The WVU men’s basketball bench is about to become standing-room-only this season.
That is according to WVU coach Bob Huggins, who is about to embark on his 15th season with the Mountaineers, and will do so with a deep roster of 15 available scholarship players.
“The last time I had 15 players, I was at Walsh College,” Huggins said during a Zoom meeting with the media on Monday, a day before the official start of practice.
The NCAA limit for men’s basketball is 13 scholarships, but exceptions have been made around the country due to the COVID-19 pandemic for fifth-year seniors returning to play for the same school.
Or, in the Mountaineers’ case, Taz Sherman and Gabe Osabuohien are playing as fifth-year seniors on scholarship, without counting against WVU’s limit of 13.
Add them to the 13 scholarship players, and well, it’s going to be anything but lonely on the WVU sideline.
Which brings up the challenge of roster management for Huggins. Conventional wisdom tells you a hoops coach can’t play 15 guys each game and be very successful.
“Obviously guys are going to want to play,” Huggins said. “I don’t think we’ll have attitude problems, but I do think we’ll have guys sitting there who want to get into the game.
“I just don’t think with our guys and their personalities and with the way they get along with each other that we’ll have issues with bad attitudes. Actually, if we do have a bad attitude, we’ll have 14 or 13 (players).”
The interesting nugget Huggins gave Monday was there are no plans to redshirt anyone on the roster, even if a portion of players may not see much action.
“I’m not sure we’ll redshirt anybody,” Huggins said.
That includes freshman forward James Okonkwo, who reclassified to the 2021 recruiting class and signed with WVU in late July.
Okonkwo, a native of England who is listed at 6-foot-8 and 230 pounds, would have been a junior at Beckley Prep this year before reclassifying. He turns 18 on Friday.
Okonkwo announced on his signing day that he planned to redshirt at WVU his first year and be ready to play for the 2022-23 season, but Huggins said those plans could change.
“We really only have one guy (Okonkwo) who could conceivably (redshirt),” Huggins said. “With the way he’s playing right now, we’re probably going to need him. James is really playing well. He’s far and away the quickest guy off the floor and gets to a lot of balls. I was pretty well set that we were going to bring him in and redshirt him, but he’s playing really well.”
Okonkwo was ranked a four-star prospect and as the No. 87 overall recruit nationally for the 2023 class by Rivals.com. He became eligible to play in college due to his General Certificate of Secondary Education (GCSE) test scores he took while still living in England.
By U.S. standards, a GCSE is the equivalent of a high school diploma or GED.
If Okonkwo is in play this season, WVU’s roster breakdown looks like this: Three point guards, three shooting guards, three small forwards and six power forwards.
That’s quite a depth chart.
“The hard part is there is 15 of them,” Huggins said. “Honestly, I couldn’t tell you right now our top eight-to-10 guys. I couldn’t pick them out right now.”
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