Earlier this week the NCAA website counted down college basketball’s top five pregame traditions and No. 4 on that list is the carpet West Virginia players run out on during pregame introductions.

 

With the exception of the years Bucky Waters, Sonny Moran and Joedy Gardner coached at WVU, the carpet has been a pregame staple at West Virginia University home basketball games since 1955.

 

Here is the back story on how it came to be.

 

Coach Fred Schaus always enjoyed showmanship and during his time at West Virginia he introduced the knee-high socks popularized by North Carolina, had his players shave their arm-pit hair because he thought that made them look more appealing to female basketball fans and he had his players use a special gold and blue basketball during pregame warmups.

 

So when WVU fan and supporter Alex Mumford, who worked for the Wunda Weve Carpet Company in Greenville, South Carolina, approached Schaus about having his team run out on a special Wunda Weve carpet during home basketball games at the old Field House Schaus was all ears.

 

“I tried to do this and I tried to do that and the carpet was one of those things,” Schaus recalled in 2005. “We were trying to sell tickets and if something extra could develop with the carpet, that would certainly fit into that mold.”

 

When Schaus left to coach the Los Angeles Lakers in 1960, George King continued the tradition until he departed for Purdue in 1965.

 

Bucky Waters ditched the carpet in 1966 and instead had his players run out onto the floor through a ring. The carpet remained in storage through the Moran and Gardner years in the 1970s until Gale Catlett revived it in 1978.

 

The carpet continues today and it is also used by the WVU women during their pregame introductions as well. As for the original carpet the team ran out on, it was finally retired last year.

 

And now you know the rest of the story.

 

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You can add two more to West Virginia’s growing list of Senior Bowl participants. Linebacker Nick Kwiatkowski and strong safety KJ Dillon will be playing in this year’s game, which takes place in Mobile, Alabama on Saturday, January 30.

 

That makes five Dana Holgorsen-coached players to be picked for college football’s top all-star game (Kevin White was invited but declined to play in last year’s game). Since 2000, West Virginia has had 24 players selected for the Senior Bowl and 50 overall since 1954.

 

It’s the eighth time West Virginia has had multiple participants since 2000.

 

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Weekend men’s basketball games at the WVU Coliseum are becoming a difficult ticket to purchase. All three remaining Saturday dates at the Coliseum are sold out, the latest being the TCU game on Saturday, February 13.

 

There are still tickets left for West Virginia’s three remaining mid-week games against Iowa State (ESPN Big Monday), Kansas State (Tuesday night) and Texas Tech (Wednesday night).

 

Of the three, Iowa State seems to be attracting the most interest. Fans can order tickets for those games by calling the Mountaineer Ticket Office toll-free at 1-800-WVU GAME or by logging on to WVUGAME.com.

 

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For those interested, here are the three major promotions for remaining home men’s basketball games:

 

Baylor – Stripe the Coliseum

Oklahoma – Gold Rush

Iowa State – True Blue

 

You can check out all of West Virginia’s home-event promotions here: http://www.wvusports.com/promotions.cfm

 

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The committee to select the 2016 college football playoff is being assembled right now and with the recent addition of WVU graduate and Oregon athletic director Rob Mullens, it will make two out of the last three years West Virginia University has had a link to the process of picking the four-team college football playoff.

 

Former West Virginia athletic director Oliver Luck was a member of the committee that picked the first college football playoff field in 2014.

 

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Former West Virginia All-America shortstop Jedd Gyorko said recently that he is excited about the opportunity to revive his professional baseball career in St. Louis. Gyorko spent the first three years in San Diego where the Padres were near the bottom of the National League West standings.

 

Now, Gyorko is playing for one of baseball’s best organizations in St. Louis.

 

“It’s a great opportunity. Any time you join a team that won 100 games, that’s OK,” Jedd told the Belleville-News Democrat.

 

Gyorko is expected to share time with Kolten Wong at second base and also play third and short on occasion.

 

“I’m just going to go out and play hard, whenever the opportunities come. I’m not sure where they’re going to be yet, but when they present themselves, I’m going to be ready and I’m going to play hard. That’s all I can do.”

 

Although Busch Stadium is considered a pitcher’s ballpark, it is far better than cavernous Petco Park, Gyorko said.

 

“Any ballpark other than Petco is a little better as far as hitters,” he said. “It can (bother you) a little bit. You try not to think about it. You just go out there and try to hit the ball hard.

 

“But there are certain times when you get a ball pretty good and you think it’s got a chance and it gets caught, it can be demoralizing sometimes.”

 

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Be sure to circle Wednesday, February 3 on your calendars. That is the day West Virginia University will announce its newest class of football signees and we will once again have comprehensive signing day coverage on WVUsports.com from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m.

 

Following a two-hour break, a live stream of Dana Holgorsen’s signing day news conference will also be available at 3 p.m.

 

Tony Caridi, Jed Drenning, Dale Wolfley and Jeff Culhane will break down this year’s class and get you up to speed on what’s happening with Mountaineer football.

 

In addition, WVU director of athletics Shane Lyons will also stop by for an exclusive interview that morning.

 

This year’s signing day show is being presented by United Bank.

 

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Wednesday night’s loss to Texas was the first time this year the Mountaineers played poorly for an entire game. With the exception of a bad second half against Virginia in Madison Square Garden back on December 8, West Virginia has played consistently well all season.

 

Texas was really the first time this year West Virginia was noticeably outhustled, outworked and beaten at their own game.

