SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE BASEBALL TOURNAMENT

May 27, 2022

Dave Van Horn

Mike Turner

Hoover Metropolitan Stadium

Arkansas Razorbacks

Postgame Press Conference

Florida 7, Arkansas 5

DAVE VAN HORN: I don't know, we got off to a really slow start offensively, and you've got to give credit to Pogue for that. He just threw a lot of strikes, got ahead of us. We couldn't get a big hit off of him early, and then we finally broke through there in the sixth inning. At this point they come in, if we scored two, they scored two, and that's got to be our shut-down inning to really have a chance to get back in the game.

I thought their hitters did a really good job of laying off some borderline pitches early in the count and worked the count and got a good pitch to hit.

We just couldn't catch them.

Q. You guys haven't gone through a stretch like what you're in right now all year. Can you put your finger on what's happening?

MIKE TURNER: Not really, man. We're just trying to keep the circle tight and trying to cut out a lot of the outside noise. It's not always that easy to play here. There's a lot of people that are fans, good fans, some aren't so great fans. If you read Twitter after the game, it can get in your mind a little bit, so we're just trying to keep the circle tight and keep moving forward.

Q. Chris Lanzilli was up here a couple days ago and said, we have good players, we're a good team, we need to get out of our own heads, and he's confident that you guys are going to push the buttons. What are your thoughts going forward heading into a regional?

MIKE TURNER: That's right, I completely agree with Chris. Like I said, we're just trying to keep the circle tight. We know we've got the right guys, and just looking for that big hit. We're just trying to scratch across a few runs, especially when they come back like after Coach said when they come back and score two. We need to come back in the dugout and fight for those extra runs.

I don't know, I feel like we're throwing away some at-bats right now, and you can see it. There's certain guys that are fighting their butts off right now at the plate, and I think we're going to get everybody else to buy in pretty soon.

Q. With Connor, what have you seen the first half of the year, a lot of innings, last several starts, five innings or less. What do you see of his stuff?

MIKE TURNER: I think his stuff is the same. I think the scouting report is getting out a little bit. He goes to that curveball a lot, and if he can't locate the fastball it's almost like we're more confident in throwing the curveball for a strike.

Once they start sitting on it like that, I think we're going to talk this week, he's got to be able to get that fastball over for a strike. We'll make the adjustment. He'll be back.

Q. Their guy Pogue, what did he do to keep you off ball?

MIKE TURNER: Just worked ahead. He threw a lot of strikes. It's hard to hit when you're behind the count. I'm sure they feel the same way. If you get ahead like I was ahead 2-0 and that's when he made the mistake. When you get behind in the count, it's hard to hit.

Q. Obviously not the outcome that you guys want this weekend, but how do you guys rebound and get ready for a regional next weekend wherever they send you?

DAVE VAN HORN: Well, I think you just try to rest up a little bit the next day or so. You just try to find some positives. The positives are we didn't stress out our pitchers all weekend. Offensively we had an inning or two, but we just have to score more runs. We just get our mind right is what we talked about after the game. Just get back, regroup, get healthy, be 100 percent when we throw the first pitch next Friday, wherever that may be.

Q. Can you put your finger on maybe your teams haven't had stretches like this very often?

DAVE VAN HORN: Yeah, one day it's one thing, the next it's another. One day we don't score, one day we don't pitch real good or maybe we don't field. Sometimes it's just the way the game works. Other times you just have to give the other team credit.

You look back at Vandy's lefty throwing a great game against us really in the second game of the double-header to win that series, he did the same thing here. He's really good.

Alabama has got their backs to the wall, and they just outplayed us.

Then we came here and yesterday from what it looked like -- two days ago, we just gave them the game in the first four innings, and then we didn't catch them. Get beat by a run.

Today they just -- we didn't really do a whole lot wrong, we just didn't do a whole lot, and they got a couple of big hits. It's not like we've fallen apart, it's just that we haven't done enough to win. It's like I always tell the players, winning is hard, losing is easy. You have to do something special sometimes to win, and we didn't do anything special this week.

Q. You said you didn't stress your pen. You gave both your other starters some innings. How do you feel like you're setting up for what you want to do in the postseason there?

DAVE VAN HORN: Yeah, obviously that's what we were trying to do. We were losing, four, five runs, and we wanted to get Hagen at least an inning, and then also Jaxon Wiggins an inning, and we wanted to get Tygart some time out there, too. He got a little nauseated, and we don't know what went on there, so that's why we pulled him out of the game.

But they all got to get on the mound this week. They have a little extra time to rest this week and have a little bullpen session and get ready for whatever gets put in front of us.

Q. You kind of answered it a little bit there, but Brady Tygart, his mom did Tweet an update saying he felt a little faint. Did you go and check on him? What is his status right now after the game and moving forward?

DAVE VAN HORN: Yeah, he's feeling better. Obviously in the middle of the diamond right there, he had a little rubbery legs, so we got him out. Coach just went out to the mound, he should have just told him I don't feel good, and then there wouldn't have been that much drama.

But guys want to try to stay in, tough it out, but sometimes that's not the right thing to do. He'll be fine.

Q. Just to follow up, are you feeling okay yourself? I know you gave an update in the broadcast before the game started, but for us here, how are you feeling? How are you doing today?

DAVE VAN HORN: I'm doing fine. Just I don't like losing.

Q. You've been around obviously a lot of teams in your time with Arkansas. How confident do you feel with this group that they're going to be able to dig deep and kind of go on some type of run or put their best foot forward for this NCAA tournament?

DAVE VAN HORN: I think they'll put their best foot forward. I think they're very disappointed in the week we've had here, and we left a lot of runners on base. We haven't pitched very well. We just haven't played well. We've got some time to regroup.

I think that whoever we play, I'm sure they're going to be really good. The whole regional is going to be strong, and I think we'll be right in the middle of it.

Q. I wanted to ask you about the depth of this conference. Obviously it's the best baseball conference in all of America along with all the other sports. How does that get you ready for the NCAA Tournament and how does it seem like Florida is fighting for their life right now get you ready, as well?

DAVE VAN HORN: Well, I think most of the coaches will tell you, a lot of times once you get done with league play and even the tournament, it's just kind of -- it's nice to play teams from other leagues. Not saying you're going to beat them, but it's nice to get out of the league, play somebody else. The league will get you ready for anything that's going to come at you. It doesn't mean you're going to be better than whoever you play, but you've played teams like them, and you don't get shocked by anything.

Q. Have you had to miss a game before for whatever reason?

DAVE VAN HORN: It's only the second time. I missed a Friday night game at Tennessee when my oldest daughter graduated high school, and I also gave the commencement speech that night.

Q. Was it a team deal thing where you got sick? Did the players get sick?

DAVE VAN HORN: No, thank goodness or we'd have been in trouble because there was nobody going to play with what I had. I don't want to say where I probably got it because I don't want to get sued.

Q. What did you eat that you're going to be staying away from maybe?

DAVE VAN HORN: Probably salad.

Q. You guys had three home runs today. That's all but one runny think came off of home runs. Seems like that's been a trend lately. What do you think about that? Any worry there?

DAVE VAN HORN: Well, can be a good thing, but it's about driving in runs. The situation today we really didn't have like a runner at third and one out where we needed to drive man by putting a bat on the ball. We didn't strike out, pop up and not score. Home runs are obviously good. But if you're going to add to leads, get leads, put teams away, you've got to be able to score other ways.

The last couple of games we scored by hitting home runs.