MORGANTOWN — West Virginia’s run to a 14th NCAA baseball tournament came to a crushing halt Monday, as the Mountaineers did not earn one of the 33 at-large selections by the selection committee.
The entire 64-team field announced included five Big 12 teams with No. 5 Oklahoma State and No. 12 Texas earning host regional sites that were announced Sunday night.
TCU, the regular-season champion, Oklahoma, the Big 12 tournament winner, and Texas Tech were the others that made the field.
West Virginia (33-22), it turns out, was the odd man out.
And it may not have even been close. After the field was announced, the committee also listed the first four teams that just missed the cut and WVU was not on that list.
That part may have been the most surprising. WVU’s tournament resumé included a school-record 14 Big 12 wins in the regular season and the Mountaineers registered 10 wins against teams that did make the tournament.
“Obviously, we’re hugely disappointed for the kids,” head coach Randy Mazey said. “They worked so hard not to get recognized for their efforts, it’s pretty disappointing. I told them with as hard as they worked this year with everything they accomplished — set records at your own school and did things that have never been done before — if you know in your heart that you did everything you can do, don’t let a group of people who have no idea who you are dictate the satisfaction you can get for doing everything you could.”
WVU and Texas finished tied for fifth place in the Big 12 with 14-10 conference records, but while the Longhorns are hosting a regional, the Mountaineers will begin looking toward next season.
The killer for WVU may have been its poor performance in the Big 12 tournament last week, that saw the Mountaineers limp back to Morgantown after going 0-2.
WVU fell to eventual champ Oklahoma, 6-4, before losing 8-5 in an elimination game to Kansas State, a team WVU had swept to conclude the regular season.
“Disappointing to say the least,” tweeted WVU catcher McGwire Holbrook. “Super proud of this team and the season we had. Thank you to all the fans and everyone who supported us along the way. We’ll be back.”
Those setbacks dropped WVU’s RPI numbers from No. 35 to No. 49.
Mazey believes the Big 12 tournament performance may have been the final blow for his team’s chances at the NCAA tournament.
“What if we declined our bid to play in the conference tournament this year?” Mazey asked. “I wouldn’t be on Zoom with you guys right now, I’d be on the field practicing with my team preparing for a regional if we would have declined the conference tournament
Of the first four teams listed that just missed the cut — N.C. State, Rutgers, Old Dominion and Wofford — all four were ranked higher in the RPI than the Mountaineers.
Rutgers finished its season with 44 wins and finished second in the Big Ten in both the regular season and conference tournament, while N.C. State made it to the national semifinals last season, before a COVID-19 outbreak eliminated the Wolfpack from the tournament.
N.C. State fell to North Carolina in the finals of the ACC tournament this season.
WVU did finish 16-17 against Quad 1 and Quad 2 competition, which generally covers the top 100 teams in the RPI.
WVU’s 10 wins against the NCAA field included two against TCU and two against Central Michigan, while the other wins were against Texas, Texas Tech, Campbell, Canisius, Oklahoma State and Oklahoma.
As for next season, WVU is in line to return many of its top players, including top pitcher Ben Hampton, as well as its top five hitters in Holbrook, Dayne Leonard, Austin Davis, J.J. Wetherholt and Braden Barry.
Wetherholt was a unanimous selection to the all-Big 12 freshman team after hitting .308 with five home runs and 39 RBIs.
Grant Hussey, a freshman who led WVU with 11 home runs, is also expected to return.
In theory, WVU could return its entire starting lineup. The biggest question would be outfielder Victor Scott II, who is expected to be drafted next month and may not elect to return for his senior season.
Scott led WVU in stolen bases (38) — a school record — while also leading the team with 47 RBIs.
WVU’s 2022 recruiting class is ranked No. 37 in the nation, according to Perfect Game, and it includes Portsmouth, Va. shortstop Tre Keels, who is ranked as the No. 66 overall recruit in the nation.
Keels will enroll at WVU as the school’s highest-ranked baseball recruit ever.
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