On strategy- I do believe that you have to have a good coach that is willing to make the right moves. Look at this weekends SR in Oxford. Other than not bringing in his closer at the beginning of the ninth, O'Conner for Virginia made many aggressive coaching decisions like double steals and things like that, and overall I think he outcoached Bianco, who was doing things like bunting in the first inning. I think you have to have a coach who has a good "feel" for the game and for making a good decision that is against the grain. I think Augie Garrido is a good example of a coach having a good "feel" for the game. Polk, on the other hand did not have a good feel for the game, and while he won a lot of games by being a good teacher, he was not able to make the crucial decision that would be the difference between winning a Championship and second or third place.
On talent- I would rather have unbelivable talent than a great coach. Players can overshadow poor coaching a lot of times. On the other hand, you can put Augie Garrido at Arkansas State, and he might be able to get them to a regional or whatever, but they still won't come close to winning a NC. Why? Their talent won't hold up against a team that is even averagely coached that has a lot better talent. Talent is essential to winning a Championship. Look how far MSU got with Clark, Palmeiro, and Thigpen and Van Cleve and Theisen setting the table. That's only half of a lineup. And then we had two great pitchers in Brantley and Morgan and then Thigpen at closer. Our 85 team was not particulary deep, but our best players were REALLY, REALLY good. If we have one more pitcher, we win a NC in my opinion.
On luck- My feeling on that is that all you can do is control what you can, and you can't worry about what you can't. If you're going to win a Championship, you're probably going to have to knock off a Texas or a LSU at some point. You're not going get a bunch of Alcorn State's. In baseball, anything can happen. You just have to focus on the scouting reports and exectution. If you do that, you'll at least be able to hold your head up at the end of the day. Baseball is hard to play, and you're not going to ever see a game where every single pitch is located perfectly and everything is textbook. You just have to prepare as best as you can, remember the fundamentals of the game, and then go out and do it to the best of your ability. Whenever you lose, it's usually because of a combination of things- it's never one bad call by the umpire or just one bad pitch, or bad at bat. You have to look at the game critically and learn from your mistakes.