Steve Sabins Knows How Quickly the Narrative Can Change for WVU

Hosting a regional in the NCAA Tournament is something every team in college baseball is aiming to do, and despite all of the recent success the West Virginia program has had, they've hosted just once this century, proving how hard it is to do.

Thanks to their three-game road sweep of then-ranked No. 7 Kansas, the Mountaineers are squarely back in the conversation to be one of the 16 regional hosts, and depending on how they finish the season, could position themselves to have a chance at hosting a super regional.

On top of playing for the right to host, WVU also has an opportunity to defend its Big 12 regular season title. They need to finish with at least one more win this weekend than Kansas; doing so would give them at least a share of the title. Depending on the results of Kansas, UCF, and Arizona State, they could win it outright for the second consecutive year.

It's safe to say there's a lot on the line heading into this final series of the season, but head coach Steve Sabins isn't worried about all of the different scenarios.

“We try to avoid all that stuff because the swings are so great if you get tied up in that kind of stuff. Three weeks ago, we could have not been making a regional, or we could have been hosting. Then you go from a national seed to you get spanked, and you suck, and you don’t make a regional. The swings are just too great to try to capture what you’re playing for. You’re basically playing to get better, play clean baseball, enjoy each other every day. Every week, there is some scenario and what you’re playing for. Whether that’s a top 25 ranking or to be seeded in this or seeded in that. I don’t think we get caught up. We’ve been through this a lot over the last decade, and we’ve got to see all of these swings and these emotions. We’ve led the Big 12 and not played good down the stretch. We’ve been the other guy chasing the team in front and everything in between.”

This weekend's series against TCU feels like the biggest series of the year, but the same was said a week ago when the Mountaineers went out to Lawrence. If they didn't do what they did, they wouldn't be in this position to defend their Big 12 title. And that even goes back to the series against Kansas State as well.

“You put yourself in good situations. Every time you do that, there’s going to be higher expectations, right? If you get swept at Kansas and it didn’t go good down the end and you don’t win another game, we might be talking about making a regional or not. Just the narrative switches. This series is only more important because it hasn’t happened yet. The Cincinnati series was the biggest series of the year, the day before we played it. And the TCU series is the biggest series of the year because we haven’t played it yet.”

Regardless of how it all shakes out, the Mountaineers are trending in the right direction at the right time and will be a team that no one wants to see in the NCAA Tournament.

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