COMMENTARY
MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — A year ago, the West Virginia men’s basketball team walked into Bramlage Coliseum as a team seemingly destined for destiny.
The Mountaineers were on their way to a top 10 ranking and were being projected as a No. 2 seed in the NCAA tournament.
Remember that call Bob Huggins took from Kentucky coach John Calipari, the one where Calipari told Huggins the Mountaineers had a real shot to win a national championship?
Well, it all came crashing down that January day at Bramlage, the result of an 84-68 loss against a Kansas State team that would go on to finish dead last in the Big 12.
Even in a season filled with so many COVID-19 setbacks that eventually even hit the Mountaineers in recent weeks, a lot of comparisons could be drawn from that day last year to the Mountaineers’ 69-47 victory against K-State on Saturday.
In the locker room following the game, Bob Huggins looked into the eyes of his players and told them they had just won the biggest game of the season.
“I thought it was the biggest win of the year, because we were coming off a loss (against Texas) that we could’ve-should’ve won,” Huggins said. “Then we get hit with COVID-19 stuff.”
Now, you could argue just how big this game actually was. You could say it was fortunate scheduling to have a young and inexperienced K-State team on the floor as the Mountaineers’ first opponent after a two-week break.
But, it also makes just as much sense to agree.
Four players — not even enough to fill out a starting lineup — that’s what Huggins and his assistant coaches had to work with in the past two weeks.
“It’s hard to get anything done with four,” Huggins said.
According to remarks made by Huggins on the pregame radio show, his star forward, Derek Culver, had tested positive for the coronavirus.
He was out on a 10-day quarantine. Many of his teammates, either through also testing positive or through contact tracing, followed suit.
Those players didn’t return until Friday.
The Mountaineers (10-4, 3-3 Big 12) had every reason to walk back into Bramlage Coliseum and lay an egg.
Instead, they made maybe the worst team in the conference look just like that.
They forced 18 turnovers in the first half, while holding the Wildcats to just 17 points at the break.
They answered K-State’s one push to get back into the game in the second half with two straight 3-pointers by Taz Sherman to put the game away.
It wasn’t pretty. Having gone through what the Mountaineers did over the past two weeks, it would be hard to expect a shining performance.
“This was a huge test for us to take,” said WVU forward Jalen Bridges, who added 12 points in the victory. “What was it, 11 days off? Then go play after just two days of practice. Some guys only got one day of practice. That’s super hard to do, especially at this level.
“I feel like moving forward, this game will be huge for us to get us rolling again.”
Where that roll goes still remains to be seen. The upcoming challenges, including a Big Monday showdown against No. 12 Texas Tech in Morgantown, will certainly tell a lot.
For a moment, though, take a look at the landscape of college basketball.
Kansas is at .500 in conference play. Duke, North Carolina, Michigan State and Kentucky are nowhere to be found in the top 25 rankings.
Sure, Gonzaga and Baylor look pretty unbeatable, but if there is any year for other teams to jump into the national spotlight, this is it.
Beating a bad Kansas State team on Saturday isn’t exactly going to move the needle for the
Mountaineers.
But, it surely is a lot better than walking out of that arena knowing you had just blown a huge opportunity, which is what WVU did last season.
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