MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - It was another banner year for Shane Lyons' West Virginia University athletic department competing in the Big 12 - the only Power 5 conference in America with teams participating in this year's College Football Playoff, NCAA men's Final Four and College World Series.
 
Bob Huggins' men's basketball program reached the NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 for the third time in four years behind All-America guard Jevon Carter, recognized as the NABC and Lefty Driesell National Defensive Player of the Year, the second straight year he's won that award.
 
West Virginia's record during Carter's four seasons at WVU was an impressive 105-39, making the Mountaineers one of only nine schools in the country to win 25 or more games four consecutive years. The Mountaineers also advanced to the Big 12 Tournament championship game the last three seasons with Carter on the floor.

Carter's achievements extended beyond the hardwood as he was recognized by CoSIDA as its Academic All-American of the Year. He was named the Senior CLASS Award winner, Arthur Ashe Jr. Scholar-Athlete of the Year and Big 12 Scholar-Athlete of the Year, making him one of the most well-rounded and most highly decorated athletes in school history.
 
Incidentally, national champion Villanova's most difficult game on the way to claiming its second NCAA title in the last three years came against West Virginia in the regional semifinals in Boston when the Mountaineers were leading the Wildcats by six in the second half.
 
Speaking of national titles, one off day at this year's NCAA Championships kept rifle from claiming its sixth straight national title, but the Mountaineers' second-place finish marked the seventh time in the last eight years Jon Hammond's squad finished either first or second in the country. Sophomore Morgan Phillips claimed her second straight smallbore national title, becoming the first WVU shooter since Web Wright in 1987-88 to accomplish that rare feat.
 
Teammate Elizabeth Gratz also earned a prestigious honor when she became the recipient of rifle's Elite 90 Award for academic excellence for a second straight year.
 
West Virginia will have an opportunity to reclaim the title next year at the WVU Coliseum when the NCAA Championships come to Morgantown - the first time ever West Virginia University will serve as the host site for a national championship event.
 
Nikki Izzo-Brown's powerhouse women's soccer program kept rolling along in 2017 by securing its 18^thconsecutive NCAA Tournament appearance and spending the entire season ranked in the Top 10. Penalty kicks kept West Virginia from capturing another Big 12 Tournament crown, but the Mountaineers advanced to the third round of the NCAA Tournament for a third straight season - a school first. 
 
Senior Amadine Pierre-Louis continued West Virginia's trend of dominating year-end conference awards by being named the Big 12's Co-Defensive Player of the Year.
 
By the way, Izzo-Brown is closing in on 350 career victories, which she will achieve sometime this fall.
 
Dana Holgorsen's West Virginia University football team spent a good portion of 2017 ranked in the Top 25 until quarterback Will Grier broke his finger in the first quarter of the Texas game, which the Mountaineers lost 28-14.
 
WVU dropped its final two games of the season against College Football Playoff-bound Oklahoma and then Utah in the Zaxby's Heart of Dallas Bowl with Grier on the sidelines. Still, West Virginia managed to play in its fourth straight bowl game, making it six out of seven years the Mountaineers have played in a bowl game with Holgorsen working the sidelines and 16 out of the last 17 years overall. 
 
All of the explosive playmakers from last year's 20^th-ranked offense return in 2018, including Grier, a preseason Heisman Trophy favorite, and the nation's top touchdown pass-catcher David Sills V, a 2017 Biletnikoff Award finalist.
 
Volleyball made an eight-win improvement from 13 victories in 2016 to 21 wins in 2017 and competed in the postseason for the first time in 26 years under third-year coach Reed Sunahara. The Mountaineers were invited to participate in the National Volleyball Invitational Championship where they swept matches against Maryland-Eastern Shore, Temple and Syracuse before falling at Ole Miss in the NIVC semifinals. 
 
WVU defeated 14^th-ranked Kansas for its first-ever victory against a Top 25-team and ended the regular season winning three out of its last four Big 12 conference matches.
 
Mike Carey's women's basketball program just missed out on another NCAA Tournament appearance in 2018, but it did qualify for postseason play for a 12^th straight year. Playing the entire season without star guard Tynice Martin, considered one of the top players in women's college basketball, Carey still managed to piece together an eight-player rotation that won 25 games and upset third-seeded Oklahoma State in the first round of the Big 12 Tournament.
 
The team's school-record, 40-game home streak against non-conference opponents ended in the WNIT semifinals when Virginia Tech nipped the Mountaineers, 64-61, at the buzzer. Teana Muldrow stepped up in Martin's absence to have a great senior season capped by being named a Cheryl Miller Award Finalist, which recognizes the game's top small forward.
 
Carey's 65.7 percent winning percentage is by far the highest of any women's basketball coach in school history.
 
Vic Riggs' men's and women's swimming and diving program had one of its strongest seasons in recent years when both teams finished second at Big 12s and sent multiple performers to this year's NCAA Championships.
 
The men's team was undefeated in dual-meet competition, including a victory over rival Pitt, while the women posted a 4-2 dual-meet mark. Jake Armstrong and Morgan Bullock achieved honorable mention All-America status at nationals while Armstrong brought home a Big 12 individual title in the 100-meter breaststroke.
 
