Examining, ranking WVU’s sports programs over a decade
Mitch VingleThe New View | Mitch Vingle
West Virginia University fans are quick to back a winning team. On Tuesday, for instance, I was receiving texts from Mountaineer fans asking where they can get tickets to the NCAA Super Regional involving WVU’s baseball team.
Is West Virginia now a baseball school?
I chuckle because I’ve heard the word “baseball” swapped out for other sports all my life.
Of course, WVU will always be a football and men’s basketball school, but when I was a sport reporter former colleagues would ask if WVU was now a “[insert sport] school” my whole career before joining Wheelhouse Creative.
Think about this past school year and the women’s basketball team. Could WVU become a “both basketball school?” It’s certainly becoming a “baseball school.”
And can both men’s and women’s soccer say to all, “Hold my beer”?
I began thinking about my alma mater’s athletic programs recently and decided to look at all the sports over the past 10 years and rank them. Honestly, it’s tough because of sports like track and field, rowing, etc.
But below is a a rough idea – with a slight nod to recency bias – of the best over the last decade.
Rifle
West Virginia University’s rifle program is back in familiar territory these days — almost. The Mountaineers finished second in the NCAA Championships this past March to TCU, a thorn in WVU’s side since 2019. So, they’re not back on top, but close. Of course, the Mountaineers still have a nation’s best 19 NCAA national championships. They’ve won the GARC regular season 15 times and the league tournament 16 times.
Coach Jon Hammond has guided his team to a 118-8 record over the last decade and a fifth-place NCAA finish in 2023; a sixth-place finish in 2022; a fourth-place finish in 2021; a second-place finish in 2019 (no championship in 2020 because of Covid); a second-place finish in 2018; and national titles in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Hammond has six NCAA titles coaching WVU, the last in that 2017 season.
Women’s soccer
It would be easy to argue that Nikki Izzo-Brown is the best coach of any sport in WVU history. Although the Mountaineers were 7-8-4 in their last campaign, they finished as the NCAA National Runner-Up in 2016 and have appeared in the NCAA tournament 22 of the last 24 years. Izzo-Brown’s record is 390-140-72 all-time. In the last decade, WVU is 139-44-33, which is amazing.
Men’s soccer
The Mountaineers are coming off a historic season which saw WVU finish 17-3-4 and advance to its first College Cup in program history. Coach Dan Stratford’s team gave West Virginia fans quite a ride by defeating Louisville, Vermont and Loyola Marymount in the NCAA tournament before falling to Clemson 1-0 in the Cup semifinals.
The previous season they lost to No. 2 Kentucky in the Sun Belt semifinal. In 2021 they went 12-3-6 and made the NCAA quarterfinals before falling to Georgetown on penalty kicks. In 2019, WVU went 10-9-2 but won the MAC championship over Bowling Green and made the second round of the NCAA tournament before falling to Marshall, the eventual champs. Ditto they made the second round in 2018.
In the last 10 years, WVU has gone 101-64-42. The Mountaineer program has certainly surged.
Baseball
WVU, 36-22, is basically in the Sweet Sixteen of college baseball after winning the Tucson Regional. The Super Regionals are a best-of-three setup with the subsequent double elimination play in the College World Series before a best-of-three championship series.
NCAA tournament appearances are rare for WVU. Aside from the current showing, Randy Mazey’s team in 2023 went to the Lexington Regional and made the grade in 2017 and 2019.
Former coach Greg Van Zant had but one NCAA appearance, that in 1996. Longtime skipper Dale Ramsburg had four. Back in the 1950-60s, Steve Harrick’s teams went to six. That’s it.
So, from 2014 to 2024, there have been four NCAA tournament berths. The Mountaineers were in the Big 12 championship in 2019.
From 2015 through this season, WVU is 311-220, including the Covid-shortened 2020 season. That’s winning at a 59 percent clip.
Women’s basketball
WVU’s women’s basketball team had a tremendous season under new coach Mark Kellogg, with a 25-8 record and a second round NCAA battle with Caitlin Clark and No. 2 Iowa for the ages. Iowa won 64-54 at home, but the performance certainly jazzed the Mountaineer fan base.
In the last 10 years, West Virginia has gone to six NCAA tournaments and three WNIT tournaments. We’ve seen standouts like JJ Quinerly, Kysre Gondrezick, Tynice Martin and Bria Holmes. The record over 10 years is 217-113 (.657).
Men’s basketball
The 2023-24 season was certainly one to forget. The Mountaineer basketball program finished last of the expanded 14-team Big 12 and finished tied for No. 318 of 351 teams nationally in winning percentage.
