Louisville Baseball Aiming to Bounce Back for 2024 Season
LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Ever since 2007 when Dan McDonnell was hired to be the head coach of the Louisville baseball program, the Cardinals have become one of the preeminent powerhouses in all of college baseball.
In his 17 years at the helm, Louisville has made five trips to the College World Series, won ten conference regular season championships, and amassed the third-most wins in the sport. In fact, the Cardinals had just one NCAA Tournament appearance before his arrival, and they missed the Big Dance just once in his first 14 years as the head man in charge.
However, the last three years of his tenure have certainly had their ups and downs. In 2021, Louisville missed out on the NCAAs for the first time in a decade after suffering a collapse in the final month of the season. This past season in 2023, the Cardinals had a similar situation unfold to the point where not only did they miss the NCAA Tournament, they failed to clinch a spot in the ACC Tournament for the first time.
With McDonnell heading into Year 18 with the program, he's hoping to help Louisville bounce back from another disappointing campaign and get the Cardinals back to their status as one of the elite teams in college baseball.
"The reality is, if we don't win the national championship, there's a part of you that's gonna think it didn't go your way, he said ahead of the first practice of the preseason. "Then you have to realize even if he did win the national championship, you have to turn the page.
"It's a new year, it's a new group, it's a combination of returners and high talented recruits. It's guys with goals and visions and dreams. Nothing changes on that front where the bar is set, and what we're trying to accomplish as a program. But you got to take a big step back, and you got to slow down and stick to the process. It's the first week of scrimmages, so let's see where we're at."
While Cardinals lost their fair share of talent and production from last year's team due to graduation, the MLB Draft and the transfer portal, they also bring back several key contributors and brought in plenty of fresh talent. They Cardinals return eight of their 11 qualified hitters (2 PA/G, 75 percent of games played) from last season, and bring in four quality transfer portal additions on top of a top-10 recruiting class.
Related: Louisville Baseball 2024 Season Preview
When put all together, on paper, this is a team that certainly is capable of rebounding and getting back to the NCAA Tournament. There's also recent precedent to back that up.
After missing out on the postseason in 2021, Louisville entered the 2022 season with very little national buzz surrounding them. Not only did they return to the NCAA Tournament, they both hosted and won a Regional to get back to the Super Regionals, later falling at Texas A&M.
Several players were around the program for the 2022 rebound, or even the 2021 collapse as well. With Louisville now facing a similar situation after missing out on the postseason again, these players are drawing on those experiences and lessons learned the first time around, and hoping to implement them yet again.
"I think it's always important to really lean on those older guys," outfielder Isaac Humphrey said at Louisville's Media Day. "We had a great group that I've have been thinking about the last few days. Ben Metzinger has been around the facility a little bit getting ready for pro ball. I think of him, Ben Bianco, Carter Lohman - those are three captains that season. I just remember us coming back from summer ball, and them already being here and they were here and they said, 'It doesn't matter what happened last year, because it's not going to happen again.' I just remember us walking in that door, and it was like a totally different atmosphere, and it was going to change.
"I think, looking back on that, we can kind of apply that to this year. It's kind of something, myself, Logan Beard, J.T. (Benson), even Dylan Hoy when he showed up kind of jumped on board with us that last year is not going to happen again. We can grow from it, we can learn from it, but it's important just to move past it and make sure it doesn't happen again."
While McDonnell would love to have a roster full of players who have extensive postseason experience and have seen nothing but success during their time at Louisville, he also believes that there is a benefit to having a roster of players who have experienced both the good times and the bad.
"There's enough that - the Isaac Humphreys, and the (Logan) Beards, and the (J.T.) Bensons and the (Evan) Websters - all those guys can take from the good times, but you know what? They've had to go through some bad times," McDonnell said at Media Day. "So use that as a blessing to know the do's and the don'ts. I've told new kids that walk into this program that sometimes it's a blessing when you walk into a program when they're coming off a tough year, because nobody feels comfortable, and nobody's sticking their chest out. Nobody's entitled."
Like in 2022, Louisville is entering the 2024 season with very little national buzz surrounding them. They are unranked in all of the major college baseball polls, and were picked to finish fifth in the Atlantic Division. While the Cardinals are using this as a slight bit of motivation, they aren't consumed by the fact that they are getting no national love, and prefer to just stick to the process.
"I think it's definitely a motivator," left-handed pitcher Sebastina Gongora said. "We have a saying: 'don't look at the clowns.' I'm not calling them clowns or anything, but just the outside is gonna say what they're gonna say. ... Regardless of what the outside is saying about us, we know what we're capable of. We know what we need to do in order to get back to that success that we've had in the past. It probably is a motivator for some guys, but it's not something that we focus on."
Louisville is set to begin their 2024 campaign down in Tampa, Fla, where they are taking part in a three-game tournament-style event with Indiana State, USF and UConn. First pitch for their season-opener against ISU is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 16 at 12:00 p.m. EST.
(Photo of Isaac Humphrey: Jared Anderson - Louisville Report)
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