MORGANTOWN — Steve Sabins has a day job as the head coach of the No. 9 WVU baseball team. That makes him ineligible to sit on the sport’s NCAA tournament selection committee.
It didn’t keep him from laying out his thoughts on how the committee should view the Mountaineers (37-13, 21-9 Big 12), who are preparing to play in the Big 12 tournament quarterfinals on Thursday.
Depending on how WVU fares in the conference tournament, there is doubt on whether the Mountaineers will be selected as one of the 16 regional hosts teams or traveling toa regional for a third consecutive year.
Those doubts are found in the metrics – numbers spit out by analyzing computers – or in NCAA tournament projections that are put out by both respectable sources and ones you’ve never heard of.
To Sabins, there is no doubt.
“I find it really hard to believe that in one of the top three conferences in the country, with no doubt, and a team that set a program record for conference wins with 21, a team that finishes second in the league, a team that has the best pitcher in one of the top three leagues in the country, is not hosting,” Sabins said. “We have won every series but two and have multiple sweeps in a Power Four league that’s well-respected with a good strength of schedule. And the team that won the league, we swept on the road. So, if that’s not a hosting resumé, then I have no idea what is. We have absolutely earned that up to this point.”
WVU has advanced to super regionals in each of the last two seasons. To do so, the Mountaineers did it by going on the road for the opening round of the national tournament. In 2024, WVU won the Tuscon, Ariz. Regional. Last season, WVU advanced through the Clemson, S.C. Regional.
WVU hasn’t hosted a NCAA regional since 2019, when an average of 4,133 fans filled Kendrick Family Ballpark for the three games the Mountaineers played in.
“This place should be rocking, sold out, packed, and be one of the best venues in the country,” Sabins predicted if Morgantown was once again selected as a host.
WVU could erase all doubts by winning the Big 12 tournament. Shy of that, WVU’s national rankings, RPI rankings and strength of schedule will become a debated topic by the committee before the regional hosts are announced on Sunday.
“Hopefully this isn’t our last home game,” WVU infielder Brodie Kresser said after the Mountaineers beat TCU to end the regular season. “I think the boys would be pretty fired up to have that. It would be sweet.”
The argument against WVU is not a new one. There is no debate the Big 12 is one of the top three college baseball conferences in the nation. The problem is the size of the gap between the SEC – the king of the mountain in college baseball – and the Big 12.
According to the RPI (Ratings Percentage Index), the Big 12 is third among the conferences behind the SEC and the ACC. The Big 12’s rating of .5488 is just tenths of a point ahead of the fourth-place Big Ten, while it is a full three points behind the SEC.
What comes into play with that gap is strength of schedule and Quad 1 games. Among the top 20 in the RPI – WVU currently sits at No. 20 – the Mountaineers’ overall strength of schedule of 64th in the nation is the highest of the 20 teams.
WVU is 8-4 in Quad 1 games, but its total of 12 Quad 1 opponents is dwarfed by schools such as Auburn, which has played 33 Quad 1 opponents, and Alabama, which has played 30 Quad 1 games.
And so, it becomes a question of whether or not the eighth-place team out of the SEC or even the fourth-place team from the ACC has a better case for hosting than the second-place team from the Big 12.
Is that disrespect toward the Big 12? Probably so, but that’s the story told by the metrics. The SEC has 12 teams in the top 50 of the RPI. The ACC has 11. The Big 12 has seven.
If the Mountaineers are chosen to play in another NCAA tournament on the road, well, the players seem to be prepared for it.
“Wherever we go, we’re going to play hard, keep the same approach,” Kresser said. “We’re used to it.”
