Last night, the South Carolina Gamecocks won their second consecutive NCAA College World Series title on the field pictured above.  That is TD Ameritrade Park in Omaha, Nebraska: the shining new replacement for old Rosenblatt Stadium, which hosted the CWS from 1950 up until this year, when the event moved into these fancy new digs.

As last night's game neared its conclusion, I got to thinking about how little attention West Virginia University baseball garners, and how equally amazing it is that in 60-plus years West Virginia has never had a team qualify to be in the last eight that go to Omaha.  WVU has made it to the NCAA tournament 22 times, but not since 1996, and if you think about it, that is now four football coaches ago.  Yet, the same man, Greg Van Zant, still heads the baseball program, and clearly isn't held to the same win-or-else standard as those in the two major revenue sports.  But, after a little digging, it seems to me that maybe Van Zant shouldn't be held to that high standard.  It might just be that a single factor limits the possibilities of Mountaineer baseball, and it isn't coaching.  It's location.

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Tobias Streich, former junior catcher for the Mountaineers, was just drafted in the 5th round by the Minnesota Twins.  Nothing against Tobias, as being drafted that high is a real accomplishment and gives you a good chance of sticking with the organization.  No, the real problem here is the following quote from today's Daily Mail:

The 2009 All-Big East Conference catcher is WVU's highest draft pick since former pitcher Chris Enochs was picked 11th overall in the first round of the 1997 draft by the Oakland Athletics.

I knew the situation was bad, but in no way did I know we hadn't had a player drafted above the 5th round in 12 years.  That's almost impossible to do; like our coach was intentionally trying to not develop talent.  And that's part of the problem with Greg Van Zant.  When I can make a comment that he's purposefully tanking the program and you read and think to yourself, "you know what, that doesn't sound all that stupid."

Based on that, I think he should definitely keep his job for the next decade and continue this consistent stretch of mediocrity.  And that's not so much an insult to Van Zant as it is to the word mediocrity.  Mediocrity is better than that.

[picture via store.cstv.com]