WVU Baseball’s Steve Sabins Downplays Talk About Rankings, Only Focused on Winning

Entering the week with a 30-4 overall record, the WVU baseball team is now officially ranked by a major outlet that has been hesitant to place West Virginia within its top 25 up until this point.

D1Baseball now has WVU at No. 24 as they sit just behind Southern Miss and one spot ahead of TCU, one of the other Big 12 teams in the latest rankings. Kansas and Virginia Tech dropped out of their poll this week, making room for newcomers like the Mountaineers.

Despite the recognition being something fans have called for, WVU head coach Steve Sabins downplayed his concern while talking with media, including Mike Asti of WV Sports Now, via Zoom on Monday.

WVU's Steve Sabins tells me the topic of D1 not ranking West Virginia until now did not come up when he spoke with the D1 crew over the weekend. He also said he doesn't get bogged down in worrying about rankings and would not change their schedule philosophy. https://t.co/ikS6Eg6YgR

— Mike J. Asti (@MikeAsti11) April 14, 2025

Sabins reiterated that he’s only focused on winning, not worrying about rankings. He also said that he respects the crew at D1Baseball and their resistance to rank West Virginia throughout the season was not brought up during his recent conversation with members of the outlet over the weekend.

“They have their job to do and I’ve got my job to do. I don’t keep up too closely with any of that. Whether we feel disrespected or not is not something I worry about.”

Sabins also responded to the debate if West Virginia should consider rethinking how they build their schedule. Strength of schedule is often a factor in how polls rank teams in college baseball. And to put it bluntly, Sabins does see any issue with WVU’s schedule and expects their mentality when putting together future schedules to continue.

What likely finally propelled WVU into the rankings, Sabins’ team is coming off a sweep of Houston and riding a 10-game winning streak, which has them currently sitting in first place in the Big 12. West Virginia is one of three Big 12 teams ranked by D1Baseball, with Arizona (22) and TCU (25) as the others.

WVU will next take the field at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, April 15, squaring off against Marshall in Huntington, W. Va.

Find more coverage of the WVU baseball program at WV Sports Now.