It’s hard to believe, but as we close in on the end of April, we are also closing in on the end of the school year. Winter sports have wrapped up, and even some of the Spring sports are getting close to the end of their seasons.
For WVU, the most prominent spring sports are baseball, track and field, and golf. Football has wrapped up spring practice, while the soccer teams have spring exhibition games.
The baseball team finds itself atop the Big 12 standings halfway through the conference schedule. They are an impressive 31-4 overall and 10-3 in the conference, heading into this past weekend’s series against Cincinnati. The Mountaineers have five more Big 12 series scheduled: Cincy (8-7 in the Big 12), at UCF (4-11), Texas Tech (7-8), at Kansas State (10-5), and Kansas (9-6). WVU is also ranked in all of the major polls, and the top 25 in RPI entering the series against the Bearcats. WVU is definitely in contention to host at least a regional in the NCAA tournament, but they will have to finish strong. That means losing very few home games, and winning the series against their Big 12 foes.
The golf team is wrapping up their Big 12 Championship this week, and I’ll have those results in next week’s column. The track team is heading to the prestigious Penn Relays, which will be their last big meet until next month’s Big 12 Championships.
Football will take the national spotlight for the next few days, when the NFL conducts its annual draft. This year, they will be in Green Bay, and the first round is tomorrow (April 24), rounds two and three will be Friday, and rounds 4 through 7 on Saturday. It looks like WVU will have just one player picked – Wyatt Milum, who was an offensive tackle in college, but projects to be a guard in the pros. If the mock drafts are correct, he could go sometime in the third round, but would be an early fourth round pick at worst. There are some other WVU players who have a chance to be a late-round pick, but should sign a free agent deal if they aren’t drafted. They include defensive linemen Sean Martin and Ty French, and long snapper Austin Brinkman.
Also, the spring portal season is open, and WVU will be looking to build depth and perhaps fill in some gaps. They will also see a fair number of players depart. In many cases, they will be players who may have wanted to stay but couldn’t, because football teams across the country are anticipating a roster limit of 105 players. Most teams carried more than that with scholarship players plus walkons, so teams are being forced to cut players to hit that roster cap. That is part of the anticipated House lawsuit settlement, which is something I will talk about this summer, after the settlement is finalized, and the dust has settled a bit, so colleges better understand the implications.
Notes: Ross Hodge has been busy building his staff and roster for the men’s basketball team. It looks like we could see pretty much an all-new staff and player lineup. One familiar face to WVU fans will be an assistant coach. Phil Forte, who terrorized WVU as a sharp-shooting guard for Oklahoma State will be in Morgantown for the good guys now. Hodge is also adding multiple transfers from North Texas and elsewhere, and added a high school recruit he had had originally signed while at North Texas…The tennis team faced off against Kansas State in the opening round of the Big 12 Championship, a team that had beaten the Mountaineers 4-2 in the regular season. WVU fared slightly better, but fell 4-3 to cap off a solid follow-up to their best season ever last year.
