Elliott Avent: 'It's all about the players'

NC State baseball is Omaha bound this week, as the Wolfpack is back in the College World Series for the first time since 2013. 

The Wolfpack will open the double elimination stage of the tournament Saturday at 2 p.m. ET against Stanford. The other teams in NC State’s group are Vanderbilt and Arizona, and the winner of that group will face the winner of the group that includes Texas, Tennessee, Mississippi State and Virginia. 

NC State head coach Elliott Avent spoke to the media ahead of his team’s Omaha opener Tuesday, here’s a full breakdown of everything he had to say: 

Elliott Avent

I wanted to ask you about offense at T.D. Ameritrade. It’s not easy to get the ball out of the park there, I was wondering if the offensive mindset has to change a little bit?

I do remember in 2013, I remember seeing Kyle Schwarber in the hotel lobby the morning after his game. Schwarber hit one, he killed one and it didn’t get out. I remember jumping out of the dugout against UCLA. Trea Turner hit one that he put his hand up in the air, I jumped out of the dugout, which I never do. That ball didn’t get out, so we lost to UCLA. I remember it’s tough to get the ball out of there. But you can’t change who you are this time of year. You have to be a team that is versatile and can score different ways, and I think that’s what we have. We have team speed. We can bunt. We can drive the ball out of the ballpark. It’s about singles and hitting gaps as much as anything. I don’t think you can change your offense, but you do hope your offense has some versatility to it. 

Looking back at you guys starting 1-8 in conference play, what were the one or two biggest things that maybe weren’t coming together then that are coming together now?

I think one is health. Even though we’ve had a lot of injuries on the pitching side that only one of those guys has come back for us. He missed two thirds of the season. Jose Torres started the first month of the season with an oblique strain. We lost Austin Murr and Jonny Butler for a couple weeks. I think it’s basically getting our lineup in the lineup every day, and then sticking to it. When you start out 1-8, you’ve got to have a lot of character and a lot of will to win and a lot of commitment in that locker room, to start out that way and be where we are now. I think you’ve got to give a lot of credit to being healthy and a lot of credit to the players in that locker room.

Did you worry how the guys may respond at that time?

It’s just the nature of being a coach is that you worry about everything. But I didn’t worry about these guys. These guys’ character and their makeup, it’s never been in question. I just told them after the Arkansas Regional, I said ‘every one of you guys. Most of your families are here this weekend. You should leave this locker room and go thank them for raising the good people that they raised of high character and good accountability. You should go thank your mom and daddy.’

Who is this young child you’ve got with you?

I’ve had such a blessed life. It’s been unbelievable. The one thing that I missed out on was having children. I love kids. [Athletic trainer] Scott and Emily Ensell, James is here with me. We’ve been gone like five out of the last six weeks. We’ve been on the road the entire time except for the home weekend against Florida State. So, if you want to see your children, they pretty much have to come to the ballpark now. James is up in my office right now, and I’m seeing James a little bit. I think he wants to go see his momma, though. 

How much did it mean for Jose Torres, who hasn’t been through this before, to have that huge home run Sunday?

I’m sure it does. Jose Torres turned down a lot of money out of high school. That’s hard for a young man to do. He came from a great high school, Calvert Hall in Baltimore. An outstanding family, and a good big brother who gave him some great guidance. He decided to come to college, and it’s worked out well for Jose and it’s worked out well for NC State. He’s a great player in a long line of great shortstops that we’ve had at NC State. All those guys that we’ve had here, they’ve gone on to have outstanding careers in professional baseball. I’m sure Jose is going to follow that path as well. 

After Friday’s game you mentioned Reid Johnston wasn’t feeling himself. I’m just following up on him to see how he’s doing and if he will be good to go for the weekend.

You hope so. Reid saw the physician, Dr. [Robert] Wyker, this morning at 8 o’clock. The report that I got from the trainers is that he’s good. I’m sure he’s a little bit tired. Reid didn’t seem himself in the first game against Arkansas. I got him out earlier than usual. He says he’s ok. But Reid has logged a lot of innings, and he’s done a lot of things for this program in his career. He checked out good with Dr. Wyker this morning, so that’s good news. We’ll just make the decision on when to start him. Maybe he just needs a little rest. 

Your defense is top in the ACC and one of the best in the NCAA. Could you speak to how the attention to detail there has helped?

All coaches will tell you that any sport you win with defense when it comes down to it. When it’s baseball, it’s pitching and defense that you win. On a given day when you have good pitching and defense, they are going to be there more often than offense is. Hitting the baseball is such a hard act to do. It kind of goes in, not streaks, but there’s ups and downs of hitting. Our defense has been consistent all year. And our five pitchers that have logged the bulk of our innings this year have been amazing. I don’t know what the percentages are, and percentages don’t mean a lot to me. I was told we are fielding like .983, which is the highest percentage any team of ours has ever fielded. It’s an amazing percentage. 

It’s hard to believe that you can field .983 not on Astroturf. More than that for me, it’s some defensive plays that we’ve made throughout the year that have been what’s gotten us to this point. We play very sound defense. We’re smart. This time of the year, as we tell our team every day, there are eight great teams left in this. They are here for a reason. They are all playing well at the right time. So the little things matter even more so now than at any time in the season. You’re gonna have to play extremely well to advance out there in Omaha. 

