No. 11 West Virginia hopes to avoid letdown against Robert Morris

MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — A front-loaded schedule for No. 11-ranked West Virginia produced five opponents all ranked in the top 100 to begin the season.

Robert Morris (1-0) will travel to the WVU Coliseum at 7 p.m. Wednesday ranked No. 304, according to the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), and will likely be the lowest-ranked team the Mountaineers (4-1) face this season.

Is it time for any sort of letdown for the Mountaineers?

“I would hope all the work that (the players) have put in to this point that they would be excited about playing anybody,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “I think there’s 47 teams who haven’t even played a game, so I would think we should feel fortunate that we’re playing anybody.”

Outside of family members of players and coaches, no fans will be permitted for the home-opener, which will create a different atmosphere for the game.

“It’s kind of like practice, honestly,” Huggins said. “You can hear the sneakers squeaking. You can hear what the opposing coach is telling his guys and they can hear what I’m telling our guys. It’s more like a scrimmage than a game, the feel of it anyway.”

The Colonials — located just outside of Pittsburgh — will be making their first trip to the Coliseum since 2010 and were once a yearly opponent of WVU from 1988-2001.

Robert Morris, which was picked to finish fourth in the preseason Horizon League poll, didn’t play its first game of the season until last Saturday, a 75-57 victory against Point Park, an NAIA private school in Pittsburgh.

Senior guard A.J. Bramah had 18 points and seven rebounds in 24 minutes to lead the Colonials.

As for the Mountaineers, this could be an opportunity for Huggins to take a look at some of his newcomers, many of whom have yet to play any significant minutes in the first five games.

Freshman forward Taj Thweatt has played one minute this season and junior-college guard Kedrian Johnson has played eight over four games.

Freshmen forwards Jalen Bridges and Isaiah Cottrell have played in all five games, but combine to average 11 minutes played per game.

“We’ve got some guys who haven’t been in a game, yet,” Huggins said. “It’s hard to tell how they’re going to react when they do get into a game.”

The Mountaineers will also host 19th-ranked Richmond on Sunday, before beginning Big 12 play with games against Iowa State and No. 5 Kansas next week before the Christmas break.

“I think we’ve got a long ways to go in certain areas,” Huggins said. “We haven’t shot it very well, but we’ve had pretty good shots. We’ve had some other things that didn’t go our way, but that happens a lot.

“I think the biggest thing is defensively, we’re not nearly as good as we’d hoped we’d be.”

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