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Campus Connection: Summer WVU Sports Notes
June 10, 2016 02:13 PM | Football
Randy Mazey
If Randy Mazey is a fingernail biter, his nails are probably going to be down to the cuticle by the time this weekend is over.
That’s because the 2016 Major League Draft is now in its second day, and if Mazey can survive it, he could have one heck of a baseball team returning in 2017.
Mazey had one of the youngest everyday lineups in college baseball this past year for a team that SHOULD still be playing, based on how the three teams that finished above the Mountaineers are doing in this year’s NCAA Tournament.
Big 12 regular-season champion Texas Tech will play host to East Carolina in the NCAA Super Regional series this weekend, league runner-up Oklahoma State travels to South Carolina for this weekend’s Super Regional series in Columbia, South Carolina, and third-place TCU, which needed 10 innings to beat West Virginia in the Big 12 Tournament championship game, heads to College Station, Texas, to face Texas A&M in another Super Regional series.
To recap, that’s teams No. 1, 2 and 3 in the Big 12 Conference still alive among the best 16 teams in college baseball. As for Mazey’s No. 4 Mountaineers … well, to quote famed sports philosopher Ricky Bobby, “if you ain’t first your last.”
At least it sure seemed that way for West Virginia playing in what was supposed to be the third-best baseball conference in America this year.
“Hey, I guess fourth place in the Big 12 wasn’t too bad after all,” said Mazey from his cellphone the other day, while watching a baseball game in Cincinnati, Ohio. “The top three are still out there playing and have a pretty good chance of getting to the College World Series, so fourth place in the Big 12 looks like a pretty decent place to get in.”
After the way his 36-22 baseball team was treated by the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee, Mazey’s Mountaineers are due for a break or two.
And that would mean surviving this weekend. Mazey’s 41st-ranked recruiting class by Perfect Game could take a cherry-picking by Saturday evening.
“In this world of agents, advisors, internet and information, trying to get these kids to listen to reason at this point, when you see your name go off your computer or hear somebody call your name it’s hard (to compete with that),” Mazey said. “For a lot of these kids it’s a dream come true. They’ve been waiting for this their whole lives and then you’ve got to try and talk them out of it. That doesn’t always work.”
Mazey is a realist and he knows there is a chance he could lose some of his top recruits. That’s already happened to him before.
“It was the same as last year and the year before,” he said. “I think two years ago it was seven underclassmen signed pro and had all those guys come back we would have had a really good team the following year. Last year, we only lost one of our incoming guys, but we thought he was a superstar pitcher that could have potentially pitched us to the College World Series, and he signed pro in the 34th round.”
The one thing Mazey can point to is his proven track record of developing professional players. Guys who sign in the later rounds who come and play baseball for Mazey usually ended up getting drafted much higher the second time around.
“Of all the guys we’ve had signed pro since we’ve been here, maybe 15 or so in four years, all of them were drafted higher out of West Virginia than they were drafted out of high school,” he explained. “We’ve got a track record of developing kids pretty good in our program.”
That’s what he will be telling right-handed pitcher Alek Manoah, the 41st-rated prep prospect in Florida by Baseball America, or right-handed pitcher/outfielder Frank Vesuvio, New York’s 29th-best pro prospect.
And then there is junior right-handed pitcher Chad Donato on this year’s team; Donato is rated No. 316 by Perfect Game and No. 351 by Baseball America, which puts him somewhere around the 10th to 15th round.
Plus, the timing of the draft is not the greatest for college coaches, who have very little time to adjust if a large number of their underclassmen sign pro contracts.
“Could you imagine Geno (Smith), Tavon (Austin) and Stedman (Bailey) getting drafted the week before the Orange Bowl? Or, could you imagine Geno, Tavon and Stedman getting drafted the year before and not even coming back for the Orange Bowl year? How would that have changed the team? In college baseball, you could have the greatest recruiting class in the world turn to mush in a matter of 24 hours,” Mazey said.
That’s why Mazey will be chewing his nails this weekend, or at the very least, crossing his fingers.
More Summer WVU Notes:
* My congratulations to former Mountaineer pitcher Matt Yurish, recently named head baseball coach at Alderson-Broaddus College. Yurish is one of only eight pitchers in 121 years of baseball at West Virginia University to throw a no-hitter, his coming against Coppin State in seven innings in 2006. The Hedgesville native posted a 17-12 career record for the Mountaineers, including a 6-2 mark during his senior season in 2008.
