Everything Texas head coach Jim Schlossnagle said following Texas' 8-1 loss to Arkansas in the SEC Baseball Tournament

Last night, Texas baseball faltered in their first game of the SEC Tournament, losing in the quarterfinals to Arkansas. We’ve already detailed everything the players said following last night’s game, but here’s everything head coach Jim Schlossnagle had to say.

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Opening Statement:

JIM SCHLOSSNAGLE: First of all, congratulations to Arkansas. They played awesome. They beat us in every possible phase of the game. I hope Hunter Dietz is all right. He’s a great pitcher and I wish him well.

Beyond that, we just got off to a rough start. I thought Cody did a nice job of throwing strikes, but they obviously beat him up, especially with two strikes. The rest of the game we just got smothered up by their pitching, specifically Gaeckle. He’s always pitched well against us. I was a part of recruiting him at my previous institution, and I know how good he is.

I thought the guys that pitched after Cody did a good job for the most part. We got the work we needed to get, but this certainly doesn’t taste very good right now, and I can promise you anybody on that bus, this doesn’t taste well. So we need to play better next week.

Q. Advantage, disadvantage to having to wait to play until Friday? And also, the guys mentioned kind of the mentality heading into next week. What is your message to your team not to let this loss turn into a disappointing loss when you get to the regional next week?

JIM SCHLOSSNAGLE: I would say if we’re going to see this as an advantage because we played awesome in the regular season, then we need to make the most of the advantage. Like we can’t — if we’re going to — if this is supposed to be an advantage, which I don’t ever see how losing is an advantage, that doesn’t taste good to me. But we need to make the most of it.

So how do we prepare between now and then is going to define the rest of our season. From this point forward, you lose two ball games, it’s over, at least in the same weekend. So that will be relayed to them. They know that. I don’t like exhibition games, and I don’t feel like this was one, but it certainly tastes like that right now and I don’t like that at all.

Q. You hinted at it earlier this week, but was the plan with Luke and Dylan just to get them some work or get them prepped for possible relief role in the postseason?

JIM SCHLOSSNAGLE: Both. Yeah, get ’em both work on this particular day so they’re both ready to pitch next Friday if we choose to pitch one of the two next Friday. So we wanted to get ’em work. We wanted that to be out of the bullpen in case, you know — whoever pitches next Friday, if one of those two guys pitch on Friday and we need ’em Monday night in a loser’s bracket winner-take-all game, then at least they have been out of the bullpen this year.

Luke has certainly been out of the bullpen in his career, Dylan obviously was awesome in that role last year, but we just — we needed to see that. And we were hoping it would be with a lead, knowing that we were going to pitch some other guys. There’s some other guys in the pen we didn’t want to pitch this weekend. So if we could have got a lead with those other pitchers and then gone to Luke and Dylan, then that would have helped us win a ball game.

Q. I know you had some injuries with your team. Can you update us on where you are, especially now that you got another week off?

JIM SCHLOSSNAGLE: Yeah, I mean, Mendoza swung the bat great tonight. Just missed — the popup he hit to left field, he was on that ball, and then he hammered the ball in the last inning off of Gabe. I think Adrian, it is what it is. We’ve been dealing with that since the middle of the season last year.

Cozart’s in a good spot. Leffew’s in a good spot. Those were some guys we did not want to pitch this weekend — not because there’s anything wrong with them, but we wanted to give them, like, an All-Star break kind of blow. Brody Walls is in that mix and Ruger is in that mix.

They all said they felt great. Couple of ’em, we’ll have to get ’em up on the mound on Tuesday and get ’em up to full speed. But I think that’s everybody that you’re probably asking about. You see how crazy these games are. Dietz, I really hope he’s okay. That’s one thing we talked about. Can you imagine us rolling Dylan in? We did pitch him, but Volantis taking a ball off his foot. I mean, you know?

