MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — It’s hard not to notice Derek Culver and Oscar Tshiebwe on a basketball court, if nothing more than their combined height is taller than a full-grown elephant and the West Virginia forwards weigh in at more than 500 pounds.
Yet WVU head coach Bob Huggins was baffled at just how much Mountaineers guards missed the towering duo during last week’s 78-70 charity exhibition victory against Duquesne.
“It wasn’t that we didn’t have guys open,” Huggins began. “We just held onto the ball. We held it and held it and then we didn’t get it to them when they were open.”
On the outside looking in, it’s easy to think the Mountaineers’ top strategy should be to throw the ball inside and let Culver and Tshiebwe go to work.
“That sounds easy,” WVU guard Brandon Knapper said. “There’s a lot more to it than that.”
In any sense, working out those kinks will be a priority this week, as WVU is preparing to host Akron at 7 p.m. Friday in the season opener.
“We had Derek posted up one time and Oscar was on the other side with no one even close to him,” Huggins said. “We dribbled it four times.”
This is the part of the game that is becoming more frustrating for college coaches.
Instead of continuing to pass the ball, guards tend to stay in one place and dribble while either looking for a screen or go one-on-one with the defender.
Meanwhile, the time spent dribbling the ball allows the defense to get in a better position.
Culver and Tshiebwe have their own part to play, which is to say they simply can’t stand under the basket waiting for someone to throw the ball to them.
“We catch it and dribble it too much,” Huggins said. “That’s the new thing is to dribble it. We catch it and dribble it around. By then, our guys are covered up.”
“We have to keep working on our spacing,” said Tshiebwe, who finished with 17 points and 14 rebounds against Duquesne. “I have to know when he goes to screen that I have a place to be. When I go screen, I have to know where he’s going to be. We still have to work in getting used to each other.”
Huggins said there is also the matter of getting Culver more in a mind set of being a dominant inside player alongside Tshiebwe.
“Derek has kind of passed the baton to Oscar, sort of,” Huggins said. “It’s kind of like, ‘I’ll get mine when we start playing or whenever we really need to.’ I’m not sure it works like that. It’s such a game of repetitions. We’ve got to start getting him more and more reps. Obviously, we’ve spent a lot of time with Oscar, because Oscar needed it.”
Akron will offer a sizable match-up inside with a trio of players.
Deng Riak is a 6-foot-10 senior center who played in 30 games last season, while teammate Jordan Sayles is a 6-9 junior who played in 21 games. Xeyrius Williams is a 6-9 senior who sat out last season after transferring from Dayton.
“It’s on us to do a better job of finding them inside,” said Knapper on Tshiebwe and Culver. “It’s really just a matter of making sure they’re in a good position. You can’t make passes too quick off a screen and things like that.”
WVU guards can’t wait too long, either, which is what bothers Huggins the most.
“It doesn’t seem to bother them all that much,” he said. “It bothers me, but it doesn’t seem to bother them.”
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