Alan Cooke
* As far as I know, Vienna’s Alan Cooke has done something only one other person with WVU ties has ever been able to do - win a West Virginia Amateur Golf Championship. Cooke cruised to an eight-stroke victory at this year’s amateur event held at The Greenbrier - the 97th time the state has held its amateur golf championship, dating back to 1913.
The only other state champion with WVU ties, that I am aware of, is former Mountaineer great Ira Errett Rodgers. Legend has it, Rodgers took up the game in 1929 while coaching the WVU football team and was talked into going down to the Greenbrier to play in the amateur event that year.
Well, Rodgers won it, and never returned. Now that’s a real champion!
The state amateur has been dominated by four golfers through the years: Julius Pollock Jr. in the teens and 1920s, Charleston businessman Ed Tutwiler in the 1940s and 1950s, Huntington businessman Bill Campbell in the 1960s and 1970s, and more recently, Huntington resident Pat Carter.
Now once again, a WVU guy gets his name engraved among the state’s great amateur champions and as a reward for his efforts, Cooke gets a sponsor’s exemption to play in this year’s Greenbrier Classic July 7-10.
Way to go Alan!
* The NCAA recently released its men’s basketball attendance figures for the 2015-16 season and West Virginia held steady at 39th with an average of 10,583 fans per game.
It was the second consecutive year WVU averaged more than 10,000 fans per game at the Coliseum, and the sixth time overall under veteran coach Bob Huggins. A Coliseum-best average of 12,377 fans per game watched West Virginia in 2010 when Huggins’ Mountaineers made their run to the Final Four.
Only three other occasions, in 2006 when WVU was coming off an NCAA Tournament Elite Eight season under John Beilein, and in 1982 and 1983, when Gale Catlett had his program on the upswing, has West Virginia ever averaged more than 10,000 fans per game in a season.
* Sorry to hear about the passing of longtime WVU supporter Don Gay, 86, who played an instrumental role, along with the late Bill Powell, in the development and success of the Mountaineer Athletic Club scholarship dinner that takes place in Charleston each year.
Don was a true, unconditional friend of the Mountaineers, particularly WVU football.
On signing days, I recall Don being one of the few fans coach Don Nehlen would allow inside the Facilities Building to observe the day’s happenings.
My condolences go out to Don’s family. He will be greatly missed.
* Earlier this week, the Big 12 Conference announced its member schools would split $304 million in revenue for 2015-16, meaning a payout of $30.4 million per school for this year. That’s an increase of approximately $50 million from a year ago, putting the Big 12 just behind the SEC and Big Ten in revenue distribution but ahead of the ACC and Pac-12, according to Big 12 commissioner Bob Bowlsby.
That does not include tier 3 multimedia rights, which each institution negotiates separately. This year, West Virginia will receive a payout of close to $6 million from IMG to go along with roughly $2 million the school receives annually from retained sponsorship rights.
Think back to five years ago, during West Virginia’s final season in the Big East when the Mountaineers HAD to win the Big East football championship just to earn their $9 million payout from the conference - or roughly the same amount the Mountaineers received for its 50-percent revenue share during their inaugural season playing in the Big 12 Conference in 2012.
* Matt Wells, associate athletic director for external affairs, informs me the department’s advance trip to Washington, D.C., for a site tour of FedExField earlier this week was a very productive one.
West Virginia will be playing BYU at FedExField on Saturday, September 24 in a very appealing intersectional matchup featuring two traditional football powers that will be meeting for the first time ever on the gridiron.
Incidentally, did you realize that since 1974, BYU has played in 34 bowl games, won 23 conference championships and finished ranked in the Top 25 20 times, including a national title in 1984?
That’s a pretty good track record of success through the years for the Cougars.
Tickets are currently on sale through the Mountaineer Ticket Office or online at WVUGAME.com.
Some of the college football magazines now available at newsstands.
* A quick walk past Mike Montoro’s office this morning revealed a growing pile of college football magazines accumulating on the veteran football SID’s desk. Of course, I took the liberty of grabbing them for a quick scan before returning them.
Three of the six I saw had quarterback Skyler Howard positioned prominently on the cover, and that doesn’t include Jed Drenning’s fabulous Signal Caller magazine, which I highly recommend you pick up at your neighborhood newsstand, convenience store or by going online to thesignalcaller.com.
If you are after the latest and most accurate WVU or Big 12 information, then Jed’s magazine is the one you want for your coffee table or bookshelf.
As for the others, Athlon’s and Lindy’s predicts fifth-place Big 12 finishes for the Mountaineers, while Sporting News has West Virginia finishing sixth.
However, I have a sneaking suspicion that Dana Holgorsen’s Mountaineers are going to finish higher than that this year.
We’ll see.
Have a great weekend!
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