April 24, 2008

HEAD COACH Rick Jones

On the importance of this weekend's series at Memphis and how it relates to the C-USA standings
"We're not in eighth place. We're third place in the league and we have to keep playing well. We understand that we need to have a great weekend. We're in third place, and if we play well (down the stretch) we have a chance to be a viable postseason team."

On the team's up-and-down season so far in 2008
"We were 5-0 to start the season. We're swinging it a little bit better, but we knew we would probably swing it better as the season went along. We're still leaving more runners on than we'd like to. This is a very new team and we've got four entities: returning players - not many of them - junior college transfers, four-year transfers and freshmen. We've had more unknowns than I've ever had and more things that have been a little bit of a surprise - were one guy maybe gets hot and then cools, and then you have to look for another guy. We're still trying to figure out the identity of the team as we go along, but we're getting better at that. Somehow along the way, we've won 27 games. We're just trying to play as consistently as we can down the stretch.

On how some of the players are getting hot both on the mound and at the plate lately
"I'm saying that but other guys can't go south. We need the guys who have been doing things maintain their pace or pretty close to it. Segedin has really been swinging the bat well for us, but we've got some other guys who have backed off a little bit. When a team gets hot, it ain't just one guy who's getting hot. It's a lot of guys getting hot. At that point in time, when we were playing the way we were, we were probably missing one guy on the mound and one guy at the plate to go with the rest of everything that we have. It's a long season and some guys have had better weeks than others. We just need to get a bunch of guys going now and get on a strong roll."

On Tulane's chances at making the postseason and returning to the national rankings
"What's kept us from being nationally ranked consistently, having over 30 wins and having everybody talking about another great year is that we haven't strung together six or seven or eight wins in a row where we really did all three things most days. That's what we're looking to do."

On the status of Aja Barto's injured hamstring
"When you have a hamstring pull for a guy who is as big and strong as he is, it usually takes longer for him than other guys. We just have to go day to day. The bottom line is we can't rush him out there run the risk of tearing it."

On the keys to winning this weekend at Memphis
"The keys are the same no matter what. We have to be able to pitch well, both in the starting roll and out of the bullpen, we have to play well defensively and we just have get more timely hits. When you play on the road, it's harder to do that, but that's exactly what we have to do. We know where we are in conference play and we know exactly what we have to do as far as winning games are concerned. To do that, you need to have those phases going - timely hits, you have to pitch well and our defense needs to be sound."

JUNIOR RIGHT-HANDER Shooter Hunt

On this weekend's C-USA series at Memphis
"This weekend is huge. It's another conference weekend. We came off two out of three last week and got right back into the mix. It's huge to play on the road. It's tough to go in there, but we have to go out there and play well."

On the importance of playing well over the next two weeks and then facing East Carolina and Rice to close out the year
"Those last couple of weekends have been mapped out on our schedule for a while now, but it's one game at a time. We're going into Memphis. They took two out of three from us last year at home, and (next weekend's opponent)UCF swept us last year. It's two weekends where we feel we have something to do against these guys and it's going to be a great challenge for us."