There are two bronze statues outside of the WVU Coliseum that need no explanation on why they are there.
Jerry West and “Hot” Rod Hundley, enough said.
Da’Sean Butler, Wil Robinson, Kevin Jones and Greg Jones.
These, too, are also legends built on scoring a ton of points in some of the biggest wins the WVU men’s basketball team has ever had.
When Gabe Osabuohien’s college career comes to an end this March, you will not find his name among the all-time WVU leaders in any statistical category.
He is not going to score 1,000 points, probably isn’t going to hit any game-winning 3-pointer at the buzzer and won’t be known as one of the top rebounders in school history.
Yet, you could seriously make the argument that Osabuohien is just as valuable to this WVU team, which held off a pesky charge from Eastern Kentucky in front of an announced crowd of 10,062 on Friday inside the Coliseum, as any of those greats listed above were to the WVU teams they played for.
“Especially for someone that’s not like a 6-foot-11 big, which he goes against those every game,” WVU guard Taz Sherman said of Osabuohien. “He still manages to do what he does every single game.”
What Osabuohien does is find the key moments of each game and somehow finds a way to make the right play, and most of the times those plays don’t necessarily show up in the box score.
Take this game against Eastern Kentucky. Osabuohien had seven rebounds, which that stat alone isn’t going to get him on SportsCenter, but his first five boards were all offensive rebounds.
One of those offensive rebounds led to Malik Curry scoring on a bank shot that gave the Mountaineers a 75-71 lead with 3:04 left. Another led to Curry (16 points) scoring on a drive to the basket that gave the Mountaineers (5-1) a 77-72 lead with 1:56 remaining.
He drew six fouls, scored eight points, blocked a shot, picked up a steal and dished out two assists.
Again, on the surface, these stats don’t stand out until you put them in the proper context.
Take away any of those plays in the moment they happened in the game and the Colonels would likely have walked out of the Coliseum with a huge upset win in their pockets.
“We’re not the same team without him,” said Sherman, who finished with a career-high 28 points.
Which goes back to the original point: Is it possible Osabuohien could be considered an all-time WVU great without having all-time great stats?
“I think he could be remembered as a very valuable player. Great is a stretch,” WVU head coach Bob Huggins said. “I just think he makes things happen. I’ve tried to have someone like that, but it’s hard to finds guys like that. He doesn’t care about scoring, but he still changes the game. So, I think he could be remembered as a very valuable player.”
Now, we’re not exactly making a push for Osabuohien to have his bust bronzed and placed next to West outside the Coliseum.
But, in the previous 112 seasons of Mountaineers basketball, when can you ever remember the school making a big deal out of who leads the team in deflections or charges drawn?
That’s Osabuohien’s doing. That’s what he’s created with his hustle, tenacity and heart.
It all comes with an asterisk, as Osabuohien explained.
“All the little stuff I do, it doesn’t matter if we don’t win,” he said. “If we lose, it’s nothing. Now we’re winning, so the little stuff becomes all the more important.”
True, if Osabuohien does all that little stuff for a team that is 2-4 rather than 5-1, it hardly gets noticed. If he’s grabbing extra possessions for a team that uses those possessions to simply miss more shots, you would never hear his name mentioned.
But, his name is mentioned for good reason. WVU is winning for now and Osabuhien is very much the reason why.
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