West Virginia head coach Steve Sabins met with the media ahead of the Super Regional matchup against LSU. WVSports.com provides a summary of what was said.
--West Virginia head coach Steve Sabins is excited to head to Baton Rouge to take on LSU. The weekend Clemson regional was the best three-game set he has been a part of as a coach. There were a lot of heroic performances from a lot of different players. They were able to refocus and bounce back and beat two really good teams. Sabins was excited about what his team did. They stayed up until around 4 a.m. Monday morning and then jumped on a flight to get back. They reflected on what they did and now they have to refocus on trying to beat LSU in a three-game series.
--Sabins said that Sam White and Brody Kessler are tough. White has the biggest bruise he has ever seen on his ribs. He got hit with a 95-mile per hour fastball and it is as swollen and nasty as it can get. They’re both not feeling good, but they’re not broken he can assure that. They’ve been getting ice baths, etc.
--Sabins said the team is in a bubble and you work, and recruit and he was in a Facetime call trying to convince a kid to be a Mountaineer. Sabins appreciates how people have invested in the program. He is so excited because a lot of people were watching the Little Rock and LSU game and for this place to be the best you have to have support and financial support. The more people invested in the place the closer it is to be the best and he is getting that sense and the closer to that the better.
--Sabins said this week is easier to go all-in. It’s like anything you have to take aggressive and intelligent risks to win and that’s what they did Sunday multiple times. You can push all your chips in and the score can change and you have to pull some back which you can’t do on the poker table. This is essentially a three-game series and score dictates pitching decisions but if you have a chance to win the game the philosophy is to be aggressive. They think they can score offensively in bunches, so you have to keep going. The other team needs to feel that heat and great things can happen like it did in the regional.
--There’s a multitude of factors why Grant Hussey didn’t start the games, but it isn’t isolated to Hussey. Decisions aren’t made to a player but strictly for the team. What Hussey brings to the table is experience, power, infield defense and an ability to bunt as a big man. He is a high character kid. You take his skill set against the opposing pitching. Sabins felt like in this circumstance it’s one for one but it’s more complicated than that it’s not a one-in and one-out thing because you’re trying to maximize the ability to score runs. He almost hit a grand slam to tie the game, and it sure felt like that moment was drawn up for him. He handled it like a pro. They need him defensively and he’s a great offensive player, too.
--It will be a challenge facing the LSU pitching staff, but it will be a challenge in every area. They are a top program in every facet. Whether it’s the pitching staff, offense or the base running you have to prepare accordingly. The fun part is all the extra stuff with history or accolades, none of it matters when you get between the lines it’s who can execute pitches and have good at-bats. The environment at Clemson helped to prepare them for what’s ahead.
--Sabins said when you’re one of the final 16 teams playing in the nation you’re not trying to convince guys you can beat somebody. These guys know they can matchup with anybody in the country it’s about whether they can execute on that particular day. Our team will go into anybody they play believing they can win.
--If you do decide to put somebody in a great situation and they have success it’s the best feeling ever. It’s about individual growth moments throughout the year and somebody is able to impact the game. There’s a balance of trying to keep it into perspective. Sabins said he hasn’t seen much like that before Armani Guzman was the nine hitter all week and was by far the best player on the field. Sabins said there’s probably never been a nine whole hitter be tournament MVP. He hadn’t started in six weeks, and his mentality was great. He is in such a strong place competing right now and he’ll have success.
--The most beautiful thing about baseball is the difficulty of the evaluation of talent. Psychologically and emotionally, there is so much to evaluate in baseball where in football the fastest guy wins. If you can run faster and turn left you have to catch the ball but in baseball it’s so fine tuned. It’s so difficult to predict who is going to perform at the highest level in big moments in baseball. It doesn’t matter about rankings. You’re trying to harness people and harness players into becoming really great talents and you’re having to nurture them to handle this brutal sport when you fail all the time. The regional piece is providing a support system close, and you grow up with pride supporting the Mountaineers and other factors other than you can crush a ball. You have to have an all-encompassing holistic approach so they can perform in the biggest moments. They will always recruit nationally but it’s always better to have those guys come from regional schools. It isn’t basketball or football with guy jumps higher and runs faster type of sport.
--Sabins wants every high school star player that wants to play at an elite program from this region to want to come to West Virginia and not feel they need to take their talents and mentality to another school to develop or become big leaguers. Same with transfers in the region. The visibility piece you can become that with gimmicks, but you can do that with a track record of success and developing a player.
--Sabins was asked what is different than a month ago and he said there are 96 people in their organization and this team is a coal train and every person is a part of it. If something gets off the tracks it can wreck the entire thing. To answer that, it probably wouldn’t be fair because there are 96 individuals that go to bed every night and try to figure out how to make this the best team in the country. They had meetings and video reviews and sent guys highlight films and practiced all kinds of different ways. You try to keep it light and intense at the same time and try to push the right buttons every step of the way.
--Sabins doesn’t have as much time to talk to transfer portal kids on facetime calls as the head coach. You have to spend a lot of time thinking and trying to win games. He’s a taskmaster and is a type A personality. For him, getting away from all that to think is the biggest change. He has to schedule some time to sit and think about the players and the roster and the pitching. You have to prepare mentally. More experienced head coaches have lived those moments so when you don’t have the experience you have to spend a lot of time thinking about those decisions coming up, so you know how to respond.
--Ben Lumsden and Armani Guzman. That’s what this is about. That’s what college sports and competing is about. Currently it’s very easy to run when things don’t go your way and to think the grass is greener. Young people have a decision to make and for them to look at themselves in the mirror and decide to do what they need to do to get better and that’s what they did. And to have success is incredible. They bought into the fact that regardless of results the only path forward is to work. Those guys are going to be on a pedestal forever. My message is not begging anybody to stay but this thing is hard to do. If you want to get better and earn something here you can earn it. Those guys bring tears to Sabins eyes. Lumsden had a meeting with Sabins and he said he wants him here, but he wasn’t good enough to be on the field, but he swallowed his pride and worked harder than he ever has before and that’ s what it’s all about. Those kids personify what we’re about.
--Travel roster is 27. That’s one of those meditation questions he needs to figure out with who will travel. Sabins said if he has to do it again for the regional you’d need to put every pitcher on the roster going in that fourth or fifth game. More pitching for the tournament but when it comes to the super regional it’s only a three game set you probably won’t pitch more than eight to ten guys in a three-game set, or it didn’t go well for you.
--Sabins leans toward up to the umpires when it comes to the difference of competing and fighting. Some guys need that external motivation or battle to play their best, but he doesn’t want it to go from that to selfish intentions. You can see players do certain things that is about drawing attention to themselves because they want more attention. He’s all about diverting that to getting attention to the team for playing well. Sabins said there were several instances where it felt like he was watching a bad Instagram video and be the center of attention in that moment.
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