the baseball culture they created. That trio has been in Charlottesville since Feb of 2004 and they are an effective bunch and the two assistants have complete autonomy over their respective areas.

O'Connor came in with a plan and strategy, the first key being finding the right talent, starting with great pitching. But there's also the culture of fundamentals, making the routine play all the time, hitting the cutoff man and not allowing the extra base, pounding the zone, pitching to contact and playing great defense - basic stuff that is not sexy but sure is effective. Like coach Kuhn always says, defense plays everyday. Sometimes you go 0-4 at the plate or in hoops 3-15 from the field but you can play defense.

I think one of the other highly underrated aspects of O'Connor's plan was the emphasis on getting into the NCAA regionals every year. He did that his first season and every year since. The bottom line was - you can't get to Omaha if you don't get into the regionals.