The head coach of Alabama, Kalen DeBoer, fired his best player for violating the team rules
Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer gets into a heated argument with his best player, which leads to firing him.
The university said in a statement that Bohannon’s termination process had been started by athletics director Greg Byrne for, among other things, breaking the norms, obligations, and responsibilities required of university employees.. The reason Bohannon was fired was not specified.
According to the statement, assistant coach Jason Jackson will take over as head coach in the interim, and the institution will not be providing any more comments “pending an ongoing evaluation.”
Six days after Ohio’s top gaming authorities told ESPN they saw questionable betting activity at a Cincinnati sports book connected to an Alabama-LSU baseball game, Bohannon was fired.
The Ohio regulator, according to the Associated Press, issued an emergency order on Monday banning sports bookmakers in the state from taking wagers on baseball games involving Alabama.
States, including New Jersey, Indiana, and Pennsylvania, as well as certain betting websites, have taken similar measures.
The match in question took place last Friday in Baton Rouge, where LSU upset Alabama 8-6.
The University of Alabama has taken immediate action after information about baseball sports wagering activity was questioned by industry regulators, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey stated in part in a statement posted on D1Baseball.
Our top concern is maintaining the integrity of sports competition, and as of 2018, the SEC has been keeping an eye on gambling activities through its partnership with US Integrity.
ESPN said that U.S. Integrity, a company based in Las Vegas, alerted sports bookies to suspicious wagering activities.
Citing the company’s website, AP claims that U.S. Integrity monitors data to see if disparities coincide with noteworthy player or coaching incidents, expose officiating abnormalities, or are symptomatic of the misuse of insider information.
The Crimson Tide are in the running to compete in the NCAA Tournament with an overall record of 30-15 and a 9-12 record in the SEC.
Alabama is ranked as the third seed in a regional according to projections released this week by D1 Baseball and Baseball America.
Prior to losing to top-ranked LSU last week, Alabama had won six of its previous seven games. Hours before the Crimson Tide were set to host a series against No. 5 Vanderbilt, word of Bohannon’s dismissal broke.
Bohannon, who had a 166-124 record, was appointed Alabama’s coach prior to the 2018 campaign. He was the Crimson Tide’s third coach in three seasons when he was hired, and in 2021, he guided the team to its first postseason trip in seven years.
Bohannon gained notoriety as an assistant coach at Kentucky for 12 seasons and Auburn for two seasons before joining Alabama. In his last season at Kentucky in 2015, he was selected as both Baseball America’s and the American Baseball Coaches Association’s national assistant coach of the year.
Pitching coach Lemonis is fired.
Less than two years after Foxhall was voted ABCA national assistant coach of the year for helping the Bulldogs win their first College World Series, Mississippi State coach Chris Lemonis sacked pitching coach Scott Foxhall on Monday.
Lemonis stated on Monday on his weekly Dawg Talk radio show, [We had a couple of fantastic years pitching; we won a national title with a strong pitching staff, but the last two years have been challenging,” according to the Columbus (Miss.) Dispatch. It felt like the right moment and location, just like the way we were moving after the weekend.
Mississippi State leads the SEC with 255 walks allowed, is second with 52 hit batters, and is fourth with 43 wild pitches. They also have the worst earned run average (6.62) in the conference.
Mississippi State’s ERA in games played only in conferences is 9.82. Texas A&M has the second-worst ERA in SEC play, at 7.51.
Mississippi State gave up 33 runs in three games last week at Tennessee.
Last season, the Bulldogs posted the worst ERA in the SEC (6.07), which was another sign of their struggles on the mound.
Mississippi State, which won the 2021 College World Series, might not make it to the NCAA Tournament for the second straight year. With 817 strikeouts in a single season, Foxhall’s staff set an NCAA record that year.
Additional arm problems
This week, it was revealed that three more of the best pitchers in the SEC West have lost their lives to Tommy John surgery.
RebelGrove.com reports that Ole Miss left-hander Hunter Elliott got the procedure on Wednesday. Elliott, the team’s anticipated first starter this season and a standout rookie on the squad that won the national championship the previous season, had an ulnar collateral ligament injury on April 22 and rebounded from it by giving up five runs on fifty-nine pitches in one inning.
The week after, Ole Miss coach Mike Bianco announced that Elliott would see a doctor again due to pain.
Rebel Grove reported that Ole Miss released a statement on Thursday stating that after further testing, it was concluded that Hunter would undergo Tommy John surgery.
Garrett Edwards, a right-hander for LSU, had the procedure done as well, according to a source cited by The Advocate on Thursday. Since April 7 versus South Carolina, Edwards has not pitched. According to the Advocate, he was observed wearing an arm brace during last week’s series against Alabama.
Edwards was among the top relievers for LSU. In 23 1/3 innings, he had an ERA of 1.93.
Dylan Carter, a right-hander, suffered a torn UCL this week, which meant that Arkansas also lost one of its greatest relievers. Carter, who pitched 37 innings and had a 3.65 ERA, was the Razorbacks’ most-used reliever.
Dave Van Horn, the coach of Arkansas, stated on Thursday, You don’t replace him, truly. He was throwing his slider for a strike, pitching in some very tough leverage situations, and clocking in at 90–93 [mph] when he was rolling along there.
Since the beginning of the season, star pitchers from LSU and Arkansas, who are separated by 1 1/2 games atop the SEC West, have suffered severe injuries that have ended their seasons.
Edwards, along with right-handers Grant Taylor during the preseason and Chase Shores, is at least the third pitcher from LSU to have undergone Tommy John surgery. When he got hurt in early April, Shores had a 1.96 ERA, and Taylor would have been a top reliever or starter.
Carter joins right-hander Jaxon Wiggins, who was expected to start the season, as the second Arkansas pitcher to need Tommy John surgery.
In addition, right-handed reliever Koty Frank needed season-ending surgery on March 5 due to a ruptured lat muscle. At that point, he had thrown more than any other Razorbacks reliever.
