WVU Earns Top-Five Finish in Baseball America’s Final Rankings

The Mountaineers ended the season as one of the best teams in the country.

WVU Athletics Communications

All the WVU baseball team does is keep rewriting the history books.

On Tuesday morning, Baseball America became the first publication to release its final rankings for the 2026 season and slotted West Virginia fourth.

Baseball America's Final Top 25 Rankings for 2026

1. Oklahoma
2. North Carolina
3. Georgia
4. West Virginia
5. Texas
6. Troy
7. Alabama
8. Ole Miss
9. Mississippi State
10. Auburn
11. USC
12. Oregon
13. Kansas
14. UCLA
15. Georgia Tech
16. Florida
17. Southern Miss
18. Texas A&M
19. Florida State
20. Nebraska
21. Arkansas
22. Little Rock
23. Cal Poly
24. St. John’s
25. Tennessee

The climb continues

WVU Athletics Communications

For just the 10th time in program history, the Mountaineers will finish the year inside the Top 25. Other publications, which put out rankings such as D1Baseball and Perfect Game, will have WVU in their top 25 as well; it's just a matter of where they will slot them. For now, this 4th-place finish is the best mark the program has ever received. It's also the first time since the early 1960s that they have ended the year inside the top 25 in three consecutive seasons.

1961: 24th
1962: 20th
1963: 11th
1964: 15th
1967: 20th
1982: 16th
2019: 20th
2024: 13th
2025: 12th
2026: 4th

"You have a great stadium, you invest in NIL, you get rev share in the right spot," Sabins said when asked on The Pat McAfee Show about how the Mountaineers have captured so much momentum in baseball.

"I think West Virginia is unique because we're the New York Yankees of West Virginia. It's so passionate. When people come here, they feel it. They know it. And people are looking for development. There's no shortcuts in this thing. What we've done better than anybody in the country is develop players faster. We didn't always have five-star recruits when I got here, and they hadn't been to the NCAA Tournament in 20 years. So to fast-track and go from not even being in the conversation for 20 years to playing in Omaha, that's a pretty short decade, man. That's pretty quick. For us to be able to do that, it was investment, it was passion, it was work ethic, it was Coach Mazey's vision, and then a whole bunch of staff outworking people and players that believed."

There aren't many program firsts left for this group to accomplish other than to win a national championship. Getting back to Omaha isn't going to be easy, but nothing about this incredible turnaround has been. With Sabins in place and strong support from the administration, anything is possible.