And it’s just a weird thing. This is three years in a row for me personally. Our last year at Texas A&M, we were in a great spot, we felt like, going into the conference tournament, and we did the deal to pitch off and then get Prager and Lamkin, those guys some work and I think we lost two games. I think we were two and out then, and then one and out last year, and one and out this year.

If you told me we were always going to be a national seed, then I guess I got to taste that, swallow it, but it just doesn’t feel good right now.

Q. Yesterday, you said you don’t ever doubt a Dave van Horn coached team this time of year. What do you see that they’re doing well right now and maybe the buttons they’re pushing to be playing as well as they are?

JIM SCHLOSSNAGLE: I don’t know about the buttons. He’s obviously one of the greatest game managers that we’ve ever seen in college baseball, and he’s got great assistant coaches. But I think they’re pitching it really well. Gabe was awesome. I think everything he threw was at the bottom. So when he’s riding that fastball at the bottom of the strike zone and the hard slider, that’s what a guy like Robbins is chasing it because he just doesn’t see it.

But I know they — I don’t know if they’re getting Aloy back or not, but just a physical team that knows how to win, and especially if they get to play at home, look out. Good luck winning a game — winning a regional in that place.

Super physical team playing at a very high level.

Q. What does it mean to have Carson just help out the pitching staff for this part of the season, how he’s helped you guys out for the fall? And also, just your coaching staff with veteran presence guys, what’s it like to have those type of guys on your coaching staff?

JIM SCHLOSSNAGLE: I’ve got a great staff. Super talented, intelligent coaches that all bring a different thing. Tulo brings toughness, Nolan’s an elite recruiter and a very underrated coach. He’s actually an awesome baseball man. And Max has done great job with our pitching staff now, one year at Texas A&M and two years at Texas.

So they’re super talented, and I’m a big fan of hiring talented people and letting ’em go do what they do.

Carson, same way. Super talented guy, has kind of evolved into a leader in this program, which is hard to do in the transfer portal. But he’s an elite human. He really, really cares about his teammates. He’s obviously super talented.

So tonight doesn’t define him or our team, but when you’re at Texas, the postseason does. And so we can talk about how cool everybody is and how nice they are, but got to win, and we’re all very aware of that.

Q. You mentioned kind of three years in a row pitching off and then maybe not getting what you want here. Is that something that you can see yourself re-evaluating or is that just going to be what it is when you’re a national seed and you come here?

JIM SCHLOSSNAGLE: I think it’s a good question because you see other teams doing it differently. So I think it’s just relative to your particular team. What do you feel, what do you — you know? I’ve also been a part of other teams where in the old days, you knew you were hosting. At TCU they used to name the host before the conference tournaments. And I’ve been a part of a team at Tulane and a team at TCU that won the conference tournament through the loser’s bracket. That’s crazy in these days.

But it’s so fragile. It’s so much more competitive now. So many good teams. If you tell me I got to lose a game to keep Aiden Robbins, I was for sure going to have Aiden Robbins healthy next weekend, well, then you got to do that. Not that we tried to lose, but you just got to massage it different ways, I guess. And if everybody’s feeling awesome, super awesome on the mound, then maybe we run ’em out there for 70, 80 pitches.

But at A&M it worked out. We played the national title. Prager and those guys got a little bit of a break. Last year we had to do it because Spencer was hurt. And certainly we’re only going to advance if Volantis and Luke and the first five or six pitchers pitch great. So it’s certainly can be argued the other direction, there’s no doubt about it. There’s no doubt about it. But so far for this particular season, that’s what we chose to do.

Q. You talked about Gaeckle a couple of times, but Eaves came in and got ’em out of that bases loaded in the bottom of the first. What did you think about what he did well?

JIM SCHLOSSNAGLE: Once he found his breaking ball, he was really good. He was super competitive, just threw a ton of strikes, you know. Kozeal, his other homer really, you know, gave ’em some space to breathe a little bit and fill up the strike zone, and it was just a real bad night for us offensively, which doesn’t take away anything from their pitching. Their pitchers were great. But he did a nice job and then Gabe certainly carried ’em on through.