two that make money for the NCAA. We take a lot of pride in that, and the way you make money is to keep expenses down. The way you keep expenses down is to keep regionals regionalized, and that effects the seeding process. We're not nationally seeded. We're seeded by region; therefore, if you play in a region of the country that is strong in your sport, it is clearly a bias against you when it comes to seeding. That does not happen in the men's or women's basketball tournament, and that's just the way it is."
On his team playing their way into the tournament late in the season:
"It really is incredible. I give a tremendous amount of credit to the seniors. We've talked about the youth of this team over and over again, and there's no doubt about that; but when you get this far and have the success we had down the stretch, it took Jeff Mandel, it took Matt Czimskey, it took (Chase) Gerdes and Tim Jackson. It took veteran guys stepping up like (Nick) Cassavechia. The veteran guys are the ones that led us down the stretch."
On the teams in the Rice regional:
"All of them are good clubs. Rice is very talented. Rice is three years removed from where we are right now. Their guys have all been playing together for three years. Those kids are very talented kids. For TCU I'm sure today was somewhat bittersweet. They wanted to host, and I'm sure they could make a decent argument for hosting. They're penalized basically geographically, as well. I'm sure it came down to either them or (Texas) A&M in terms of hosting, and A&M clearly deserved it. There's a geographic bias there as well that worked against them. They do get the two seed, which is worth the home dugout in the first game and that's about it. They're a very talented club, and (they have) a bunch of veteran guys too. Prairie View we played a very close ballgame with, and they played very well. I don't think Rice will be able to sandbag in the first game. They'll have to get after it."
On if he was disappointed to go the Rice regional for a second year in a row:
"That's just for those of us that have done this before; but for the players, this is a whole new world and a whole new experience. I just wanted them to realize that there are a bunch of teams that are deserving that didn't get in. By somebody's measure we earned it, and we did get in, and I'm proud of them."
SS Beamer Weems (sophomore; Virginia Beach, Va.)
On being sent to the Rice regional:
"We've played all of those guys, and we've had some good games against them, so it should be a fun time."
On if he expected to go to Rice:
"I had a feeling they were going to put us there again. We went there last year and had a lot of fun there. Houston's a great place, and we'll have a lot of fan support there. Hopefully we'll come out on top this time."
On the competition at the Rice regional:
"TCU is having a great year, and it seems like Rice is always having a great year; but we're playing our best ball at the end of the season, so Friday should be a good game."
On Baylor's late surge to get into the postseason:
"It was crazy. We just finally gelled, and at the last half of the season is when you really need to do it. A lot of the young guys stepped up, and (Matt) Czimskey kept hitting those home runs."
On having their backs against the wall late in the season:
"We needed to start winning to get into the postseason. That's what we did, we played our best baseball of the season. The pitchers did well, the hitters started hitting, and we did what we needed to do to get to the postseason."
On the experience gained from the Big 12 Championship:
"It'll definitely help. We played some tough teams under some bad conditions, and we've been through the toughest. With anything from here on, even if it's not easier, we'll be expecting the worst."
C Matt Czimskey (senior; Waco, Texas)
On the Big 12 Championship:
"We went into the Big 12 tournament thinking we were in, and luckily we didn't play like we knew that we were in because it seemed like it came down to that last out against (Oklahoma) which got us into the tournament. It's a good thing we went down there and played our butts off and got in."
On being placed in the Rice regional:
"There are pluses and minuses to it. We've played everyone there. We beat TCU, Prairie View always fields a pretty good team in the SWAC, and Rice is a very good team, too. There's always pluses and minuses to that."
On ending his career-long 19-game hitting streak Sunday:
"(Texas) A&M flat out beat us, and I wouldn't say that if I had gotten one hit we would've won, so to lose the hitting streak is not that big of a deal."
On his recent hot hitting:
"I've had some pretty hot streaks before, but don't think it's been anything of this nature. This is probably the hottest I've ever been."
RHP Nick Cassavechia (junior; Dallas, Texas)
On being sent to the Rice regional:
"It's something we kind of expected since the conference (regular season) ended. We felt right then that we were in the regional, and we kind of assumed Houston. That's what popped up."
On facing Rice for a third time this season:
"We know it's going to be tough. They're the number two national seed, they have an unbelievable pitching staff with the fifth-best ERA in the nation. It's going to be tough on our hitters, but we're going to have to battle through."
On experience against the teams in the regional:
"It definitely helps that we've seen them all before. We've seen a lot of their main guys, especially out of the bullpen for TCU and Rice. Just knowing that we've seen these guys and we know what they have, and knowing that we've seen these batters and we have charts on them - that's all going to help us to come up with a game plan."
On the Big 12 tournament being the toughest competition until Omaha:
"I never thought of it like that, but it really is. There are four top-25 teams in that tournament, and we ended up being in the final two and making the championship game. We'll see one or two top teams in the regional, and with not as many games and not as many teams, that was probably the toughest stretch we'll hit besides Omaha."
On being sent to Rice for the second consecutive year:
"We always joke around about how there are all of these cool places that we'd want to go. We just hope that they'll stick us somewhere in Florida or California, but instead we're stuck in Houston. The weather's awful, and it's three hours down the road ... so it's not that exciting, but obviously we're happy to be in it with a chance to play more games and make it to Omaha."
On the team's recent play and second-half surge:
"It's an amazing thing to see. That's kind of how I expected our team to be this year. I knew that we'd start a little slow with how young we are; but everything finally started clicking, and we're beating these teams that were beating us so badly earlier in the year ... it didn't even matter; it didn't affect us. The young guys stepping up, older guys stepping up hitting the ball. (Matt) Czimskey's hitting bombs that I don't even know where they're coming from. It's a great thing to see, and I think it shows where we're heading in the future."
RHP Jeff Mandel (senior; Houston, Texas)
On the team playing their way into the postseason:
"Of the last seven games we won six of them. We wish we would've played like this all year, but it's the best time to hit the stride."
On being sent to the Rice regional:
"There are some good and bad things about it. We can't be mad that we're in; we'll go anywhere. We've played these teams before, so it's really nice to go down there and know a little bit about each team."
On the team's recent surge:
"It says a lot about getting hot and getting on a streak. We haven't been able to do that so far this year, but when all of our guys on the hitting side of it were able to really put it together, we had a pretty potent offense. Then this last week we get a little bit of pitching and we see what we can really do, so it's really nice to be able to see that at the end of the year."
On the Big 12 tournament being the toughest stretch they'll face until Omaha:
"We saw an (Oklahoma State) team with a really potent offensive lineup, then we saw a Missouri team that's hosting, then we saw Oklahoma, who was right on the cusp (of making the NCAA Tournament), and then we see (Texas) A&M who is also hosting. That's a four-game stretch that you're not going to see in a regional or a super regional. We're pretty confident that if we keep playing the way we've been playing, then we might have the same results that we had this past week."
On the team's reaction to being sent to the Rice regional:
"It was kind of a mixed bag. Everybody's excited that we made it, but we kind of knew that we were going to be in after the way we played last week. Our regional compared to some other regionals seems a little tough, but it's nothing to complain about."
