Big Red’s Reads: Sanford All-American, Impact Of Bassey’s Return, & Stewart Interview

Photo courtesy of The Honors College at WKU Advising Blog

Happy Tuesday Hilltopper Fans, It’s been a long time since we’ve done one of these (December 2017) but with the slow news period, I thought now would be as good of a time as any to give you the best WKU Sports news around the internet. Here’s what you may have missed over the past few days

• After his CUSA Triple crown season, Jake Sanford was named a second-team All-American by Baseball America.
• Sanford has signed with the Yankees. He’s going to get a good financial start to his career

• The Athletic’s Eamon Brennan discussed the impact of Charles Bassey returning to WKU and the ramifications for the 2019–20 season ($)
• WKU’s Chrome Domes has advanced to the finals of C-USA Refs best helmet of 2018. They’ll face Marshall’s throwback lids in the finals.

• You can vote for the chrome domes here

• Athlon Sports ranked Tyson Helton as the worst coach in C-USA. Being the only rookie coach that somewhat makes sense but we expect him to greatly outperform that moving forward.
• Athlon also ranked Steven Duncan as the 111th best quarterback in the country (out of 130). This is another example of low national expectations in Helton’s first year.
• Pro Football Focus College shows how big of a loss Ben Holt will be for WKU’s defense. Hopefully, Malik Staples can pick up the slack.

• Wes Hodkiewicz from Packers.com posted this longform piece about the impact that former WKU/Packers tight end Mitchell Henry still has on the people that knew him more than two years after his untimely death from leukemia.
• ProTopper Anderson Miller had a solid week at Double-A Northwest Arkansas. It will be interesting to see if he gets a mid-year promotion to AAA Omaha before the end of the season.
• WKU Softball announced a transfer addition as Morehead State’s Princess Valencia is headed to the Hill.
• Underdog Dynasty rated WKU’s defensive line as the 8th best unit in C-USA. They like WKU’s defensive ends but are worried about the interior line.
• WKU Basketball is the middle of their summer conditioning workouts

• 2020 In-State target Dayvion McKnight is starting to blow up on the recruiting trail. Hopefully, Stansbury can lock him in before the fall

• Todd Stewart discussed with Elliott Pratt from the Bowling Green Daily News, the impact of Conference USA adding the NFL Network as a television partner and why WKU didn’t make the cut in 2019.
• Stewart also announced the men’s basketball season opener will be against Tennessee Tech and gave his thoughts on Bassey’s return & assessed C-USA bonus play after year 1.
• Our Podcast partner, RedOUT has been added to local podcasting site HallAboutSports. Give it a listen

• Recent WKU Volleyball graduate Rachel Anderson earned the C-USA postgraduate scholarship for WKU.
• Brian Hamilton from the Athletic reviews Charlotte men’s basketball coach Ron Sanchez’s first year for the 49ers. It will be interesting to see if his Virginia style can pull them out of the cellar.
• Fresh off his 11th place finish at the NCAA Championships, Billy Tom Sargent went on the Down the Middle Podcast give it a listen.

• For Louisville area fans/alumni, you can hear Tyson Helton, Rick Stansbury & Todd Stewart speak at the Toppers On Tour event on June 17th at Big Spring Country Club.

Hopefully, this wetted everyone appetite for WKU news. We should hopefully have another piece or two coming out later this week. If you ever come across an interesting WKU-related article send it our way via Twitter at @TheTowelRackWKU or on our Facebook page.