Why Ole Miss’ improbable College World Series run offers hope for South Carolina

When Ole Miss recorded the final out of the College World Series and dog-piled on the field in Omaha, Mark Kingston was among the hundreds of thousands watching the game on TV.

The South Carolina baseball coach admits it hurt “a lot” to watch postseason games from home this summer after his Gamecocks (27-28, 13-17) fell short of making the NCAA tournament. But it was a necessary exercise for Kingston, who wanted to study the eight teams in Omaha and see what lessons he could glean from them.

In the national title Rebels, Kingston saw shades of his own program.

At 14-16, the Rebels finished just one game ahead of the Gamecocks in the SEC standings, and USC won the series against Ole Miss during the regular reason. Much like the Gamecocks, the 2022 season proved challenging for the Rebels, which started SEC play 7-14 and were the very last team to receive an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. Before Omaha, rumors swirled that head coach Mike Bianco could be on the hot seat — the same kind of rumors surrounding Kingston this season.

“There are a lot of parallels,” Kingston said. “They were under fire for a great amount of the year. So to see them get rewarded at the end for just staying in the fight, it’s very well-deserved for that coach, that staff, that program.

“As we know, they finished one spot above us in the SEC standings. We won a series against them. The margins are very small. The difference between winning and losing is very small. And so the positives I take out of what we just experienced and watching Ole Miss is that you’re right there when you have the players you need. When you have all your soldiers healthy, we’re right there.”

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Charles Schwab Field is 1,178 miles away from Founders Park in Columbia, but the road to Omaha seemed much shorter a decade ago — when Ray Tanner’s Gamecocks made three trips from 2010-12.

In the time since Tanner moved from coach to athletic director, neither Chad Holbrook (2013-17) nor Kingston has taken USC past super regionals, and patience among Columbia baseball fans is wearing thin.

Rival Clemson fired seven-year coach Monte Lee after missing the NCAA tournament for a second straight year. As Kingston (138-109) heads into his sixth season in Columbia, he could find himself in a similar do-or-die situation.

Can Kingston and the Gamecocks make the same kind of turnaround Bianco’s Rebels made?

In his studying of Ole Miss and other Omaha teams, Kingston picked up on a clear formula. In particular, he honed in on fellow SEC teams Auburn and Texas A&M, which both reached Omaha one year after missing the NCAA tournament.

“Just in the last couple of years when you factor in the NIL, when you factor in the COVID classes staying in school, when you factor in the shrunken draft, college baseball doesn’t resemble college baseball from 10 years ago,” Kingston said. “What we’ve learned is you better have an older, more experienced team on the whole. You can have some young players, but they’d better be elite young players that are ready to play against, truthfully, 21-, 22-, 23-year-old players now.

“... You better be digging in like Texas A&M did, like Auburn did this past year, because they made the biggest jumps of any teams in the country. And they did it via the portal, and the portal is not going to go away.”

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College baseball has evolved in recent years. For the Gamecocks to compete at that level, they’ll need to evolve, too. Barely a month into the offseason, and the Gamecocks have already added eight players from the transfer portal. For USC to get back to the NCAA tournament, those transfers will need to make an immediate impact.

A multitude of pitching injuries played a large role in USC’s rocky 2022 season, but they weren’t the sole culprit. Compared with the four SEC teams that reached Omaha, last season’s USC’s lineup was young and inexperienced, with four or five freshmen starting at times and with offensive numbers that ranked near the bottom in the SEC in most categories.

The strength of the offense was the veteran top half of the order, but leading hitters Brandt Belk and Andrew Eyster graduated and second baseman Braylen Wimmer will likely be drafted — putting the pressure on USC’s six position player transfers to perform. Though he couldn’t talk in specifics about the transfers who haven’t officially signed yet, Kingston seemed giddy when he described the kind of impact those newcomers could make.

The firing of Lee allowed USC to poach two veterans from Clemson in highly touted catcher Jonathan French and outfielder/first baseman Dylan Brewer. And Kingston also added offensive juice in the form of transfers Jacob Compton (Memphis) and Caleb Denny (Oral Roberts), who each led his respective team with 11 home runs apiece.

Along with improved health on the pitching side and the progression of promising — though inconsistent — freshmen like Michael Braswell and Talmadge LeCroy, the Gamecocks have a blueprint for improvement in 2023.

“I think we can improve every area of our team based off of last year’s team,” Kingston said. “And so knowing we won 13 games in the league, knowing we’re going to improve every part of our team pretty significantly in my mind, that gives me a lot of confidence as we move forward.”

To regain the confidence of the fan base, the Gamecocks need to take a significant leap, maybe even a Bianco-type leap. Otherwise the hot seat might only grow warmer.

South Carolina baseball transfer commits

RHP Nick Proctor — California RHP Ricky Williams — Clemson 1B/OF Dylan Brewer — Clemson 1B Gavin Casas — Vanderbilt 1B/OF Jacob Compton — Memphis C Jonathan French — Clemson

INF/OF Caleb Denny — Oral Roberts

INF/RHP Chris Veach — Presbyterian