MORGANTOWN — Much has been made about how new NCAA rules affect the high-profile sports in football and basketball — the transfer portal and one-time immediate eligibility following a transfer.
Even the free COVID year for eligibility has changed the landscape for almost every NCAA sport.
WVU football coach Neal Brown, men’s basketball coach Bob Huggins and women’s basketball coach Mike Carey have been through the grinder the last few seasons with players using their free year, or leaving and coming in via the portal, with roster management becoming more important than ever.
For Mountaineers baseball coach Randy Mazey, he says welcome to the club.
“For Huggs and Neal and Carey, I say welcome to my world,” Mazey said with a laugh. “Baseball coaches, we’ve been managing rosters for 50 years with the (MLB) draft — losing high school kids and juniors in your program. So now they’re having to deal with what we’ve dealt with for a long time. Roster management is no stranger to the world of college baseball.”
In baseball, immediate eligibility was always a factor, as well. It was just introduced to football and men’s basketball in April 2021.
As WVU approaches its season opener a week from today on Feb. 18 in Conway, S.C., against Central Michigan, the Mountaineers will have 40 members on their roster.
Compare that to the 2020 season, before the COVID shutdown, when WVU had 33 players on the team.
With only so many innings to go around for the pitchers and only so many holes to fill in the lineup, Mazey knows it will be a juggling act to play as many as possible, or else more than ever, players will move on to a place they will play.
“These days, if you don’t play those young and talented freshmen enough, they just go right into the portal,” he said. “It’s going to be a trick. I’d say in 80% of the games we play this year, we’re probably going to throw five pitchers or more in each game — for that reason, but also because they’re all pretty talented.”
An example Mazey used was Tyler Chadwick, a true freshman last season who only pitched 10 2/3 innings and decided he wanted to go elsewhere.
Even after this season, Mazey believes there’s a strong chance of whoever pitches the least out of all of “our talented pitchers,” they’re probably going to leave.
“You no longer are trying to build a program, you’re building a team year by year,” Mazey said. “The status of this thing every year is probably going to be half your team, every single season, are kids who are in your program for the first time. Developing a freshman into a senior is way harder than it used to be because part of development is sitting on the bench, learning how to fail, and kids just aren’t willing to do near as much of that these days as they have in the past.”
However, the Mountaineers will benefit this season from several newcomers who transferred from other big schools, including pitcher Chase Smith (Pitt), Dayne Leonard (Virginia Tech), and pitcher Trey Braithwaite (Navy).
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