Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
Campus Connection: WVU Sports Notes
June 07, 2018 05:36 PM | Baseball, Blog
Michael Grove's selection in the second round of this year's Major League Draft is somewhat surprising considering he was coming off Tommy John surgery last year.
In 2017, the Wheeling Park High product was rolling along with a 3-1 record and was named national Pitcher of the Week after taking a perfect game into the eighth inning in a home win against Kansas on April 8. However, he injured his arm two weeks later against Kansas State, forcing him to shut things down for the remainder of the season.
Grove was on a rehab program this spring and was building his arm strength back up to speed when scouts saw him throwing in the bullpen.
If Grove signs with the Dodgers, his two years pitching for the Mountaineers in 2016 and 2017 will amount to about one season's worth of work. He struck out 117 and opponents hit just .220 against him in 92 innings during those two abbreviated seasons of action.
If he chooses to return to college for his junior year, the righthander could be one of the top players in the 2019 draft, which could mean considerably more than the approximately $900,000 he's slotted to make in the spot he was drafted.
As the 68thoverall pick, Grove becomes the fourth-highest draft choice in school history behind No. 11 overall pick Chris Enochs in 1997, No. 46 overall selection Darrell Whitmore in 1990 and No. 59 pick Jedd Gyorko in 2010.
Gyorko and Whitmore reached the majors. Whitmore spent parts of three seasons with the Florida Marlins in 1993, 1994 and 1995, and Gyorko presently is in his third season with the St. Louis Cardinals and his sixth overall in the bigs.
Since the Major League Draft was first instituted in 1965, WVU has had 11 top-10-round selections, including Grove.
The others were lefthanded pitcher John Radosevich (1965), Whitmore, lefthanded pitcher Steve Kline (1993), Enochs, outfielder Jarod Rine (2003), outfielder Adam White (2007), catcher Tobias Streich (2009), outfielder Bobby Boyd and pitcher Harrison Musgrave (2014).
Kline and Musgrave also reached the bigs.
Some more observations from Row O …
* Oliver Luck's decision to become commissioner and chief executive officer of the newly formed XFL earlier this week is really not surprising at all when you consider that he was once general manager of the Frankfurt Galaxy of the World League of American Football League and later became president of NFL Europe when it was rebooted in the mid-1990s.
His work with the Harris County Sports Authority created to oversee the financing, construction and management of Houston's three major sports venues - Minute Maid Park, Reliant Stadium and the Toyota Center - led to his role as president of the Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer.
Five years later, he became West Virginia University's 11thdirector of athletics in 2010, a post he held until 2014 when he left to become executive vice president for regulatory affairs with the NCAA.
"I always felt there was an opportunity for another pro league as long as it had the key ingredients, and I found all of those ingredients present in the new XFL," Luck told ESPN's Darren Rovell earlier this week.
The new professional football league was founded by well-known professional wrestling impresario Vince McMahon and will be played in the springtime instead of going head-to-head with the NFL, much like the USFL once tried in the early 1980s.
The USFL lasted three seasons and was the most successful professional football challenge to the NFL since the AFL morphed into the NFL in 1970.
McMahon's first foray into professional football in 2001 lasted one season.
"We're focused on what we think is a solid business play with a solid runway and solid timeline," Luck told ESPN.
The league plans to be up and running by 2020.
* Bob Huggins' selection to the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Board of Directors is not only good for West Virginia University, it's also good for the game in general. There is no coach more knowledgeable in the history of basketball than Huggins.
Some coaches you run into believe the history of the game began when they started coaching; that's never been the case with Huggs.
* A couple of weeks ago, Dana Holgorsen entertained the folks in Charlotte as the keynote speaker at its regular Touchdown Club luncheon and earlier today he was in Houston to speak at its Touchdown Club gathering.
Holgorsen has a lot to discuss these days with perhaps the best player in college football returning in quarterback Will Grier, and an offense that could rank among the best in the nation this season.
* West Virginia didn't have any players make the ballot for this year's College Football Hall of Fame, which will be announced on Monday, Jan. 7, 2019 in Santa Clara, California, prior to the national championship game, but a coach with WVU ties did.
