The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board Because that's our custom

Get hype!

May 30, 2017 by Mike Casazza

 

We are a long, long way from the beginning of the college basketball season, but West Virginia basketball was on our minds last week. Best player returns to school. Top post player picks professional basketball. Blue-blood program added to the home schedule. That was four days.

So, a whole lot changed, right? Yes and no.

After digging in and poring over some stats and some conversations I had with people in and around the program, I came away with this: The Mountaineers are used to this and seemed situated to succeed.

They have pieces in place and a plan to proceed. They’ll need a couple of things to go their way — two new starters, no fewer than four Power 5 non-conference opponents and five first-year players among the variables — but there are expectations once again inside the Coliseum: “I think,” coach Bob Huggins said, “we’re going to perform at a very high level.”

How? With whom? Why? There are questions, and though answers will have to wait, some clues are already available.

The waiting game, to the finish

by Mike Casazza

You’ll note the silence at the beginning there. West Virginia baseball manager Randy Mazey was on the cusp of tears Monday when the Mountaineers made program history after setting out to make program history. His eyes welled up again later when Mazey was talking about all the team had to overcome this season, said he doesn’t “do much around here” and instead credited his staff of assistant coaches and staff members.

College baseball may or may not mean a lot to you. That, as you now know, is not the consensus.

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Rejoice!

May 29, 2017 by Mike Casazza

WVU v. Maryland at 2 p.m. Friday. Winner and loser moves on to play winner and loser of Wake Forest v. UMBC.

Swing king

May 26, 2017 by Mike Casazza

 

Colin Simpson is a fine baseball player. Oklahoma State’s catcher was honorable mention all-conference and, as of this typing, is batting .291 with 11 home runs and 40 RBIs. But when Colin Simpson plays West Virginia, he’s a legend.

In four games this season, the sophomore is 8-for-17 with five home runs, 12 runs batted in and six runs scored against the Mountaineers. He homered twice Thursday, striking a momentous blow in the first inning and a decisive one in the sixth, and drove in five runs as the Cowboys pushed WVU into the loser’s bracket of the Big 12 tournament with an 8-4 win.

“When we left Stillwater earlier this year, we gave their catcher the nickname of Homer Simpson. He lived up to the billing today again. He’s like I said yesterday. Some people play really good on a certain field like we do. He just feels so comfortable at the plate against us. That guy’s killed us.

“Our offense, we were clicking tonight. We just left too many guys on base early. Every guy that stood in there had a really good at-bat. We made a lot of hard outs. We got a lot of hits. I think the difference was we walked seven and hit two, and they only walked two. We gave them a lot more free bases, but our offense really grinded that one out. I’m super proud of them.

“Our kids are tired. We’re out there battling as hard as we can against a really good team. We knew coming in that these guys were going to be tough on us. They’d won three in a row playing in front of their home crowd. They’re playing with a lot of confidence, as are we. I just thought that was a really good game. I looked up in the fifth inning and they’re beating us 8-2, but we’re out-hitting them at the time 12-10, I think. That was the difference, the free bases. Some of their hits went and landed on the wrong side of the fence and none of ours did.”

Thanks, Randy Mazey. That about covers it.

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‘This is pretty much his team.’

May 25, 2017 by Mike Casazza

The cards West Virginia basketball coach Bob Huggins holds have been shuffled here lately. His best player returned. His best post player departed. His schedule got a tick trickier. Those last two are important, but the first one trumps them all. Having Jevon Carter on the roster assuages a lot of worries.

For most, I should say. For others, consider this a warning.

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And Kentucky it is

by Mike Casazza

https://twitter.com/Big12Conference/status/867742624823877632

Big news cycle for the Big 12. College baseball’s best conference opened its conference tournament Wednesday and the Nos. 4, 6, 7 and 8 advanced to the winners bracket. Someone from the No. 1 v. No. 5 game and the No. 2 v. No. 3 games — and thats’ four RPI top 25 teams there — are done after today. We thought something like this might happen.

And we also thought we’d get WVU v. Ketucky in the Big 12/SEC Challenge. Today, it was confirmed. The Jan. 27 (2018!) matchups:

Baylor at Florida
Tennessee at Iowa State
Texas A&M at Kansas
Georgia at Kansas State
Oklahoma at Alabama
Oklahoma State at Arkansas
TCU at Vanderbilt
Mississippi at Texas
Texas Tech at South Carolina
Kentucky at West Virginia

The Wildcats haven’t been to Morgantown since 1970 and own a 15-5 lead in the series. WVU’s wins have been separated by 14, 17, two and 51 years.

ukseries

 

Final: WVU 11, Baylor 1 (8 innings)

May 24, 2017 by Mike Casazza
baybox

 

Slaughter rule! The only thing that went wrong here was West Virginia didn’t finish this game after seven innings and Isaiah Kerns had to throw six more pitches in the top of the eighth. That’s it. Everything else was sublime.