Also, WVU finished eighth or worse in the Big 12 three of the last five Bob Huggins years. In those last five years, the Mountaineers were 35-54 in Big 12 play (39.3 percent). If you want to tack on this past season, it’s 39-68 or 36.4 percent.
On the flip side, WVU made the NCAA tournament six of the last 10 years under Huggins (2023, 2021, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015). There were three Sweet Sixteen appearances in there. In the last 10 years WVU was 205-136 (60 percent winning percentage). Feast or famine.
Cross country/track and field
Ceili McCabe has been an absolute star for WVU. She’s been an All-American three times. This past season she finished third in the NCAA Track and Field Championship 3,000-meter steeplechase. In May she set a Canadian record in the event at the USA Track and Field LA Grand Prix Distance Classic.
The cross country team finished fourth out of 27 teams, with 120 points, at the NCAA Mid-Atlantic Regionals. Also, redshirt senior Mikenna Vanderheyden will compete in the NCAA Outdoor Track and Field Championship in the 3,000-meter steeplechase June 5-8.
Coach Sean Cleary does a nice job managing three seasons of cross country and indoor and outdoor track and producing results.
Football
WVU’s football team seems on an uptick after last season’s 9-4 final record, including a 30-10 bowl victory over North Carolina in Charlotte. There hasn’t been a lot to write about in the last 10 years though aside from the 10-3 record in 2016. There were three losing records.
Overall, the Mountaineers are 71-56. That’s winning at a 56 percent clip.
Swimming and diving
The Mountaineers have a state-of-the-art 50-meter pool these days. They also have a new face in former Xavier coach Brent MacDonald. His Musketeers won the Big East six times in his 16-year stint. He’ll try to bolster a WVU program that’s sent at least one athlete to nationals each year since 2018, including breast stroker Mia Cheatwood earlier this spring. In the Big 12 he’ll be up against programs like Arizona State, which won a national title this past spring. Vic Riggs, who resigned, had a 57-46 men’s record and 49-74 women’s mark over 17 seasons. He had 37 NCAA qualifiers and 15 All-Americans.
Wrestling
WVU went 10-5 this past season under coach Tim Flynn, who has been on board since 2019. With five NCAA qualifiers in 2024, two finished as All-Americans. The 31.5 total points (good for 17th place) was the most since 2005, when Craig Turnbull’s team finished 18th and had 34 points.
It’s a good sign for a proud program that’s struggled over the last 10 years. Other than a 20th place finish in 2015, the highest finish aside from this season was 30th.
Golf
How about that WVU golf team? After the 2015-16 program restart, coach Sean Covich has helped the Mountaineers climb to this season’s NCAA tournament appearance, only the second ever. WVU finished with a second-record 97 victories (however that’s counted) and a program best fifth-place finish at the Big 12 Championship. It was the ninth completed season since the program was reinstated.
Gymnastics
WVU finished fifth in the most recent Big 12 Gymnastics Championship. During the program’s 50th-year anniversary, the Mountaineers finish 8-15 overall. Over the last 10 years they’ve gone 116-93-1 (.552). The best showing was 19-9 in 2019. The team hasn’t been to the NCAA tournament since 2000, when it finished 12th.
Tennis
The West Virginia University tennis team lost to Tulsa, 4-3, in the semifinal round of the 2024 UTR Sports NIT Championship at IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla., finishing the season 15-13. They did, however, win against Pacific in the tournament to earn the program’s first postseason victory. In Big 12 play they were 3-10.
In the past decade, the Mountaineers have only finished above .500 twice, this past season and in 2019-20 (7-3). Before this season, they’d only won two Big 12 matches ever.
Rowing
Jimmy King has been the head coach of the Mountaineer rowing program since 2007. In the most recent Big 12 championship WVU’s teams finished seventh or eighth of eight in their entered races. The Mountaineers finished last. In the 2023 Big 12 championships, they finished seventh of seven teams.
Volleyball
The Mountaineers have a new coach in Washington State’s Jen Greeny to breathe life in the program. West Virginia has had only two .500 seasons and two others with six wins in Big 12 play and shows an overall winning percentage of just .234 in its 184-match history in the league. To find the best team one has to go all the way back to 1991.
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Mitch Vingle covered sports in West Virginia for 38 years. Follow Mitch on Twitter at @MitchVingle and be sure to check out the rest of Wheelhouse Creative’s website for your marketing and advertising needs. If interested, call us at 304-905-6005.