Jim Carlen, who got his major college coaching career started at WVU in 1966, spent four seasons in Morgantown and led the Mountaineers to a 10-1 record and a victory over South Carolina in the 1969 Peach Bowl before leaving to take the Texas Tech job in 1970.
Carlen led the Red Raiders to bowl trips in 1970, 1972, 1973 and 1974 before moving on to South Carolina in 1975. He coached three Gamecock teams to bowl appearances in 1975, 1979 and the 1980 Gator Bowl with Heisman Trophy winner George Rodgers.
Carlen's 16-year Division I coaching record was 107-69-6.
A couple of WVU players who received consideration for this year's ballot were 2006 Rimington Award winner and consensus All-American center Dan Mozes and consensus All-America cornerback Aaron Beasley.
* Dallas Morning News sports columnist and NFL expert Rick Gosselin recently came up with his list of the all-time NFL special teams performers and a name familiar to West Virginia University football fans is on it - Ron Wolfley.
Wolfley played 10 NFL seasons with the St. Louis and Arizona Cardinals, Cleveland Browns and St. Louis Rams before retiring in 1995. Wolfley was known for his wedge-busting prowess and his willingness to play with reckless abandon.
Gosselin polled some of the game's top coaches to come up with his picks.
"Wolfley had less speed than (other top cover men), but he was very tough with a top motor," New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick told Gosselin. "He was physical to run through blockers. He wasn't always the first downfield, but he was around the ball and smart to recognize wall returns and blocking schemes. He played next to center on the punt team and was both strong and smart in protection."
That's tall praise coming from one of the most successful coaches in NFL history.
* Veteran women's track and field coach Sean Cleary is looking for multiple point scorers at this year's NCAA Outdoor Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.
Senior Amy Cashin in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and junior Maddie Gardner in the pole vault have good shots of reaching the podium at this year's event.
The last time WVU had multiple point scorers at the NCAA meet was 2012 when Chelsea Carrier placed third in the heptathlon and seventh in the 100-meter hurdles.
The Mountaineers finished tied for 34thplace with eight team points.
Two years prior to that, in 2010, was the last time West Virginia had multiple performers place at the outdoor meet. That year, Marie-Louise Asselin finished second in the 5,000, Clara Grandt placed fourth in the 10,000 and Carly Hamric was sixth in the 1,500 to garner WVU 16 team points for a 16th-place finish.
Cashin is making her second trip to outdoor nationals while Gardner, from nearby Williamstown, West Virginia, is making her outdoor national debut.
If both can duplicate prior top performances this spring that should be good enough to get them into the top eight to earn All-America status.
Tonight, Cashin will take part in one of two semifinal heats to qualify for Saturday's finals, while Gardner's pole vault event is also scheduled to take place this evening.
* We're two weeks away from this year's NBA Draft and Bob Huggins is confident guard Jevon Carter is going to be selected before all 60 picks are turned in on Thursday, June 21 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.
Several mock drafts have Carter going early in the second round while a couple have the senior guard sneaking into the first round.
"They were saying there are not going to be a lot of guards taken in the first round, and I was watching some of the mock drafts on there and a lot of them in the first round were guards," Huggins said last week prior to his annual fantasy camp. "I'm looking at those guys and I'm thinking 'I can't imagine anyone who knows anything about basketball would take some of those guys before they'd take J.C.'"
Huggins said the feedback he's received is that Carter has performed extremely well in personal workouts after impressing at this year's NBA Draft Combine in late May.
"He has destroyed everybody he's played against in workouts to the point where a lot of guys won't go if he's there," Huggins said. "Their agents, when they find out he's going to be there, they cancel.
"That's a lot of respect."
West Virginia's NBA Draft history since it was pared to just two rounds in 1989 is not very extensive.
Forward Gordon Malone was a second-round choice by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 1997; Joe Alexander was taken in the first round by the Milwaukee Bucks in 2008 and teammates Da'Sean Butler and Devin Ebanks were second-round choices in 2010.
That's it.
Enjoy your weekend!