Tristen Di Sibio also claimed a Big 12 individual crown in the 200-meter breaststroke and Amelie Currat and James Koval were named Big 12 Scholar Athletes of the Year for swimming and diving.
 
Randy Mazey's Mountaineer baseball team continued its winning ways competing in the nation's No. 2-rated conference and facing the most difficult schedule in school history. Two opponents are playing in this year's College World Series, Texas and Texas Tech.
 
WVU managed to win four games against the Longhorns and Red Raiders and also won at least two Big 12 Tournament games for the third straight season. The Mountaineers have qualified for all six Big 12 Championships since joining the league and had four players picked in this year's Major League Draft, including second-round choice Michael Grove, who did not pitch this season while recovering from Tommy John surgery.
 
Grove's selection as the 68^thoverall choice in the draft represents the fourth-highest pick in school history dating back to 1965.
 
Mazey is now just 11 victories shy of achieving 200 career wins in his six years at WVU, all of them with the Mountaineers playing in the Big 12.
 
Jason Butts' gymnastics team qualified for the regional championships for the 39^thtime in program history and has done so in all but one season since he took over in 2012. West Virginia achieved scores of 196.0 or better three times away from the WVU Coliseum - the first time that has happened in school history.
 
Junior Kirah Koshinski was named second team All-America on the vault for the third straight year, the first time a WVU gymnast has made one of the two All-America teams three consecutive times since Kristin Quackenbush did it in 1996, 1997 and 1998.
 
The cross country team, under veteran coach Sean Cleary, also qualified for NCAA regionals where it placed seventh. In track, Williamstown's Maddie Gardner made it to the podium by placing eighth in the pole vault at last weekend's NCAA Outdoor Championships in Eugene, Oregon, to earn All-America honors. Gardner was one of two outdoor qualifiers this year with senior Amy Cashin being the other.
 
Cashin was a CoSIDA Academic All-District selection and was also the Big 12's Scholar-Athlete of the Year for women's track.
 
Men's soccer was in the national rankings for five weeks and advanced to the Mid-American Conference Tournament for the fifth time in six years since joining the league. Six of the nine victories for veteran coach Marlon LeBlanc's Mountaineers this past year came via shutout.
 
LeBlanc has had winning seasons in seven out of the last nine years and is one of just two coaches in the 56 seasons of men's soccer to win more than 100 career games at WVU.
 
Men's golf continued to make strides since its re-birth in 2015 under Coach Sean Covich. The Mountaineers topped Kansas State at this year's Big 12 Championships for its highest-ever placing and WVU claimed two more tournament victories to achieve its first-ever Top 100 ranking, finishing 90^thout of 300 golf teams. 
 
Under Covich, West Virginia has increased its individual head-to-head winning percentage by 31 percent since its return to the links in 2015.
 
Wrestling has a new CEO in highly successful Edinboro coach Tim Flynn, who is taking over a program that sent three athletes to nationals this past season and secured three dual-meet victories over nationally ranked teams, including its first-ever in Big 12 action against Oklahoma.
 
WVU also knocked off Pitt, 24-10, on Saturday, Dec. 9, 2017, when the Panthers were ranked 25^thin the country. A home win over 25^th-ranked North Dakota State was another highlight for the season.
 
Women's tennis continues to make progress under the guidance of Miha Lisac. WVU achieved its first-ever Big 12 victory last spring against Iowa State and defeated in-state rival Marshall for the second consecutive year. 
 
Giovanna Caputo and Paula Goetz won more than 30 singles and doubles matches during the 2017-18 campaign while Anne-Sophie Courteau surpassed the 20-win mark.
 
And rowing, which captured eight team points at this year's Big 12 Championships, was led by junior All-Big 12 performer Carly Ledbetter. Coach Jimmy King's rowers had an impressive 12 athletes named to this year's Academic All-Big 12 first team, and an additional four were recognized on the second unit.
 
Assistant coaches were honored, too. 
 
Women's basketball's Christal Caldwell was named to the WBCA Thirty Under 30 group of outstanding up-and-coming assistant coaches, while swimming and diving's Michael Grapner was voted the Big 12's Men's Diving Coach of the Meet last spring. 
 
In the classroom, West Virginia's achievements were extremely impressive. 
 
The combined grade point average for the entire athletic program was a 3.2 with women's cross country leading the way with a 3.6 team GPA. Overall, the department's GPA has held steady above a 3.0 for 12 consecutive semesters, Lyons reported in last month's web column.
 
And the Academic Progress Report, the NCAA's method for measuring the academic progress of individual sports teams, was exemplary with four teams - men's basketball, rifle, golf and women's tennis - achieving perfect scores during a four-year period. 
 
Six accomplished perfect scores for the most recent academic year recorded to give West Virginia a department score of 984, its best since the APR was first instituted in 2003.
 
By the conclusion of the summer semester in August, "another 85 student-athletes will have West Virginia University diplomas, including former football standout Bruce Irvin, who recently completed work on his sociology degree as part of WVU's post-eligibility scholarship program," Lyons wrote.
 
Additionally, 277 athletes were recognized on the Garrett Ford and Big 12 commissioner's honor rolls with grade point averages above a 3.0, which averages out to nearly 64 percent of West Virginia's student-athletes.
 
Indeed, it was another banner year for Mr. Lyons' athletic department!