GatorCountry brings you a new podcast as we discuss the Florida Gators diamond sports as the baseball team was selected as a national seed on Monday.
Andrew Spivey and Nick de la Torre also break down the SEC spring meetings that are taking place in Destin this week and the big topic is the graduation transfer rule. Andrew and Nick discuss that and Malik Zaire possibly choosing Florida if the rule is changed.
Andrew and Nick finish the podcast by talking recruiting and the Gators softball team in the Women’s College World Series starting on Thursday morning.
TRANSCRIPT:
[Title]
 
Andrew::               What’s up, Gator Country? Your man, Andrew Spivey, back with Nicholas de la Torre. Nicholas, we took a little break, but, my oh my, do we have a lot to talk about today, my friend.
Nick:                         Lot going on. SEC spring meetings, the stickball sports are still playing, and it’s about to ‘cruiting camp time.
Andrew:                 Yeah. The diamond sports had great years, and look what they’re doing now. One’s headed to OKC, the other one is #3 overall national seed. Think about that for a second, Nick. Softball is the #1 overall seed. Baseball is the #3 overall seed. Not too bad.
Nick:                         Baseball start 0-3 in the SEC. Then they were 6-6. They were 9-8. I kept telling people, it’s a long season. Kept trying to say, this is a good team. People were saying, Nick, all season long, or throughout the fall, when I’m going to watch them play, going to watch them practice. Telling people, this is a really good team. Sully really likes the freshmen. Seeing good things. I was just getting called a liar. I was getting called a liar again on Saturday, when they lost 16-0 to Arkansas, in a meaningless SEC Tournament, but #3 overall seed. Florida is the only team in the country that has been a national seed in eight of the last nine seasons. So, I mean, that’s all but two years that Sully has been at Florida, Florida’s been a national seed.
Andrew:                 Not too bad. I mean, trust me, I got called the same thing. I was told that I was stupid, because softball lost the opening game of the SEC Tournament, and then when they lose the opening game to Alabama. Tim Walton’s a failure. Don’t know how to do this. Yeah. It was there. What I would like for people to remember is this, when Florida won back to back national championships, they won a grand total of one SEC Tournament game.
Nick:                         I think people take a football attitude towards baseball/softball. Listen, in football, if you go up … So, Florida lost to JU. If Florida were to, football wise, pay for JU to come in and lose to them, yeah, that’s an embarrassment. In softball, and more specifically in baseball, there’s so much parity. There’s so many kids. There’s only 11.7 scholarships. Someone might not be able to afford to go to Florida, and Florida can’t give them enough money, and they end up at JU, or they end up at UNF or FGCU. There’s a lot of good teams, and it’s a long season. One loss to a softball team, one loss to a baseball team, over the course of a 50+ game season is not the same as a football team losing one out of 12, one out of 13.
Andrew:                 Exactly. That’s exactly it. When you think about the parity of, I mean, Coastal Carolina was your baseball national champions last year.
Nick:                         They did not make the tournament.
Andrew:                 Yeah.
Nick:                         39-17-1. I was talking to Ryan Young, who writes at SEC Country. He actually covered Coastal Carolina last year, and he kind of followed them. You know how you get an emotional investment into teams that you cover. He kind of followed them throughout their