Our West Virginia basketball team currently sits at 6-2 on the young season after coming off of a nice weekend where we knocked off Kansas St in Wichita & Miami at home. Our 2 losses have come at the hands of Miss St & Kent St. We also own an exhibition home loss to Division II Northern Kentucky.
With a team loaded with freshmen you’re going to have an up and down type of season like that. Nice wins and head-scratching losses. The big question that I have is if this team can get to 20 wins on the season.
I have a bet with fellow Pressboxer, Shane – I think we get to 20, but he disagrees. I realize that we have a team full of freshmen, but I have so much faith in Huggins that I think we can get it done.
Looking ahead at the remainder of the schedule, I have to admit that I think it’s going to be tough to pull out 20.
Out of conference, West Virginia still has to play Baylor, which will be a very difficult challenge and Marshall. Hey, don’t laugh – the Thundering Herd field a reputable b-ball squad this season and could very well make the NCAA Tournament.
Let’s assume they lose both of those games and win the other 3 out of conference finishing their out of conference schedule at 9-4. That would mean that we would need to go 11-7 in conference to get to 20.
It’s certainly feasible. Currently there are 6 ranked schools in the Big East. West Virginia only plays one of the schools twice – Pitt. If we lose all of those games we would have to win the remainder to get to 11-7. Included in those other 11 games is a home tilt against Villanova, a road game at Rutgers (always a tough place to play despite Rutgers never having much of a team), a road game against Seton Hall (who is playing really well so far this year) and a road game at Notre Dame (a place that we always struggle for whatever reason).
I still believe that we get to 20 simply because of Bob Huggins. The guy can just flat out coach and I think we will win a game or two against our ranked foes even though we may drop one or two against the unranked bunch. I’m also not giving up on the Baylor game – I think we’ll give them a run for their money. And I’m definitely not chalking up Marshall as a loss as of right now, so I believe that we’ll have more of a buffer coming into the in conference schedule.
Who wins the bet – me or Shane? Break the tiebreaker and share your opinion.
Ern is the generalist of the group. He contributes original content, posts links to news articles, tracks all the developments in Morgantown, keeps his pulse on the Mountaineer fan nation, etc... he does it all. 
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Set the over/under at 18.5 and I’d still ahve a tough time laying money to the over. 20 regular season win? Can’t put money on it.
The real shame of it is that if Coach Huggins can get 20 out of this young bunch he should be in the running for Big East Coach of the Year. Based upon the football awards I doubt he’d even get mentioned.
okay, I’ll bite. I think IF we get to twenty – it’s in the tourney. WVU will progressively get better peaking at tourney time – that is Huggin’s signature.
I’ve seen this team twice – last two games. They actually have more tools than last year. The intensity on D can ratchet up with free substitutions and I think this team because of its new speed actually looks better on D. I am seeing very few players getting beat off the dribble and that is amazing so early in the year with so many frosh. I’m still waiting on a full court press which could change everything.
On O, I like that this team can speed it up or work well in a half court game Kilichli and KJ give us that. The season may fall on Truck who seems to have found himself the last couple of games. But Jabarie has yet to arrive. I am surprised Browne is not starting. At least from the two games – he looks like an immature, speedier Joe Mazulla. KJ is the true leader of this team and it shows – he and the team enjoys the game
Our downfall may be foul shooting. We aren’t gonna blow many good BE teams out and unless we improve on the line, we could lose a few there. Could have bitten us against KSU.
I haven’t gone game by game, but just rattling off the top of me head. I think this team is further along than last years but so many Frosh playing Big East muscle ball has me concerned.
20 wins or not, who knows, but one thing is for certain “Huggs”, seems to have a way to motivate his team ( Huggs quote) I detest losing.