MORGANTOWN — It may take some time to sift through all the story lines that accompany the West Virginia men’s basketball team this season, before you finally get to the core of whether or not the Mountaineers have a chance to be an NCAA tournament team this season.
Certainly there is enough optimism to be spread around, whether it’s the thought of Taz Sherman and Sean McNeil lighting up the scoreboard or the improved play of Jalen Bridges and Gabe Osabuohien or even the hope that Isaiah Cottrell brings something to the table as the Mountaineers’ center that hasn’t been seen in these parts for some time.
Bob Huggins seemingly has 14 players who could all play, meaning lots of depth to do different things.
Of those 14, freshman guard Kobe Johnson looks every bit the part of a young man who was a steal on the recruiting trail by the Mountaineers.
Throw all of that together and you’ve got enough reason for optimism to carry you through the nonconference games at the very least.
Here’s the thing, though: It’s all a smokescreen covering up the fact that WVU’s defense will determine how much success the Mountaineers have this season.
“I think we’re on the right track, but we have a lot more to improve on,” Sherman said after scoring 29 points in last week’s 74-59 exhibition victory against Akron.
Huggins didn’t mince words during the preseason when it comes to WVU’s defense, simply saying, “We suck,” so we’re not exactly sure if the coach would agree with Sherman whether or not the team in on the right track or not.
To be sure, everything mentioned above about the Mountaineers offensively is true.
Sherman and McNeil are going to score … a lot. Bridges is talented. Cottrell is going to be really fun to watch. Johnson will bring many positive things to WVU as a freshman.
But, if you go back and take a look at the Mountaineers after Oscar Tshiebwe left the team and transferred to Kentucky, offense wasn’t WVU’s problem.
WVU put up 87 on Oklahoma State, 88 against Texas Tech, 91 against Kansas and 90 on Oklahoma, all coming after Tshiebwe left town.
The Mountaineers scored 89 against Baylor, which went on to win the national championship, and scored 84 more against Texas.
In that sense, WVU was fun to watch, because the Mountaineers played with offensive flow and rhythm.
WVU also lost many of those games — partly because of poor free-throw shooting down the stretch — but mostly because the Mountaineers couldn’t guard anyone.
If that’s the case again, does it really matter how much better of a player Bridges becomes or how good of a freshman Johnson really is?
Sure, WVU may be able to score with the best of them this season. The Mountaineers were second in the Big 12 in scoring last season at 77.3 points per game.
WVU may be right around there again this season, maybe even closer to 80 points a game, but it’s going to be really disappointing if the other team is scoring 81.
This is where we flash back to the exhibition game.
Akron turned the ball over 20 times against the Mountaineers’ man-to-man full-court pressure.
Was it “Press” Virginia? No, but it was an active and athletic defensive look that was better to watch than just running back to the other side of the floor and waiting for the other team to bring the ball down.
“We’re starting to use our athleticism and our length out there,” Sherman said. “We’re trying to disrupt things.”
Dimon Carrigan blocked a shot at the rim and then waved his index finger in the air like old-school Dikembe Mutombo. Malik Curry recorded three steals.
There appeared to be signs that this WVU team could bring something different to the table in terms of defense.
Huggins disagreed, “You’ve got to finish plays and you can’t take plays off,” he said. “What happens is you do a great job on your man and he struggles. Then you get tired, so you just stand around and now your man gets two shots, and all of a sudden, he’s got all the momentum and he makes some more. We’ve got a long way to go. A long way to go.”
If that’s the case, sure, WVU will be a lot of fun to watch this season, but being in contention for a championship may not exactly be in the cards.
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