Heading into the 2018 season, Bears head coach Keith Guttin had plenty of holes to fill on his baseball team.
Jake Burger, Justin Paulsen, Doug Still and Jordan Knutson were all gone to the MLB Draft a season after leading the Bears to the NCAA Super Sectionals.
Heading into the start of this season's Missouri Valley Conference postseason tournament, the Bears are once again regular season champions — but this time, they're led by a team made up mostly of players who weren't responsible for taking the Bears as far as they went the season before.
After Guttin was announced Tuesday as the league's Coach of the Year for the seventh time in his career, legendary Bears athletic director and former MSU head baseball coach Bill Rowe said this season has been one of Guttin's best coaching jobs in his 36 seasons as the leader of the program.