MORGANTOWN — By the end of last season, Isaiah Cottrell said he was beginning to see the game of basketball a different way.
Take West Virginia’s loss to Syracuse in the second round of the NCAA tournament.
With the Mountaineers struggling to break down the Orange’s 2-3 zone, Cottrell saw where he could have been the guy to flash in the middle and make those open foul-line jump shots that could’ve opened the door for the rest of his teammates.
“When you’re watching from the sideline, you see the game differently and you learn a lot about how different strategies come into play,” Cottrell said. “I could’ve been that guy in the middle to make a shot or move the ball around.”
He wasn’t. A torn Achilles tendon in his left leg nearly three months earlier made sure of that.
The injury on Dec. 29 against Northeastern came on a random play Cottrell’s made thousands of times before.
The forward was sliding to his left to stay in front of his man and he saw a teammate getting beat on a backdoor cut.
“I just kind of stepped back and then pushed off my leg,” he said. “That’s when I felt the pain.”
A man and his scooter
Aside from a few bumps and bruises and twisted ankles, Cottrell has never faced a basketball injury before, certainly not one that would cost him the majority of a season.
As it turns out, that Northeastern game may been the most disastrous moment of the regular season for the Mountaineers.
Not only did it see Cottrell — WVU’s highest-ranked recruit last season — limp off the court, but it was also the last time prized forward Oscar Tshiebwe suited up at WVU.
Days later, Tshiebwe announced he was transferring to Kentucky, about the same time Cottrell was getting prepared for surgery.
“Honestly, there was a ton of frustration early on,” Cottrell said. “There were lots of ‘why me?’ and that kind of stuff. If I had stayed healthy, I may have literally become a starter the next game. I thought about that early on and how things could have been different for me after Oscar left. Everything was really frustrating at that point.”
His surgery went well, but getting up and walking the next day was out of the question.
“Like, the first month after surgery, I couldn’t go anywhere,” he said. “I literally would sit around on my couch for about 20 hours a day. If I wanted to go somewhere, I had to ask someone if they could come pick me up and drive me around. That was hard, because you hate asking people for a ride all the time.”
And then there was Cottrell’s electric scooter, which he used to get around campus, practices or just about anywhere else.
“I had a little horn put on it, so if anyone got in my way I could beep at them,” he said.
If getting around Morgantown on a scooter sounds interesting, well, try doing it at 6-foot-10.
“Yeah, as soon as I was allowed to stop using it, I threw it away,” Cottrell said. “That scooter was a bad memory for me.”
Getting back
The injury will always be a part of Cottrell’s college journey now.
He’s gone back and watched the film of the moment many times.
“There’s one camera angle from behind where you can really see my leg buckle,” he said.
If not for the film, Cottrell still has a daily reminder with the scar tissue on his left leg left behind after they surgery.
That is now Cottrell’s past.
As for his future, Cottrell has his eyes set on this summer.
He doesn’t know exactly which part of the summer, but at some point, Cottrell said he is expected to be cleared to resume all basketball activities.
“When it happens, I’m going to be one locked-in individual,” said Cottrell, who added he’s been allowed to take part in some light running drills in recent weeks. “I’ve already lost about six months to my basketball career, so I’m not interested in losing any more time.”
By the time next season starts, Cottrell said he’s expected to have a clean bill of health and will be ready to play.
“To me, the thing about getting back is I’m going to be needed,” he said. “I can’t just be one of the new guys anymore trying to work his way in.”
The Mountaineers will have plenty of new faces next season. Emmitt Matthews Jr. and Jordan McCabe transferred out and Derek Culver entered the 2021 NBA Draft and won’t be back.
In their place are incoming transfers Pauly Paulicap, Dimon Carrigan, and Malik Curry, as well as incoming freshmen Seth Wilson and Kobe Johnson.
Because the NCAA granted an extra year of eligibility to athletes due to COVID-19, Cottrell, too, will still be a freshman next season, but one eager to make up for lost time.
“The biggest thing for me will be mentally,” Cottrell said. “Everyone has told me that I’m not going to trust my leg again right away. I’ve got to get past that.
“And when I look at next season, I see guys playing a lot of different roles. I’ve seen some of the new guys and they can step in right away and help us. I think we can spread the floor and be the kind of team that can get out and run and score in transition. I think we can play a certain way that could be a lot different from last season.”
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