WVU is absolutely in the NCAA tournament now, right? Baylor was No. 19 in this morning’s RPI, a spot above WVU, and the Mountaineers are now 7-6 against the teams above or even with them in the regular-season standings, and the Big 12 is the RPI’s most-revered league. We hadn’t really pored over this, because the body of work seemed good enough, but WVU went 4-8 in Big 12 play at the end of the season and followed four conference series wins with four conference series losses.

But that’s no longer a concern. With a whole lot of swagger, its best starter ready to roll and every other arm available to help, the team moves on to play the winner of No. 1 seed Texas Tech v. No. 8 seed Oklahoma State at 5 p.m. (or so) tomorrow.

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Big 12 tournament: (4) WVU v. (5) Baylor

by Mike Casazza

 

First pitch in the first game of the quite likely competitive and unpredictable Big 12 tournament is at 10 a.m. when No. 4 seed West Virginia takes on No. 5 seed Baylor. Both teams finished 12-12 in the regular season, and both teams were percolating before dropping two games in the final regular-season series. The Mountaineers earned fourth place and the No. 4 seed, which comes with the last at-bat that’s been a big deal for WVU all season, by winning two of three games against the Bears at the beginning of conference play.

Baylor’s pretty good, boasting the Big 12’s second-best team batting average and fourth-best team ERA as well as first-team all-conference players to prop up those rankings. The Mountaineers aren’t bad, though, and they rank third in batting average and ERA and had four players make the first or second team.

Freshman Isaiah Kerns will start for WVU today and top starter B.J. Myers will throw tomorrow, and this almost runs counter to manager Randy Mazey’s “win this game, no matter what” tournament philosophy. Myers could be pitching in an elimination game tomorrow instead of keeping his team out of one today, but there’s an explanation.

“If we didn’t feel good about playing next weekend, we’d attack this weekend another way,” Mazey said. “We feel good about playing next weekend, so that takes the pressure off this weekend.”

Next weekend is the beginning of the NCAA tournament and regional play, and starting Myers on Thursday ensures he’ll have a normal amount of rest, as opposed to too many days off before the regionals begin. The Mountaineers haven’t been to a regional since 1996, but Mazey believes his team will be invited during the selection show Monday — if they don’t earn the automatic bid that comes with winning the conference tournament.

“I feel pretty good about where we’re sitting right now,” he said. “You don’t ever know for sure, but we’re in the best conference in the country and we finished fourth. If you look around at all the other conferences — the Power 5 conferences — and at all the other teams that finished fourth in those leagues, you’d feel pretty good about those guys getting in.

“I think if you look at it objectively, you’ve got to like where we’re at right now. I don’t ever count on it until I see our name come off the board. I’ve been in that position when I’ve gathered a team for the selection show and you never hear your name, so I’ll believe it when I see it. But as we sit here right now, you have to feel good about where we’re at.”

What do you say we find out? The game is on Fox College Sports. You can watch live online here. You can listen live here. You can follow live stats here.

Problem solved

May 23, 2017 by Mike Casazza

Elijah Macon is in summer school, but he’ll be done in two weeks and will pursue professional playing opportunities after that.

Or not?

Macon announced his departure on Facebook:

“First things first I would like to say Thank you Bob Huggins And Erik Martin for believing in a young 15 year old boy growing up from the Southside of Columbus, OH losing my mother and still having you guys push me to be the man I have become I can do nothing but thank you for all you and Mountaineer Nation has done for me unfortunately I will not be returning for my senior season at WVU and instead sign with a agent and play professional basketball thank you guys for all the love and support!!!
#MOUNTAINEERFORLIFE”

Thirty-one minutes later, which is an adequate amount of time for people to chime in and for Macon to survey the responses, he added a second post: “FYI I HAVE NOT SIGNED WITH AN AGENT YET”

Got it. I will guarantee you nothing from here on out, but it would appear Macon is leaving and this just became a perimeter team.

 

Big 12 baseball awards

by Mike Casazza

The sophomore leads the team in hitting (but he doesn’t have enough plate appearances to qualify) and is 11-for-11 in stolen bases. He’s played the outfield and designated hitter, and he leads the team with six saves and five wins. He has a 2.67 ERA in 21 appearances, each in relief, and has 41 strikeouts in 33 2/3 innings.

There really aren’t many players who do what Braden Zarbnisky does, and he was named first-team all-conference Tuesday. He was not alone in earning and accepting honors from the conference coaches. Three teammates made the second team and seven were named honorable mention while you-know-who (!) made the all-freshman team.