COMMENTARY
MORGANTOWN — Unless you’re talking about the national championship game in April, generally one college basketball game does not define a season.
The same could be said about West Virginia’s 82-71 victory against No. 7 Texas Tech on Tuesday. It did not define the 14th-ranked Mountaineers, nor did it guarantee any future success.
What it did was symbolize just how far this bunch has come since just the start of a new year, as well as charting a path to what could be future success.
“We had a lot of things not going our way,” was the way WVU point guard Deuce McBride described the obstacles the Mountaineers faced against the Red Raiders.
What he meant was WVU (14-5, 7-3 Big 12) played the game without its third-leading scorer in Taz Sherman — he was nursing a sore groin pull — as well as going without himself for much of the first half and without teammate Derek Culver for much of the second half due to foul trouble.
McBride could very well have used those same words to describe the Mountaineers’ season to this point.
It has not been a cruise to paradise for the Mountaineers, having lost top 2020 recruit Isaiah Cottrell to a torn Achilles, only to follow that up days later by losing top 2019 recruit Oscar Tshiebwe, who transferred to Kentucky.
“I think they’re tired of hearing about all the other stuff. This is our team. This is West Virginia’s team. Seemingly every time you turn on the TV, they’re talking about who’s not here rather than who’s here. After a while, I think it gets on their nerves. I think that’s been a motivation for them. To show people, ‘Hey, listen, we’re pretty good.’ ”
WVU head coach Bob Huggins
Add in a two-week pause in January after some players had tested positive for COVID-19 and a season-long venture of staying away from the rest of the world to try and avoid the virus to begin with.
Also mix in head coach Bob Huggins calling out his team for a lack of defense. His words were strong, as Huggins is a man who rarely holds back.
“It’s the worst defensive team I’ve ever had. Ever,” Huggins said after WVU nearly gave up a 15-point lead in the second half against Iowa State.
So, maybe going on the road to play the seventh-ranked team in the country and winning a game without a combination of three of its top players in different stretches wasn’t exactly ideal.
And maybe that’s the thing with these Mountaineers, they no longer care about what’s ideal.
“It’s kind of how this whole year has gone,” WVU guard Sean McNeil said. “We take it day by day. You can’t look ahead. You’ve got to enjoy the moment and play in the present. I think we’re kind of excited, especially that we’re on a little bit of a run right now. We’re hitting our stride at the best time just before tournament time. I think we can still keep progressing.”
The odd thing about it all is WVU’s present and its past are intertwined.
No matter how much the players would simply like to move on and focus on things such as the Big 12 and NCAA tournaments, they won’t be able to escape that fact.
The more they continue to put up 91 points and beat mighty Kansas at home by 12 or go on the road and beat No. 7 Texas Tech while short-handed, it’s only another reminder of the journey they’ve been on to get there.
“I think they’re tired of hearing about all the other stuff. This is our team. This is West Virginia’s team,” Huggins said. “Seemingly every time you turn on the TV, they’re talking about who’s not here rather than who’s here. After a while, I think it gets on their nerves. I think that’s been a motivation for them. To show people, ‘Hey, listen, we’re pretty good.’ ”
Yeah, these Mountaineers are pretty good. The question is how?
Take two of the top young recruits away from Gonzaga or Baylor, are they still the two top teams in the country?
Could Michigan win a road game against a top 10 team with its two best players in foul trouble and with its third best player sitting out with an injury?
Would Ohio State be as successful if head coach Chris Holtmann went into practice one day and said, “Guys, you know the offense we’ve been running for the last two months, well, we’re going to scrap it and do something completely different?”
That’s basically what the Mountaineers have accomplished since Jan. 1.
Again, we ask how?
“It’s brought our team closer,” McNeil said. “I would do anything for those guys. I would take a bullet for those guys and I know they would do the same for me. We’re just trying to win ball games. We’re trying to do everything we can to win.”
It’s a team mentality WVU has right now that Bob Huggins, or any head coach for that matter, searches for on a yearly basis.
Tshiebwe left and took his five recruiting stars with him.
What was left behind were kids like Sherman and McNeil. At one point in their lives, no major college basketball team wanted them. So, they got tougher and stronger-minded and bet on themselves.
McBride broke his ankle as a high school junior and saw the list of schools going after him diminish. All he has done since is say, “Well, watch what I do next.”
Culver fought through maturity issues as a freshman. To this day, he still refers to that year as him being a “knucklehead.”
Jalen Bridges took the road less traveled and redshirted as a freshman, even though he was a top 100 recruit nationally coming out of Fairmont Senior.
Jordan McCabe went from starter to role player and has become a better leader and stronger person for accepting that role.
You could go down the entire roster and there are other similar stories.
Collectively, they are a living, breathing version of the Island of Misfit Toys. The only difference is these toys know how to shoot a decent jumper.
In the end, the question shouldn’t be how the Mountaineers are doing it, it should be just how special can they be?
“We’ve got guys in that locker room that want to play basketball,” McNeil said. “That’s simply what it comes down to. We’ve been through COVID-19, guys leaving, guys getting hurt, you name it. It’s the next-man-up mentality. That’s kind of how we’re looking at it.
“We just got a bunch of guys who can score the ball and, obviously, Derek is a huge threat inside. It’s nice the way we’re playing now. We’ve got a chance to be really special.”
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