(photo by Sean McNamara)

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(photo by John Lowe)

The West Virginia University baseball was picked to finished seventh out of nine teams in the Big 12 this season, according to the league’s preseason coaches poll released Thursday.

The Mountaineers, who did receive one first-place vote in the preseason poll, went 38-22 last season with a 13-11 record in the Big 12. West Virginia advanced to the championship round of the Big 12 tournament in 2019 before losing to Oklahoma State. That was good enough to land WVU and Morgantown a gig as the host site for NCAA tournament regional games, where the Mountaineers were eliminated on a walk-off grand slam against Texas A&M at Monongalia County Ballpark.

For the third consecutive season, Texas Tech was picked as the preseason Big 12 favorite.

WVU opens the 2020 season on Feb. 14 with a three-game weekend series at Jacksonville. The Mountaineers open the home portion of their schedule on Feb. 18 against Canisius.

2020 Big 12 Conference Baseball Preseason Poll (first-place votes in parenthesis)

1. Texas Tech (6)              62
2. Oklahoma State          52
3. TCU (1)                        45
4. Oklahoma                   40
5. Texas (1)                      38
6. Baylor                          35
7. West Virginia (1)          26
8. Kansas State                15
9. Kansas                         11

No video is available (yet??) of Bob Huggins’ postgame press conference via our pals who update the WVU Sports YouTube page, but Friend of the Blog Carlos Silva, the sports editor and Texas Tech hoops beat writer for the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal (and only non-NFL player guest ever to appear on an All ‘Eers episode), sent me the audio.

Videos via WVU Sports on YouTube

(AP photo)

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(photo by Sean McNamara)

West Virginia University has a new men’s soccer coach in Dan Stratford, and now we know the details of his contract thanks to a Freedom of Information Act request filed with WVU by the Gazette-Mail.

Stratford’s contract runs through through the end of 2023 and will pay the London, England native a base salary of $120,000 each year. The former Mountaineer standout who recently led the University of Charleston to two NCAA Division II national championships can also make more than $100,000 in performance bonuses, including $25,000 for winning a national championship with the Mountaineers. The full contract is embedded below.

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(AP photo)

The West Virginia University men’s basketball team climbed two spots in this week’s Associated Press Top 25 poll, with the Mountaineers checking in at No. 14. WVU is coming off a week in which it claimed two blowout wins — both at home — against Texas and Missouri.

WVU currently sits at No. 7 in the NCAA NET rankings, which can be found here. 

Also, my ballot for this week’s AP Top 25 can be found here. 

This week’s full AP Top 25 is below:

The top 25 teams in The Associated Press’ men’s college basketball poll, with first-place votes in parentheses, records through Jan. 26, total points based on 25 points for a first-place vote through one point for a 25th-place vote and last week’s ranking:

Others receiving votes: Creighton 59, Arizona 55, Texas Tech 33, Ohio St. 16, Indiana 15, ETSU 14, N Iowa 13, Memphis 11, Southern Cal 9, Rhode Island 6, Purdue 6, Florida 4, Arkansas 3, Saint Mary’s (Cal) 3, Tulsa 3, SMU 3, Wisconsin 1, Akron 1, Harvard 1.

Video via WVU Sports on YouTube