In 2017, the Wheeling Park High product was rolling along with a 3-1 record and was named national Pitcher of the Week after taking a perfect game into the eighth inning in a home win against Kansas on April 8. However, he injured his arm two weeks later against Kansas State, forcing him to shut things down for the remainder of the season.
Grove was on a rehab program this spring and was building his arm strength back up to speed when scouts saw him throwing in the bullpen.
If Grove signs with the Dodgers, his two years pitching for the Mountaineers in 2016 and 2017 will amount to about one season's worth of work. He struck out 117 and opponents hit just .220 against him in 92 innings during those two abbreviated seasons of action.
If he chooses to return to college for his junior year, the righthander could be one of the top players in the 2019 draft, which could mean considerably more than the approximately $900,000 he's slotted to make in the spot he was drafted.
As the 68thoverall pick, Grove becomes the fourth-highest draft choice in school history behind No. 11 overall pick Chris Enochs in 1997, No. 46 overall selection Darrell Whitmore in 1990 and No. 59 pick Jedd Gyorko in 2010.
Gyorko and Whitmore reached the majors. Whitmore spent parts of three seasons with the Florida Marlins in 1993, 1994 and 1995, and Gyorko presently is in his third season with the St. Louis Cardinals and his sixth overall in the bigs.
Since the Major League Draft was first instituted in 1965, WVU has had 11 top-10-round selections, including Grove.
The others were lefthanded pitcher John Radosevich (1965), Whitmore, lefthanded pitcher Steve Kline (1993), Enochs, outfielder Jarod Rine (2003), outfielder Adam White (2007), catcher Tobias Streich (2009), outfielder Bobby Boyd and pitcher Harrison Musgrave (2014).
Kline and Musgrave also reached the bigs.
Some more observations from Row O …
* Oliver Luck's decision to become commissioner and chief executive officer of the newly formed XFL earlier this week is really not surprising at all when you consider that he was once general manager of the Frankfurt Galaxy of the World League of American Football League and later became president of NFL Europe when it was rebooted in the mid-1990s.His work with the Harris County Sports Authority created to oversee the financing, construction and management of Houston's three major sports venues - Minute Maid Park, Reliant Stadium and the Toyota Center - led to his role as president of the Houston Dynamo of Major League Soccer.
Five years later, he became West Virginia University's 11thdirector of athletics in 2010, a post he held until 2014 when he left to become executive vice president for regulatory affairs with the NCAA.
"I always felt there was an opportunity for another pro league as long as it had the key ingredients, and I found all of those ingredients present in the new XFL," Luck told ESPN's Darren Rovell earlier this week.
The new professional football league was founded by well-known professional wrestling impresario Vince McMahon and will be played in the springtime instead of going head-to-head with the NFL, much like the USFL once tried in the early 1980s.
The USFL lasted three seasons and was the most successful professional football challenge to the NFL since the AFL morphed into the NFL in 1970.
McMahon's first foray into professional football in 2001 lasted one season.
"We're focused on what we think is a solid business play with a solid runway and solid timeline," Luck told ESPN.
The league plans to be up and running by 2020.
* Bob Huggins' selection to the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) Board of Directors is not only good for West Virginia University, it's also good for the game in general. There is no coach more knowledgeable in the history of basketball than Huggins.
Some coaches you run into believe the history of the game began when they started coaching; that's never been the case with Huggs.
* A couple of weeks ago, Dana Holgorsen entertained the folks in Charlotte as the keynote speaker at its regular Touchdown Club luncheon and earlier today he was in Houston to speak at its Touchdown Club gathering.Holgorsen has a lot to discuss these days with perhaps the best player in college football returning in quarterback Will Grier, and an offense that could rank among the best in the nation this season.
* West Virginia didn't have any players make the ballot for this year's College Football Hall of Fame, which will be announced on Monday, Jan. 7, 2019 in Santa Clara, California, prior to the national championship game, but a coach with WVU ties did.
Jim Carlen, who got his major college coaching career started at WVU in 1966, spent four seasons in Morgantown and led the Mountaineers to a 10-1 record and a victory over South Carolina in the 1969 Peach Bowl before leaving to take the Texas Tech job in 1970.