How well do you think the scheduling format in Omaha with days off sets up for NC State with a thin pitching staff?

Certainly. I told our guys when we left the ACC Tournament that they just went through the most grueling tournament that they’ll have to go through. Twelve great teams in less than a week’s span. And then when you go to the Regionals, you’ve got four great teams in a weekend span. And then obviously last weekend was two out of three. This is separated a little bit. We play Saturday. We play Monday. I haven’t looked past that.

But obviously there have been some teams that have won some championships and they won it having a couple great arms do the bulk of the damage. If you look at that situation, there’s some great pitchers here. [ESPN’s] Kyle Peterson has talked about the guy we are going to face from Stanford. I’ve talked to some friends of mine who have faced him, and they say he is unbelievable. Obviously you’ve got Vanderbilt with Kumar [Rocker] and [Jack] Leiter. I’m sure [Vanderbilt coach] Tim Corbin feels good about that. But we like our staff. They’ve gotten us where we are. It’s certainly better in this format than it has been in the last three weekends. 

You’ve talked about how much you love this team and its resilience and hard work. How happy are you to see these players rewarded for the work they’ve put in and the way they’ve bounced back from the early-season adversity?

I’ve talked about that a couple times. It’s all about the players and always has been. The reward for coaches, to me, is the reward in seeing your players get something they worked so hard for, that you tried to talk to them about all year. You talk to them about hard work, accountability, sacrifice. All of those things lead to what’s going to be the greatest experience of their collegiate life, and that’s going to Omaha.

I’ve had a lot of great teams, and a lot of great teams fell short. You don’t know how many former players are going to be here at this event. The ‘68 World Series team, I was told is trying to get out there, which they went the first time. So when a team from NC State goes to the greatest event that college baseball has to offer, every player that’s every played in your program feels a part of that, and they should, because they built something that allowed this to happen. So this is all about the players. 

’ve thought about this several times during the games. It was such a hard-fought last two games with Arkansas. Both could have gone either way. We were fortunate they went our way. Several times during the game, I thought ‘This is going to be so great if we pull this out for these guys. They deserve to go and be on this stage, walk into that beautiful stadium and experience what the College World Series is all about.

You’ve talked about the College World Series as the greatest experience in college baseball. Having gone there in 2013 and realizing how hard it is to get back, is there anything about this trip you want to soak in? 

For me, it’s not going to be much different. I told the players, the first group we took out there, we really thought we had a chance to win the National Championship. We beat Carolina in the first game, we come back and we had a base-running mistake in the seventh inning, a fluke brick and it came back and they threw us out at the plate by an eyelash. We lose that game 2-1 and UCLA goes on to win the National Championship. Then Trea Turner had that ball that I thought was hit out of the ballpark. So did he, and we lost that game. So I told them it’s hard not to get caught up, the first time you go out there, of all the aura and all the magical festivities. Unfortunately, a lot of those festivities are going to be cut short this year because of COVID. 

We visited some children’s hospitals. We did some things, community service, which I thought our players did a great job with and really enjoyed. It’s rewarding, not only for the people that you’re going to see, it was rewarding for the players. You had an opening ceremony the night before it opens, which is very, very magical. I think all of that’s going to be cut short because of COVID, but there’s still going to be a certain part of being out there and eye-opening things that they’re going to look around and see. But I also told them, as much as our team’s focused on winning the national championship, I told them, you need to go out there and make sure you get through with all that stuff when you come there to play ball. Because these are games now that any mistake you make or any opportunity that you don’t take advantage of is going to be magnified or be lost. You may not get that opportunity again. You have to take advantage of everything just to have a chance to advance in this field. 

How much Pac-12 baseball do you get a chance to watch and what do you know about Stanford and Arizona? 

I was out at New Mexico State for eight years, and we were independent when I got there. We joined the Big West conference and it was made up of mostly schools out there, Cal-State Fullerton, Long Beach State. I spent a lot of time out in California recruiting junior college players. So I have a lot of friends from out there that know quite a bit about the Pac-12 and the greatness of that league. I’ve just been told this might be as good a offensive team that the University of Arizona has ever had. But they’ve always been good. Matter of fact, my first game as a head coach was against Jerry Kendall, one of the great coaches of all time, and they were No. 1 in the country. That was my first game ever to coach as a head coach. I know how awesome Arizona was at the time. I think they’re back to where they were. 

And then I’ve heard as great as Stanford has been through the years, as great as they’ve always been with Mark Marquess, this is a Stanford team that is very offensive. And this pitcher we’re going to face, a lot of people have just raved about how good he is. He’s been doing it for a while, so he’s a veteran, and we’re going to have our hands full right off the bat. 

How much do you remember about that first game? 

I think we got beat 10-4, but I remember Trevor Hoffman was at shortstop, Kevin Long, the hitting coach for the Yankees, was in centerfield. The pitcher was the great pitcher that pitched for the Orioles. He was unbelievable, pitched in the big leagues forever. J.T. Snow. All I could think of was I need to go back to the east coast. 

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