 

Poor shooting, including an abysmal 34.8 percent from the free throw line, is partly to blame for West Virginia’s seven-point loss to Texas, but the Longhorns also got most of the 50-50 balls, controlled the tempo and harassed West Virginia’s backcourt all night long.

 

The Mountaineers’ four-guard rotation of Jevon Carter, Daxter Miles Jr., Jaysean Paige and Tarik Phillip combined to shoot just 6 of 36 from the floor against Texas, and that’s just not going to cut it – not against Texas, not against Texas Tech coming up on Saturday, and it’s not going to cut it the rest of the way in the Big 12 this season.

 

Hopefully Wednesday night’s poor performance was just a hiccup and not something to be concerned about for the remainder of the year.

 

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The days of expecting to go through your conference season undefeated at the Coliseum are probably over. It’s been 26 years since West Virginia has made it through a league season without a home loss, that coming in 1990 when the Mountaineers were members of the Atlantic 10.

 

And since joining the Big East in 1996, West Virginia has had at least one conference home loss each year, so expecting to go through your home schedule without a conference defeat is probably unrealistic.

 

Think about this … Some really good West Virginia basketball teams, including ones that have made it to the Sweet 16, Elite Eight and Final Four, were unable to protect their home hardwood at least once during the season.

 

That’s an indication of the quality of teams coming to Morgantown now on an annual basis.

 

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And finally, Shane Lyons’ first full year as West Virginia University’s director of athletics is shaping up to be one of the stronger years in department history.

 

We’ve seen across-the-board improvement in just about every sport so far this season with a number of teams nationally ranked.

 

The defending national champion rifle team is once again chasing history - the Mountaineers already accomplishing one significant mark with their recent 4740 team score against 15^th-ranked Akron. That represents the highest team score in NCAA history (out of a best possible score of 4800), topping WVU’s previous high score of 4724 established earlier this season against Alaska-Fairbanks.

 

If the top-ranked Mountaineers can maintain this level of accuracy for the rest of the season, this team could go down as the best-ever in NCAA history.

 

Meanwhile, women’s soccer just completed its most successful year in school annals, the Mountaineers reaching the NCAA tournament Elite Eight this season for only the second time in school history before bowing out to eventual national champion Penn State on its home field.

 

Coach Nikki Izzo-Brown’s Mountaineers reached as high as No. 2 in the national rankings and finished ranked seventh.

 

Despite recent losses to Oklahoma and Texas, men’s basketball continues its resurgence under veteran coach Bob Huggins. WVU is ranked sixth this week – the program’s highest national ranking since the Final Four season in 2010 – and the Mountaineers have been in the national rankings 25 out of the last 30 weeks dating back to last season. 

 

Women’s basketball is back in the top 25 this week with a 15-4 record heading into Sunday’s game at TCU. The Mountaineers almost knocked off fourth-ranked Baylor in Waco 10 days ago, and are off to a surprising 4-2 start in league play.

 

West Virginia has one of the top freshman players in the country in 5-foot-10-inch guard Tynice Martin, now averaging 9.5 points per game including four straight double-digit scoring efforts against Kansas State, Texas Tech, Baylor and Kansas.

 

Gymnastics, ranked 26^th this week, is inching closer toward a return to the top 25 following a strong home performance last weekend against 18^th-ranked Denver. Another good score this Sunday at home against Western Michigan and William & Mary could get the Mountaineers back in the top 25.

 

Coach Sammie Henson’s Mountaineer wrestling team recently fell out of the rankings after spending most of the season in the top 25, but Henson is hopeful of sending at least five wrestlers to this year’s NCAA Championships in New York City. Last year, West Virginia had four wrestlers reach nationals to place 20^th overall with a team score of 23.5.

 

Football is coming off its best season since its move to the Big 12 in 2012, the Mountaineers winning eight games in 2015 and defeating Arizona, 43-42, in the 2016 Cactus Bowl in Phoenix, Arizona, demonstrating continued progress under fifth-year coach Dana Holgorsen.

 

Vic Riggs’ men’s swimming and diving team recently earned nice victories over Pitt and TCU and he his looking to send a handful of swimmers to nationals this spring.

 

Fourth-year baseball coach Randy Mazey finally has a home venue to call his own (including locker rooms) and an established offseason routine, and with his starting pitching rotation returning intact, he’s hopeful more progress has been made toward ending the Mountaineers’ 20-year NCAA tournament drought.

 

Two years ago, Mazey’s team nearly did so by winning 33 games, including a couple of victories in the Big 12 Championships; West Virginia has qualified for the Big 12 tournament each season it has been in the league under Mazey.

 

Former University High distance star Millie Paladino is back for her second full season of track at West Virginia, so that’s a good news for veteran women’s track coach Sean Cleary. In addition to Paladino, Cleary is hopeful of piecing together a distance medley relay team good enough to qualify for indoor nationals, as well as possibly seeing a couple of pole vaulters make it to Birmingham, Alabama, later this spring.

 

It’s been three years since WVU has scored points at indoor nationals, something Cleary would like to see change in March.

 

This year also represents the spring return of West Virginia golf for the first time since 1982. Hopefully the putters are working for coach Sean Covich’s Mountaineers, who begin spring action on February 15 in Houston in the President’s Day Challenge against Houston and Rice.

 

Covich said he is taking a full team down to Houston and from that one-day, 36-hole event he will determine the starting five that he will take to Tallahassee, Florida, for the Seminole Collegiate, March 11-13, when the spring season hits full stride.

 

Breaking out the clubs sounds nice right now with the massive snowstorm predicted to hit the East Coast this weekend. Hopefully everyone is ready!

 

Stay warm this weekend!