MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Sitting some 30-40 feet away from Bob Huggins and decked out in Florida gear on Saturday will be former WVU standout Darris Nichols.
Nichols, a point guard with the Mountaineers from 2004-08, is in his sixth season as an assistant with the Gators and may one day become another head coach with ties to the Mountaineers.
No. 11 WVU (10-4) hosts Florida (9-4) at 2 p.m. Saturday, as part of the annual Big 12/SEC Challenge.
Either sitting just a few feet behind Huggins or maybe playing out on the floor may be a future coach in waiting with WVU ties in Jordan McCabe.
Maybe more so than anyone on the Mountaineers’ roster this season, McCabe understands the ebbs and flows and the adjustments that followed that has come with the Mountaineers this season. He spoke openly about it during a Zoom call with reporters in a way that would have you think McCabe was a seasoned coach with 30 years of experience.
“A lot of things have changed with this team,” the junior point guard said Friday, as the Mountaineers prepared for the Gators. “Not only with COVID, but the whole Oscar (Tshiebwe) thing and a lot of stuff has changed. Our whole dynamic has changed.”
The 6-foot-9, 260-pound Tshiebwe transferred from WVU to Kentucky in between the change of semesters.
With that came an adjustment from Huggins to go with a smaller lineup that inserted freshman forward Jalen Bridges as an extra shooter.
McCabe, who started 44 games as a freshman and sophomore, has started the last two games in an even smaller lineup, after WVU went through two weeks on pause due to COVID-19 protocols that saw forward Emmitt Matthews Jr. as one of the players dealing with the coronavirus.
“At the beginning of the year, I was just trying to fill a role,” said McCabe, who saw sophomore Deuce McBride take over the starting role as point guard this season. “Whether I liked it or not, I just knew I needed to do what I had to do in order to help the team win. That role has changed through COVID and through the leaving of Oscar.”
In terms of the Mountaineers’ style of play since Tshiebwe’s departure, WVU’s scoring is up and it’s 3-point shooting has drastically improved.
It would be easy to think the proof is in the numbers and maybe the Mountaineers shouldn’t have continued to play Tshiebwe along with the 6-10, 255-pound Derek Culver together at the same time.
McCabe offers a more realistic view, though.
“There’s not a coach in the country, whether it’s Huggs or (John) Calipari or anybody down the line that would see Derek and Oscar on the same team and not be like we have to play both of them,” McCabe said. “Are you going to tell an All-American in Derek that he has to come off the bench or are you going to tell a McDonald’s All-American who also has a chance to become an All-American in college in Oscar that he’s going to come off the bench?”
McCabe admits it made WVU games more of a grind, that there was less space in the paint to make plays and that the flow of play was not always fun to watch.
“Spacing is incredibly important in the game of basketball,” McCabe continued. “That’s what I mean, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. You want spacing, but who are you going to take out of the starting lineup between Oscar and Derek? I don’t blame Huggs for not doing it, because I don’t think I would have done it or any coach at any time would have said we’re going to bring one of them off the bench. You had to do it.”
What have the Mountaineers accomplished with more room to work with?
In the 10 games Tshiebwe played, WVU made 54 3-pointers. In the five games since, the Mountaineers have already knocked down 52.
“I’ll be completely up front and honest, I do enjoy our offensive scheme and style right now,” McCabe said. “Not only do I enjoy it, but it seems as though the entire team does. There’s more flow. There’s more high tempo. I would imagine sitting at home, it’s more fun to watch. It is nice playing this way.”
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