In the first press conference of the season, way back in October, Bob Huggins did not hide the fact that West Virginia would be playing without an inside presence.
Back then you thought, “Well, it’s early and someone will eventually develop.”
After all, that’s what Huggins does. He builds men down low. Guys who can rebound and aren’t afraid to mix it up and bang and block shots and defend.
Devin Williams wasn’t dominant from the moment he first stepped on the court, but he developed into a guy who was. You could say the same thing about Derek Culver or Sagaba Konate.
Huggins’ worst fear came to fruition in Saturday’s pounding by Kansas, and it came to light once again in Tuesday’s 77-68 loss to No. 5 Baylor in front of 12,692 fans inside the Coliseum.
WVU (13-4, 2-3 Big 12) had a big hole in the middle of the paint against the Bears, and Baylor took full advantage.
At first, it was simply a matter of Baylor scoring at will in the paint, getting off to a 14-0 advantage in that category.
But, then it got much worse.
“We’re asking guys who never played at this level to step up,” Huggins said. “Because they don’t or they can’t, it places a huge burden on (Jalen Bridges), Taz (Sherman) and Sean (McNeil) to score. It makes it hard.”
WVU brought in two fifth-year senior forwards in Pauly Paulicap and Dimon Carrigan with the hope they could add a shot-blocking presence and somehow fill in the void a little bit left by Culver, who left school early to pursue a pro career.
Carrigan and Paulicap both had great moments in the nonconference portion of the schedule, when WVU was playing teams like Eastern Kentucky, Bellarmine and Elon.
Paulicap had become such a fan favorite at one point that he was getting standing ovations whenever he came out of games.
He played all of two minutes and 42 seconds on Tuesday against Baylor, who is the furthest thing from Elon and Eastern Kentucky.
He didn’t play a second in the second half, because his struggles early on included the inability to do simple tasks, like catch the basketball.
Isaiah Cottrell played just two minutes in the second half. Seny N’Diaye played three minutes in the first half, and it was three minutes of Baylor taking the ball right to the rim.
Carrigan had some positive things. He blocked a shot and only had one turnover, but when your team’s leading rebounder is the back-up point guard, as was the case Tuesday with Malik Curry, that doesn’t speak well for how well the inside guys have developed this season for the Mountaineers.
Now, it’s true that this is no longer the 1980s and games are not won by throwing the ball inside every possession to Patrick Ewing and Hakeen Olajuwon.
You still need to have someone serviceable, someone you can trust.
Baylor has two impressive-looking guys in Flo Thamba and Jonathan Tchamwa-Tchatchoua.
They were not dominating, actually far from it, but here’s what they were: Trustworthy.
The combined to shoot 5 of 6 from the floor. When they had the easy shot, they made it. Most of the time when they were in position to grab a rebound, they grabbed it.
They didn’t fumble balls out of bounds and then hope the referee called it out on the other team.
They didn’t get out of position and let WVU make run after run to the rim without at least making the Mountaineers take a contested shot.
They did their jobs. They’re big enough and experienced enough to do that.
Huggins told us in the beginning the Mountaineers did not have that guy.
We hoped, over time, one would develop. But since WVU got knee-deep into Big 12 play, we see exactly what he was talking about and there may be no way to correct that this season.
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