Carlen led the Red Raiders to bowl trips in 1970, 1972, 1973 and 1974 before moving on to South Carolina in 1975. He coached three Gamecock teams to bowl appearances in 1975, 1979 and the 1980 Gator Bowl with Heisman Trophy winner George Rodgers.
Carlen's 16-year Division I coaching record was 107-69-6.
A couple of WVU players who received consideration for this year's ballot were 2006 Rimington Award winner and consensus All-American center Dan Mozes and consensus All-America cornerback Aaron Beasley.
* Dallas Morning News sports columnist and NFL expert Rick Gosselin recently came up with his list of the all-time NFL special teams performers and a name familiar to West Virginia University football fans is on it - Ron Wolfley.
Wolfley played 10 NFL seasons with the St. Louis and Arizona Cardinals, Cleveland Browns and St. Louis Rams before retiring in 1995. Wolfley was known for his wedge-busting prowess and his willingness to play with reckless abandon.
Gosselin polled some of the game's top coaches to come up with his picks.
"Wolfley had less speed than (other top cover men), but he was very tough with a top motor," New England Patriots coach Bill Belichick told Gosselin. "He was physical to run through blockers. He wasn't always the first downfield, but he was around the ball and smart to recognize wall returns and blocking schemes. He played next to center on the punt team and was both strong and smart in protection."
That's tall praise coming from one of the most successful coaches in NFL history.
* Veteran women's track and field coach Sean Cleary is looking for multiple point scorers at this year's NCAA Outdoor Championships at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.Senior Amy Cashin in the 3,000-meter steeplechase and junior Maddie Gardner in the pole vault have good shots of reaching the podium at this year's event.
The last time WVU had multiple point scorers at the NCAA meet was 2012 when Chelsea Carrier placed third in the heptathlon and seventh in the 100-meter hurdles.
The Mountaineers finished tied for 34thplace with eight team points.
Two years prior to that, in 2010, was the last time West Virginia had multiple performers place at the outdoor meet. That year, Marie-Louise Asselin finished second in the 5,000, Clara Grandt placed fourth in the 10,000 and Carly Hamric was sixth in the 1,500 to garner WVU 16 team points for a 16th-place finish.
Cashin is making her second trip to outdoor nationals while Gardner, from nearby Williamstown, West Virginia, is making her outdoor national debut.
If both can duplicate prior top performances this spring that should be good enough to get them into the top eight to earn All-America status.
Tonight, Cashin will take part in one of two semifinal heats to qualify for Saturday's finals, while Gardner's pole vault event is also scheduled to take place this evening.
* We're two weeks away from this year's NBA Draft and Bob Huggins is confident guard Jevon Carter is going to be selected before all 60 picks are turned in on Thursday, June 21 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York.Several mock drafts have Carter going early in the second round while a couple have the senior guard sneaking into the first round.
"They were saying there are not going to be a lot of guards taken in the first round, and I was watching some of the mock drafts on there and a lot of them in the first round were guards," Huggins said last week prior to his annual fantasy camp. "I'm looking at those guys and I'm thinking 'I can't imagine anyone who knows anything about basketball would take some of those guys before they'd take J.C.'"
Huggins said the feedback he's received is that Carter has performed extremely well in personal workouts after impressing at this year's NBA Draft Combine in late May.
"He has destroyed everybody he's played against in workouts to the point where a lot of guys won't go if he's there," Huggins said. "Their agents, when they find out he's going to be there, they cancel.
"That's a lot of respect."
West Virginia's NBA Draft history since it was pared to just two rounds in 1989 is not very extensive.
Forward Gordon Malone was a second-round choice by the Minnesota Timberwolves in 1997; Joe Alexander was taken in the first round by the Milwaukee Bucks in 2008 and teammates Da'Sean Butler and Devin Ebanks were second-round choices in 2010.
That's it.
Enjoy your weekend!
Players Mentioned
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/ Men's Basketball
Distance
/ Track & Field
QB
/ Football
RHP
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