Inside the West Virginia basketball practice facility, coaches are working the phones and graduate assistants are breaking down last season’s film.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do now,” West Virginia basketball coach Bob Huggins said. “It’s time to get back at it.”
Time to get the Mountaineers back to playing tough, to playing defense, to playing winning basketball.
Those 21 losses last season were the most in school history, and the final one — an 18-point beating at the hands of Coastal Carolina in the second round of the CBI — remains fresh for the embarrassing way it finally snuffed out the season’s flames.
In the aftermath, junior center Sagaba Konate declared for the NBA draft and Huggins pronounced him all but gone.
Konate’s departure leaves the Mountaineers with three open scholarships for a recruiting class that already has four signees: five-star forward Oscar Tshiebwe and guards Miles McBride, Sean McNeil and Taz Sherman.
Huggins’ plan to get the Mountaineers back in NCAA contention involves developing a nucleus of returnees with a six- or perhaps seven-member recruiting class.
During this week’s interview with The Dominion Post, Huggins discussed his intentions for turning around the program.
The Dominion Post: You have hinted this offseason that you want to get back to the “Press Virginia” style of play. Why is that so important?
Bob Huggins: I think we have the personnel for it again. It makes people uncomfortable. It kept us in games that otherwise we probably wouldn’t have been in.
A lot of it is in personnel. When you have Jevon Carter putting constant pressure on the ball, it makes a difference. It helps you get the floor spread. That’s what we have to get back to.
DP: With the three guards you signed, does that help you get back to the pressing style?
Huggins: We’ve got seven, which is about what we had before when we really had it working. It’s a big step. Honestly, the biggest difference is not having [Konate] at the back of the press, but we were pretty good when we had Elijah [Macon] back there.
We have to do a better job with Derek [Culver] and obviously with Oscar coming in. Oscar may be on the front of it. We’ll have to take a look at that.
DP: One of the seven guards is Jordan McCabe, who went through quite a learning curve as a freshman, from barely playing to becoming a starter and a leader by the end of the season. What did you see from him during that process and what’s the next step for him?
Huggins: Good point guards keep the ball centered, to where they have all the options open to them. Point guards who dribble to the side get in trouble. I think because of the pressure and the increased athleticism he was facing, he kept taking the ball to the sideline.
He got better, and by the end of the year, he was much better at it. We were a much better team because of it. The other thing is, when you stand there and dribble the ball, there are 10 eyes on you. You don’t want that. You want the ball to move so that the defense moves. The ball has to move, unless you’re James Harden or one of the best players in the world, which we don’t have those guys.
DP: Was that a battle to get him to see it your way?
Huggins: Not really. He was just used to doing it a certain way. It was more about breaking habits more than anything. Honestly, I don’t mind him trying to be creative, as long as he doesn’t lose it.
Nick Van Exel used to do a bunch of different stuff. Nick would come down and face you up and then he would be over here, and then he would go over there, and then he would straight-line drive you to the rim. There’s nothing wrong with that, but you just can’t stand there and dribble it. Jordan prides himself on being a team player and getting his teammates good shots. Well, you can’t get your teammates good shots by standing there and dribbling the ball.
DP: How do you see Derek Culver moving forward next season after building up so much momentum as a freshman, but then being forced to sit the first half in the loss against Coastal Carolina for showing up late to the game?
Huggins: He’s an elite rebounder, but he still needs to develop offensively. The worst thing you can do as an offensive player is bend at the waist and make yourself smaller. You really can’t explode from that position. He got away with that in high school, because he was so much bigger and better than everybody else.
DP: Did you have to pull Culver off to the side and sort of clear the air about how his season ended?
Huggins: I basically pulled all of the players off to the side. Derek and I go way back. Derek understands that it’s not personal. Derek probably understands that better than any of the rest of them.
DP: Next season is the third of the four-game series with Pitt. What are your feelings about the series and is there talk of extending it?
Huggins: I haven’t talked with (Pitt coach Jeff Capel) about it, but with everything that’s happened, I think it’s going to get done at the athletic-director level.
I honestly think it’s going to take a while to get the enthusiasm back that the game once had. I think it’s been good, but I think it could be a lot better. As they get better and we fix our deal, that will help a lot. They’re going to get better, because Jeff is doing a good job. How many years did we play each other and we were both ranked? That adds to it.
DP: The non-conference schedule is out and features a neutral-court game against Ohio State, as well as the Big East alliance game against St. John’s. What are your thoughts about the schedule?
Huggins: We had the 11th-toughest schedule in the country last year and I would think this schedule would be equal or surpass that.
Our people love going to New York, so the St. John’s game should be good for us.
I think with the Big East alliance and the SEC (Challenge), you look at the other conferences like the Big Ten and the ACC are going to 20 (conference) games. We can’t do that in the Big 12, so you got our SEC game and the Big East game, that gives us 20. That puts us on par with the other leagues.
DP: Knowing you have those two games, do you have to adjust the way you schedule your other games?
Huggins: Not really, because you throw in Ohio State and you throw in Pitt and you throw in our deal in Cancun, we’re going to play some really good teams.
We have to get our brand back. We haven’t played well in the SEC Challenge, but other than that we’ve been pretty good outside of conference play.
DP: Oscar Tshiebwe comes in as a heralded freshman next season after being named a McDonald’s All-American. How do you see him fitting?
Huggins: I think we can play him and Derek together. When you look back at who has been really good in our league, they played two bigs. Kansas, in its heyday, they were really big. I don’t know why we can’t, because they can both run.
DP: With Tshiebwe, do you worry at all about people’s expectations of him being some sort of savior for the program?
Huggins: Fans can say a lot of things, but he didn’t hog the ball in high school and he didn’t get mad when his team barely threw it to him. He’s going to be fine. It will be interesting when him and Derek both go after the same ball.
DP: Last season’s Big 12 schedule didn’t include the two road games during the semester break and didn’t include any back-to-back road games close enough together that would allow the team to stay on the road without returning to Morgantown in between. Has there been discussion to get that changed?
Huggins: We’re going to play two two-game swings, so that knocks nine trips down by four. I think as we continue to try and work with the league, I think the league’s understanding is that it was something that we talked about before, but we didn’t make it a solid this is the way it’s going to be. I think that’s on the way, if it’s not already done. I don’t know if one of the trips will be to start the season, but we’ll have two. For us, it would be good to have something like Saturday-Monday games, so you would only have to miss one day of school. I think the league realizes the difficulty we have with travel. Every Big 12 coach who comes in here asks me how we do this nine times?
DP: You’re taking your team to Spain this summer, which will allow you practice time with the returnees and newcomers. How important will that be for the team’s growth?
Huggins: This trip came at the right time. I think the 10 days of practice will be great. I want them to enjoy the experience. We’ll only play three games, so they’ll have a day where we go over some things, but then turn them loose. I think it will be a great time for those guys to start to learn some things offensively.
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