Tulane coach Rick Jones opened the door and quietly walked out of the clubhouse. He saw the media, but looked down at the ground. Jones already knew what questions would be asked.

Minutes earlier, Tulane fell to Central Florida in the season finale Saturday – a loss that eliminated the Green Wave from playing in the 2010 Conference USA Tournament. This is the first baseball postseason that won’t include the Green Wave in Jones’ 17 years of coaching the squad.

“It’s unacceptable for the expectation level for our program, and that starts with me,” Jones said. “We’re going to work as hard as we can to make sure this never happens again.”

But the woes of Tulane baseball this season are deeper than just Jones putting the blame on himself.

Even before Tulane became a Conference USA member in 1995, the Green Wave had played in the postseason every year since 1989 and in 11 of the 12 years prior to that. But getting past the conference tournament has proved difficult in recent years. At one point, the Green Wave reached the College World Series nine years in a row under Jones, but the team has failed to even make the NCAA Tournament three of the last four years.

While the conference tournament was recently changed to include only six rather than eight of the league’s nine teams, that didn’t affect Tulane this year as the team finished last in the standings and would have missed the tournament under the older format, too. The tournament starts next week in Houston with Rice as the top seed.

“Never in a million years did I think coming to Tulane I would be sitting right here with the season over a couple of days before the conference tournament starts,” catcher Jeremy Schaffer said after the season-ending loss. “It’s a shock.”

Jones said he has fielded good teams in the past few years. Yet Tulane has struggled to stay as one of college baseball’s elite teams since Hurricane Katrina. The aftermath of the storm made recruiting more difficult as the entire city has struggled to rebuild. Tulane combated the problem by building Turchin Stadium in 2008, a 5,000-seat ballpark that has been called the crown jewel of the school’s athletic facilities.

The Green Wave has also struggled to execute on the field. Unlike some of the World Series teams, this season was unusual because Tulane played inconsistently in every facet of the game. The biggest problem area may have been pitching – Jones actually thought the pitching staff was going to be the strength of the team, but Tulane gave up 48 homers this year, the second-highest total in the conference.

“Our pitching staff has to get better,” Jones said. “We have to have starters go deep in the game. We’re going to continue to recruit pitching.”

On the bright side, next year the Green Wave is projected to return with seven seniors and a pitching staff that can build off the experience of this season.

But for the current players, next season feels a long way away. For a school where baseball is the most popular sport, ending the season before June is hard to comprehend.

“We didn’t see this coming,” shortstop Garrett Cannizaro said. “We have to get back into it next year.” That pain was evident at Turchin Stadium following the difficult last game, a 17-6 loss made worse because it was shortened by the 10-run mercy rule.

Senior pitcher Matt Petiton left the clubhouse and hurried into an equipment room. Even if his teammates couldn’t see him, his tears were still heard in the hallway.

In the stands, one fan lingered more than 30 minutes after the last pitch. An older man who was wearing Tulane shorts, T-shirt and cap was sitting in the third row behind home plate. In 85-degree heat, his head was down.

The season was over, a tough fact for all Green Wave fans.

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