West Virginia begins season of unknowns in opener against Oakland (Mich.)

MORGANTOWN — That sour taste of a disappointing defeat does not go away easily, at least that’s what Jalen Bridges learned in the days and months that followed last season’s second-round loss against Syracuse in the NCAA tournament.

“It’s been a long time since that loss to Syracuse,” the WVU forward said. “It’s time to take it out on some folks.”

First in line to open the 2021-22 season is Oakland (Mich.), a team that finished 12-18 last season, but nearly made a Cinderella run to the NCAAs by advancing — but losing — in the finals of the Horizon League tournament.

The Golden Grizzlies return three starters, including point guard Jalen Moore, who scored 17.9 points per game last season.

Tip-off is scheduled for 7 p.m. Tuesday at the WVU Coliseum. The Mountaineers are 11-3 in season-openers under head coach Bob Huggins, who has also had to regroup from that day in Indianapolis when WVU shooters went cold and Derek Culver’s inside game was non-existent against the Orange.

“The Syracuse loss was hard,” Huggins said. “We had some guys who didn’t play the way they had been playing. Derek didn’t play well, didn’t want to play well.”

Much has changed for the Mountaineers since. Deuce McBride is with the New York Knicks, while Culver is in the G League.

Jordan McCabe and Emmitt Matthews Jr. transferred and Huggins helped fill some of those holes through the transfer portal with three fifth-year seniors in their final season of eligibility.

Other changes include WVU is now expecting more scoring from Bridges, who was a late-season starter last season, and Isaiah Cottrell is expected to fill Culver’s shoes, even though Cottrell missed most of last season with a torn Achilles tendon.

There is no sure-fire way to replace McBride’s leadership and Culver’s physicality, and on top of all that, Huggins hasn’t seen any defensive consistency from anyone on WVU’s roster in the preseason.

“We’re trying to work really hard on what we do,” Huggins said. “But, if we’ve worked really hard on rebounding, I missed it.

“We were really bad in our scrimmage (against Dayton). We were better against Akron (exhibition game), but we didn’t sustain anything. That message, I think, has come across loud and clear.”

Huggins has spent much of the preseason searching for an inside scoring threat in either Cottrell or transfers Pauly Paulicap and Dimon Carrigan, but no one has leaped off the page.

To combat the lack of a power scorer, WVU has a lot of its eggs in the outside-shooting basket.

That’s where Bridges, Taz Sherman, Sean McNeil and even Cottrell come into play, but if last week’s exhibition win against Akron was any indication, Sherman (29 points against the Zips) is WVU’s lone consistent scoring threat at the moment.

“What I was hoping would be good was Taz, Sean, JB and Isaiah would shoot it consistently, so we could then spread some (defenses) out,” Huggins said. “Then we could get some easy ones. We could get it at the basket and not have the lane so congested.

“Those guys have all put in a lot of work, but as you saw in the Akron game, we were not very consistent in making shots.”

So, it is a season of many unknowns for Huggins and the Mountaineers that begins today.

Maybe WVU will be able to simply outscore a lot of teams this season or maybe the Mountaineers get to a point defensively that they won’t have to rely on that strategy.

Huggins begins searching for those answers today against the Golden Grizzlies.

“We’ve been very inconsistent,” he said. “A lot of that is my fault, because I’ve thrown a lot of things at them, because I want to see what we can do and what we can’t do. As time goes on, I think they’ll become more accustomed to what we’re trying to do. Hopefully, we’ll be able to do more than just a couple of things.”

Note

** WVU senior point guard Kedrian Johnson is expected to play today.

Johnson started in last week’s exhibition win against Akron, but took a blow to the face that left him with a cut above his eye. Huggins also said Johnson took a hard fall on the small of his back in practice, but has been able to play through it.

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