By any objective measure, Butch Thompson's second year as the Auburn baseball coach was a major improvement on his debut season. The Tigers went from missing the SEC Tournament entirely to missing an NCAA Super Regional by one lousy pitch.



That perspective may be scant consolation now, after Florida State ended their season Monday night with a 6-0 whimper, but you can't miss a golden opportunity if you don't create it for yourself in the first place.



Of all the things this Auburn team couldn't quite overcome, nothing was, is and will remain more daunting than its own spotty history.



Tim Hudson and David Ross may have been there in Tallahassee in the flesh to support their old school, but those two heroes of Auburn's 1997 run through Tallahassee to the College World Series were relics of a different era.



They played on the last Auburn team to get to Omaha.





Only two SEC programs have longer droughts. Missouri hasn't reached the CWS since 1964. Kentucky has never been there, but the Wildcats have a shot to make more history this coming weekend. They'll play in their first Super Regional at rival Louisville.



Kentucky breaking through to win its regional means Auburn baseball is on another short list of dubious distinction. With the exception of Missouri, which has yet to get to a Super Regional, every other SEC program has reached the Supers since Auburn last did it.



And the Tigers last did it in 1999, the first year that round was added to the NCAA Tournament. In the meantime, 12 SEC programs have advanced to at least one Super Regional. Nine of them have gotten there at least once in the last five years, 11 of them in the last 10 years.



So this 37-26 season was a refreshing drink of water in the Auburn baseball program's long walk through the desert. It's been ages since Bo Jackson and Frank Thomas were hitting bombs, Gregg Olson and Hudson were baffling hitters and Hal Baird was leading the Tigers to nine NCAA Regionals from 1987-2000, seven of them in his last eight years as the winningest coach in school history.





In the last two decades, things have changed for the worst in terms of Auburn's ability to compete in the toughest conference in college baseball, with other SEC programs in other states able to offer lottery scholarships to in-state players and waive out-of-state tuition, but difficult doesn't mean impossible.



John Pawlowski got Auburn to a regional final in 2010 but couldn't sustain it. Thompson has matched that march in his second season, which no one saw coming, but it'll be an even greater accomplishment if he can grow what he called Florida State's "expectation of winning" on the Plains.



So go ahead and question Thompson's choice of Monday's starting pitcher, question the futility of his batting order, question his decision to allow assistant Brad Bohannon to return to the team after being introduced earlier in the day as the Alabama head coach.



Question why the Tigers couldn't make one final, decisive pitch Sunday, which would've had them resting Monday before likely hosting a Super Regional against upstart Sam Houston State.



The one thing you can't question is this season as a surprising step forward for Auburn baseball. Thompson has delivered results and hope. All he has to do now is do it again and take the next step as soon as possible.