MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Kaden Metheny’s secret became public Monday. The University High star guard will play a game in the WVU Coliseum next season when Bowling Green travels to Morgantown.
“I’ve known for a while, but I had to keep it quiet,” he said. “I couldn’t tell anyone but my family.”
West Virginia released the bulk of its men’s non-conference schedule for the 2020-21 season Monday, including a home game against the Falcons on Nov. 20.
Officially, it will be the second game Metheny has played in the Coliseum.
“The first one was when my AAU team played there during halftime of a men’s game. I think I was in the fourth grade. We pulled out the win,” he said. “It’s always been a dream of mine to play in a game at the Coliseum in front of family and friends. I’m really looking forward to it.”
Metheny is scheduled to enroll at Bowling Green on July 8, but with the outbreak of the coronavirus, he said those plans may change.
“Who really knows now what’s going to happen?” Metheny said. “We do have a lot of high expectations for next season. There are a lot of key guys coming back from a team that just finished second in their (Mid-American Conference) division.”
At first glance, West Virginia will face a non-conference schedule next season loaded with experienced teams.
WVU, coming off a 21-10 season and a No. 24 ranking in the final Associated Press poll, is scheduled to open with Fairleigh Dickinson on Nov. 10.
Among the other key games will be a home game against rival Pitt (Nov. 13), which is the final game of the four-game series signed in 2016.
WVU will also play Purdue (Dec. 13) at the Barclays in Brooklyn, N.Y.
From Nov. 25-27, the Mountaineers will play in a loaded Battle 4 Atlantis field that also includes Duke, Ohio State, Memphis, Creighton, Texas A&M, Utah and Wichita State.
The Battle 4 Atlantis is a three-day tournament in the Bahamas. The bracket for the tournament has yet to be released.
Two non-conference opponents have yet to be released: The Big East team for the annual Big East-Big 12 Battle (Dec. 5 or 6), which is expected to be a home game and the SEC team for the Big 12/SEC Challenge (Jan. 30), which is expected to be a road game.
“We just played the second-toughest schedule in the country and this schedule will be no different,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said in a statement. “We’ve done a great job in recent years in bringing teams to the Coliseum that have gone on to do well in their respective leagues. Obviously, the field in the Bahamas is loaded, then mix in Pitt, Purdue, the Big East Battle and the SEC Challenge. This is another challenging schedule for our guys, and a schedule that Mountaineer Nation will enjoy.”
As far as experienced mid-major teams visiting the Coliseum, WVU will be facing many.
That includes Robert Morris (Dec. 9), which won the Northeast Conference tournament and was scheduled to play in the NCAA tournament before it was canceled.
The Colonials are scheduled to have three starters back, including guard AJ Bramah, who averaged 13 points and 7.9 rebounds per game.
Bowling Green also returns three starters, including leading scorer Justin Turner, who scored 18.8 points per game last season.
Stony Brook (Nov. 17) is coming off a 20-13 season in the America East and returns all five starters and Youngstown State (Dec. 22) went 18-15 last season — it’s most wins since 2013 — and is scheduled to return four starters.
The Purdue game in Brooklyn could offer a sizable match-up between WVU forwards Derek Culver and Oscar Tshiebwe and Purdue’s 6-foot-9, 270-pound forward Trevion Williams. He is one of four starters expected back for the Boilermakers, who went 16-15 last season. Purdue also signed two four-star guards in Ethan Morton and Jaden Ivey, who are both top 100 recruits, according to Rivals.com.
Not including the field for the Battle 4 Atlantis, as well as the SEC and Big East challenge games, the eight non-conference schools scheduled finished with a combined 135-122 record last season.
The schedule
Nov. 10: Fairleigh Dickinson, Morgantown
Nov. 13: Pitt, Morgantown
Nov. 17: Stony Brook, Morgantown
Nov. 20: Bowling Green, Morgantown
Nov. 25: Battle 4 Atlantis, Bahamas
Nov. 26: Battle 4 Atlantis, Bahamas
Nov. 27: Battle 4 Atlantis, Bahamas
Dec. 5/6: Big East-Big 12 Battle, TBA
Dec. 9: Robert Morris, Morgantown
Dec. 13: vs. Purdue, Brooklyn, N.Y.
Dec. 22: Youngstown State, Morgantown
Dec. 29: Miami (Ohio), Morgantown
Jan. 30: SEC/Big 12 Challenge, TBA
Tshiebwe named first team
Among his Big 12 honors that included the all-freshman team and the all-Big 12 second team, Oscar Tshiebwe was named to the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) first-team in District 8 on Monday.
Tshiebwe, who averaged 11.2 points and 9.3 rebounds last season, was joined by Kansas’ Devin Dotson and Udoka Azubuike, as well as Baylor’s Jared Butler and Texas Tech’s Jahmi’us Ramsey.
There are 24 districts covered by the NABC.
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