MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — The West Virginia men’s basketball team finds itself in a near Wizard-Of-Oz situation today.
The wizard didn’t want anyone peeking behind his curtain to see what was really going on, and the Mountaineers, too, would rather focus on the big picture without anyone peeking behind their own curtain.
The big picture for the Mountaineers tells one heck of a story right now following their 86-81 victory against Rhode Island on Sunday at the WVU Coliseum.
It’s a picture where WVU’s 7-0 record leaps out at you like a burglar in the dark of night stealing an old lady’s purse.
While that record hasn’t been built against a single team that has been ranked nationally in the top 25, anyone associated with the WVU program will correctly tell you these seven wins haven’t come against the Little Sisters of the Poor, either.
“We know the work we’ve put in,” said WVU forward Derek Culver, whose 25 points and 11 rebounds against the Rams were the main reason for the Mountaineers coming out on top in this one. “It’s like we started out as a little snowball and we’ve just continued to roll downhill to get bigger and bigger. We’ve faced a lot of good teams and good challenges and we’ve found a way to overcome them all so far.”
The ultimate question to be asked here is whether or not the Mountaineers are a top 25 team?
That will ultimately be decided Monday, when the weekly polls are released.
“I would be happy for (the players), because that’s what they want,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “At this point and time, I really couldn’t care less.
“I mean, we’ve been really good before and not ranked where we should be and we’ve been not as good and ranked higher than we should have been.”
True, the point of top 25 talk in early December isn’t nearly as relevant as it is in February or March, but as of right now, the Mountaineers’ overall body of work is worth to be included in the top 25.
I understand the RPI is pretty much a dead tool now in men’s basketball, but it is still a solid measure of a team’s strength of schedule. The RPI has WVU ranked No. 1 in the country and having played the fourth-toughest schedule to this point.
How is that not enough an overall body of work to be included in the top 25?
“I think we are for sure,” said guard Jermaine Haley, who finished with 18 points and five rebounds. “Honestly, I couldn’t care less right now if we get ranked, as long as we keep winning games.”
The other question — and this is where you sort of have to peek behind the curtain — is whether or not the Mountaineers actually are one of the best 25 teams in the country?
Listening to Huggins following Sunday’s game and taking a look at the number of kinks the Mountaineers still need to work out, it’s really hard to answer that with a definitive “Yes.”
Long story made short, WVU is still working on finding the right type of spacing to where both Culver and freshmen Oscar Tshiebwe can feed off of each other.
That’s going to take time, because Tshiebwe, a native of the Democratic Republic of Congo, has never had to share the paint before and he’s not a guy who has played basketball all of his life to begin with.
The result so far has been Culver being really good one game with Tshiebwe being off, and then Tshiebwe gets hot and Culver has an off night.
“I can see where Derek gets frustrated, because Oscar is not where he’s supposed to be in a lot of instances,” Huggins said. “We’ve got a lot of work to do with Oscar in terms of understanding spacing and knowing what we’re trying to run and what we’re trying to accomplish. We clog things up so bad. It looks like roller derby.”
It would help the Mountaineers’ spacing having someone on the perimeter develop into a shooting threat.
That has come in spurts with Taz Sherman early in the season and then Sean McNeil has had some moments.
“Taz hasn’t made any shots,” Huggins said. “The good thing about playing close games is it makes you better. The bad thing is you can’t play some guys as much as you want to play them. Taz is going to be fine, but he’s got to start making shots. He and Sean are both going to start making shots. Jordan (McCabe) is going to start making shots. Jordan hasn’t made any shots. We’ve struggled with guys who we thought could make open shots. We had open shots and didn’t make them today. We’re better than that.”
WVU probably is better than that. It remains to be seen whether or not the top 25 voters agree.
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