Head Coach Jim Morris' Comments At the CWS Pre-Tournament Press Conference

June 7, 2001

Press Conference Audio
*Roundtable of questions with all coaches
*UT Coach Rod Delmonico
*UM Coach JimMorris
*Georgia Coach Ron Polk
*USC Coach Mike Gillespie
*Nebraska Coach Dave Van Horn
*Cal St. Fullerton Coach George Horton
*Tulane Coach Rick Jones
*Stanford Coach Mark Marquess

Omaha, Neb. (www.hurricanesports.com) – –

Head Coach Jim Morris Comments at Pre-Tournament Press Conference

We’re very excited, like everyone else, to be here.

First, I would like to congratulate all the teams for getting here. This is a great place.

Something I hear everyday at practice is the word “Omaha”. I hear it at least once from our players every day. It is something our players talk about and thinks about from day one at Miami.

This club has been a little bit of an unusual club this season. We’ve got a lot of veteran players back. We have 13 players that were on the team in 1999 when we won it (the National Championship). I am not sure if it will help us. It didn’t help us much in 2000. I think our players learned a lot from last year. It helped us a lot this year as a team.

The season was a little unusual in that we had one loss on the road and 11 at home. So we seem to play better on the road at times.

Our team is built around speed and we try to run every time we have a chance to. Our pitchers throw strikes. We have a club that is fun to watch. They (the team) are excited to be back as I am. It (Tennessee) should be a great match-up.

Tennessee, I know, has a great club. I assume we will face their No. 1 guy (Wyatt Allen) who was drafted in the first round. It should be an outstanding challenge for us.

We had 11 guys on our club drafted, but no first round types like we have had in the past. It is an exciting club, a well-rounded club that plays hard.

We are looking forward to playing in the (CWS) tournament. We are excited about being here. We commend Omaha, the city, the state (of Nebraska) for this great tournament and being part of it.

Thank you.