Morning Stock Reporter: April 25, 2019
Happy Thursday, WKU fans and it may very well be one of the best Thursday’s of the year; it’s the start of the NFL Draft, which I don’t…
Happy Thursday, WKU fans and it may very well be one of the best Thursday’s of the year; it’s the start of the NFL Draft, which I don’t know why I love, but I do in fact love it.
We’ll talk more on the draft later, but let’s get right to it. Here’s who’s hot and who’s not around WKU athletics.
Rising
Jake Sanford
Jake Sanford has an opportunity to make some history come the end of this baseball season. We’ll let WKU explain.
Yup, that’s right. If Sanford’s current standing atop the three main offensive categories hold among Conference USA hitters, he’ll become the league’s first ever triple crown winner.
Here’s how it stands:
Batting Average
Sanford currently owns a .423 batting average over 39 games played. The next closest player is Southern Miss’ Bryant Bowen, who is hitting at a .374 clip. Behind Bowen are Mason Ballard (La Tech — .364), WKU’s own Davis Sims (.362) and Francisco Urbaez (FAU — .359). Sanford currently has more at-bats than all of them, with only Mallard in the ballpark (five fewer AB’s).
Home Runs
Hitting home runs may be what Sanford does best, and he holds a rather slim seven-HR lead over the next closest challenger, Rice’s Andrew Dunlap (Sanford has 18, Dunlap has 11). The only other player in the league with double-figure home run totals is USM’s Matt Wallner, with 10. Four players have nine and two have eight, but just those three have 10 or more.
RBI
The final triple crown stat is RBI. Sanford currently sits with 55, six ahead of Dunlap. Hunter Slater, of Southern Miss, has 44 and La Tech’s Parker Bates has 43.
There is the possibility of history if Sanford finishes the season leading in average and RBI, but of course, the triple crown would be sweetest.
Darius Thompson
Darius Thompson may be having the most successful non-NBA post-WKU career out there. At least, he’s posting the most successful one in recent memory. That was all affirmed when he was named the Dutch Basketball League’s MVP on Wednesday, becoming the 35th American to take home the honor.
He’ll also be coming stateside this summer to participate in the NBA’s summer league. You can read all about it in our coverage on his award yesterday.
Point Guard
Just like that, things are looking up at the point guard position as the Tops garnered a commitment from former Lipscomb ball handler Kenny Cooper. While it hasn’t been announced officially if he’s been cleared to play for the 2019/20 season, it’s believed he will be, and he’ll not only bring 9.8 points and 4.5 assists per game to the floor, but a steady presence running point that should put guys like Taveion Hollingsworth and Josh Anderson in familiar positions on the floor from the jump (aka, not at the point) and set them up for early season success.
Falling
WKU Draft Hype
There’s been one big thing missing from our site’s coverage lately. Any guesses as to what that is?
Draft coverage.
That’s because for the first time in a long while, there really isn’t any hype surrounding a Hilltopper senior and, to the best of my recollection, no juniors left the Hill early to declare.
In five of the last six years, the Hilltoppers have had at least one player get drafted; the lone outlier year was 2015, a senior class that had guys like Willie McNeal, Joel German, Cam Thomas and the late Mitchell Henry, some of which got shots at practice squads as UDFA’s after the draft. (I remember, for certain, Thomas signed with Buffalo and Henry was a mainstay with the Packers until his death.)
Now, even though this is technically on the “down” side if this story, things aren’t all bad.
First, the Tops had only 10 seniors last year (which was very well documented both heading into the season and throughout it) with guys that weren’t huge prospects entering the year; generally at the P5 level, if you’re not on the radar entering your senior year, you may not ever get on the radar.
Also, there are a couple of guys who very well could hear their name called this weekend. If I had to guess the best options, I’d say Mik’Quan Deane, Masai Whyte and DeAndre Farris have the best shot, but even more could find their way onto a team as an undrafted free agent (Drell Greene, Drew Eckles, even Ryan Nuss).
Just because there’s no Taywan Taylor or Joel Iyiegbuniwe type of name available from the Hill doesn’t mean the Tops will get shut out of this year’s event (that’ll be held just an hour down I-65).