MORGANTOWN — Gabe Osabuohien’s response was yet another reminder of how athletes see the world through a different lens than maybe the rest of us.
The West Virginia forward didn’t need a reminder of what lies ahead on the Mountaineers’ upcoming schedule, which reads as more of a gauntlet than it does a schedule.
It says WVU travels to No. 9 Kansas on Saturday, where Allen Fieldhouse awaits the Mountaineers, who have never won in that building.
It says top-ranked Baylor will travel to Morgantown after that and then a trip to No. 19 Texas Tech, which already owns victories against Kansas and Baylor.
Then WVU gets to play Oklahoma and all the Sooners have done is win their last four meetings against the Mountaineers.
We focus on that history, see the doom and gloom that has come with it and simply hope for the best, but fear the worst.
“Opportunity,” is what Osabuohien replied when asked what faces the Mountaineers. “We haven’t been ranked in the Top 25 all year. This is our opportunity.”
It is indeed exactly that for this group of young men who have already surpassed many expectations by starting off this season with a 13-2 record and sit just a half game back of both Baylor and Texas for first place in the Big 12.
It is with that in mind we ask a simple question: Have these Mountaineers been overlooked by the national polls?
In theory, it’s easy to think so, for there has been no other season in which WVU has had this type of record to begin the season and not been ranked.
In 2019, WVU was not ranked in the preseason, but got off to a 14-2 start and reached as high as No. 12 in the Associated Press poll.
In 2016, the Mountaineers got off to a 12-1 start and were ranked No. 7. In 2015, WVU began unranked, started 15-2, and reached as high as No. 6.
So what gives with this team?
I believe it’s a problem of perception, as in the minute Deuce McBride and Derek Culver announced they weren’t returning to college, the expectations from a national standpoint dropped considerably.
For a moment, let’s hypothetically put both players back on the Mountaineers’ roster and give them the exact same record against the exact same competition.
That team is pushing to be in the top 10 and not fighting to just get into the polls.
Without them, WVU started this season much further back on the totem pole, so to speak, and is now caught up with a pack of other teams also clawing their way to getting some national respect.
And this is where we point out just how entertaining the 2022 NCAA tournament will actually be, because there is no such thing as an unbeatable team in the country this season.
“It feels like in our conference it’s not just one team that’s unbeatable,” WVU forward Jalen Bridges said. “It’s anybody’s race. Baylor lost (Tuesday). Anybody can get the regular-season championship.”
In a given year, there’s generally 18-20 teams that are pretty solid, with 10 of those schools having a realistic shot to win it all.
Filling out the bottom portion of a Top 25 ballot is a test of simply sorting out the best of the rest.
Not this year. Not when you consider that Miami just beat Duke last week and was 5-0 in ACC play and couldn’t get in the Top 25.
Not when you consider that Oklahoma had knocked off then-No. 14 Florida, then-No. 12 Arkansas and then-No. 11 Iowa State and couldn’t crack the rankings, either.
If WVU players and fans are hollering about a lack of disrespect, they are not alone in that boat.
North Carolina — one of the bluest blue bloods — is 11-4 and unranked. UConn is 11-4, ranked No. 16 in the NCAA NET rankings, but is unranked in the AP poll.
Loyola Chicago, San Francisco, Indiana, and BYU have all made great cases, yet are not in the polls.
This is really shaping up to be that one season in which you can honestly say, “There’s probably 30 teams that wouldn’t surprise me if they were in the Final Four,” and no one would scoff at you for saying it.
The gap between a team seeded No. 1 and No. 8 in the NCAA tournament this season will be minimal at best.
And so we go back to Osabuohien’s response. Opportunity? In terms of proving the Mountaineers belong among the best, they may have no greater opportunity than right now.
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