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The weekend did not go the way West Virginia’s baseball program wanted. Texas, which is quite good at home, took two out of three games. But WVU didn’t lose any ground in the final standings and finished in fourth place. It’s not where the team was a few weeks ago, but it’s not bad. The Big 12, after all, is the RPI’s top-rated conference. The Mountaineers began and then finished the weekend at No. 20 in the RPI. They’re ranked No. 17 in strength of schedule. Only six teams above them in the RPI played a better schedule.

I have to think winning Saturday’s game was enough to reach a NCAA regional, but there’s more left to do. Baylor, Wednesday’s 10 a.m. EST opponent, is one of the six teams with a better RPI and a stronger schedule. But the Bears dropped two out of three at home against WVU earlier in the season and, for what it’s worth, had a bad weekend at Kansas State, which finished in ninth (last) place and missed the conference tournament. Baylor went 1-2 and only got its win when it erased a nine-run deficit. Then again, that was the last win in a seven-game winning streak. That’s a good ballclub.

So, too, is WVU, and it’s a wonder where they’d be without the tools they’ve developed to reach the cusp of the first NCAA bid since 1996. Quite surprisingly, this is a team that’s embraced technology.

Now, this is not to say it’s a novel concept. Baseball has been married to minutiae for a long, long time now. Sabermetrics, analytics, advanced scouting, Moneyball! Yet the Mountaineers were late to the party. Just four years ago, manager Randy Mazey pushed back, stated he did not know what sabermetrics actually was and nonchalantly coined the bogus OBPSBP.

That was the final piece of a series I wrote about how college sports were realizing the benefits of technology, and there was Mazey, opting for a handful of sunflower seeds and a couple of decades spent on benches inside dugouts across the country. And it was great. It was also another nod to something that keeps coming up here lately.

Read. The. Comments.

Check out the first danged one from the providential SheikYbuti.

Segue!

I’ve seen a good number of games the past few seasons, but these past two have been a little different. WVU employs defensive shifts. An assistant coach positions outfielders for seemingly every at-bat. Pitchers and batters have alter their motions, swings, footing and stances slightly or dramatically. In short, the Mountaineers do a lot of seemingly informed actions, and the reactions have been, as the record indicates, beneficial.

The explanation? You wouldn’t believe me if I told you, so allow Mazey to explain. “With some of the stuff we do, we’ve adapted to technology probably better than most programs have.”

Same cat. New spots. Part of that philosophical expansion has to do with the stadium. Monongalia County Ballpark allows for improved technology with cameras and radar guns. The cozy team headquarters features meeting space where coaches can watch clips of a player as he pitches or hits. There’s a team meeting room where the Mountaineer watch film together, and Mazey said they can review an opposing pitcher’s outing in about 10 minutes.

It’s a major move but one with major advantages, too.

“Just changing with the times,” he said. “I’m not trying to be a dinosaur when it comes to all the technology.”

Mazey traced his shift to a gift. He was given a copy of “Big Data Baseball: Math, Miracles, and the End of a 20-Year Losing Streak,” a 2015 New York Times Bestseller that chronicled how the Pittsburgh Pirates used modern data and strategies to reach the postseason. Mazey said he considered the ideas and the technology they required as well as all the ways to enhance preparation, performance, strength and conditioning and nutrition.

“I’m a logical-thinking type of guy,” Mazey said. “If you can explain something to me logically, and if you can give me a good reason to do something, I’ll be all about it. I’m an old dog you can teach new tricks to, as long as you back it up with good, sound logic.”