Newish AD, new conference on the horizon and obvious impetus to have a respectable program as soon as possible and an 11-15 record entering tonight’s non-conference game against Morehead State in Charleston leaves Greg Van Zant in a tricky spot. Appalachian Power Park is where he might be coaching his Big 12 games next season. It might also be where someone else will be coaching WVU’s Big 12 games this season. Let’s not lie to ourselves.

All of that said, and while fully aware that timing is everything and timing is something you can rarely ever control, baseball has not been very, very good to him this season.

The team that takes the field against Morehead State (13-11) could be a lot like next year’s team that might play four series in Appalachian Power Park. WVU has just one senior, left-handed pitcher Eric Hinkle, who in seven games and five starts is 0-3 with a 13.24 ERA.

“We’ve had some significant things we’ve had to deal with and we’ve ended up playing with a lot of young guys,” Van Zant said. “It’s been a struggle for us offensively and we haven’t scored enough runs to string wins together.

“But we have our entire team back next year. Regardless of what we’ve done the first 26 games and what we do in the last 30, we’ll have everyone back – our entire starting lineup – plus the guys we signed who we think are pretty good, so hopefully we’ll be able to compete right away.”

The Mountaineers (11-15) lost three big parts of their team for separate reasons. Pitcher Harrison Musgrave, who was expected to be the team’s top starter this season, had Tommy John surgery and is out for the season.

Dan DiBartolomeo set a school record, led the Big East and was No. 4 nationally with a .439 batting average in 2009. He was the Big East’s first-team designated hitter in the preseason, but his career is over after being unable to return from a third surgery on his right shoulder.

Catcher Matt Malloy, who started 33 games last year and batted .289 with seven doubles, three home runs and 15 RBI, has been suspended for off-the-field problems.

Van Zant is without his best arm and two biggest bats, and WVU was outscored 33-12 while losing all three games of the weekend series against Connecticut.

“Our overriding problem is we’ve gotten some power out of Matt Frazer and Bryan McBroom,” Van Zant said. “Other than that, we don’t have any pop in our lineup. We just have a lot of new guys.”

I have to admit, and tease just a little bit, but I talked to GVZ yesterday and I intended to talk about just one thing — tonight’s game — but we ended up chatting for about 35 minutes. We went down a road I absolutely did not expect to travel, though I’m glad I did.

He told me something I just didn’t know and something that got me thinking … and what he shared, what he had not shared before, ought to get you thinking, too.