LORMAN — When Barrett Rey took over Grambling State’s baseball program four years ago, he inherited a program in shambles he had to build from the ground up.

But Rey is in a much different position today, as he takes over an Alcorn State baseball program with a solid foundation thanks to recently retired coach Willie “Rat” McGowan.

Rey was announced as Alcorn State’s new baseball coach Wednesday, replacing McGowan, who retired after 40 seasons and 720 victories.

“Coach McGowan set the concrete,” Rey said of the Alcorn baseball program. “I’m just coming in here to get my own situation going. The legwork is done, I’m just going to solidify things and continue to work hard.”

Alcorn State advanced to the SWAC Tournament championship game last season, but fell to Southern 12-10.

“Alcorn had a good team last year,” Rey said. “But we can always get better. These guys played in a championship game last year and got a taste of it. In conversations I had with the kids, I said ‘Don’t be satisfied with just getting there. You’ve got to go there knowing you belong there and can win it.’”

In Rey’s three years as Grambling State’s baseball coach, the Tigers only compiled a 56-94 record, which isn’t overly impressive until you consider that Grambling was 6-36 the season before Rey took over and hadn’t made the SWAC Tournament in seven years.

The Tigers advanced to the SWAC Tournament the past two seasons and made the semifinals last year.

Rey said one of the exciting things about taking over at Alcorn is the fact that he doesn’t have to rebuild the program like he did at Grambling.

“That’s one of the exciting things about it,” Rey said. “The pieces are already in place. But I still understand there is going to be hard work involved.”