Mountaineers Grateful for Every Opportunity to Play in Chaotic Season

As we live day to day with the COVID-19 pandemic, sports are and have always been a distraction from the stress of everyday life. There is no more normal in how sports are consumed in a pandemic, including the atmosphere surrounding the game, but there is solace that the game has not changed between the lines.

Behind the scenes, administrators and health officials work tirelessly to provide a safe environment for college athletes to continue their dream of playing against high-level competition. The news feeds around the country are riddled with cancelations following outbreaks within college basketball programs.

West Virginia has been successful in navigating the pandemic since returning to practice in October. However, with coronavirus numbers climbing around the country, the Mountaineers are appreciative to still have the opportunity to play the game they love.

“It’s just fortunate that we get to come out here and do our job and playing games is something that I love to do,” said starting point guard Miles “Deuce” McBride. “I think last year; obviously you get tired of practicing, once that time came again to start practicing, I was looking forward to it every day. You know, you can’t take it for granted.”

Guard Sean McNeil said he “absolutely” feels fortunate to be playing basketball right now.

“Considering what's going on in the world right now, we’re just makeshift right now, trying to figure out how to do it day by day,” said McNeil. “No fans, it's different, it's not what we’re used to, the new normal, I guess you could call it, I guess for at least this year.”

West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins recognizes the sacrifices his Mountaineers are making while also reminding them that it must continue if they want to do something special.

“There’s no guarantees. I mean, you could do everything right and still end up with Covid-19, I understand that,” said Huggins. “Our guys really have taken a lot of precautions, and they’ve given up a lot to try to make sure that we get through the year. My thing, we can do the best we can possibly do, and hopefully, that's enough, or we can go run around and end up like we did a year ago, no conference tournament, no NCAA tournament. I think what happened out in South Dakota; I thought it was good; I thought it turned out well. We were able to have a tournament; we were able to have a championship game. Is it a sacrifice for them? Absolutely it is. But it is what it is. And again, our guys have been great, I can’t say enough about how much they want to play games, and they know they have to do the right thing to the play games.”

“I just think that our guys deserve a lot of credit for getting this far," continued Huggins. “We got a long, long way to go, but if they continue on the path they've been on - I mean, some guy can walk up and say hello and shake your hand, and the next thing you know, you test positive. It's hard, and it’s hard somebody comes up and goes to put their arm around you, and you say ‘Hey, Woah! Woah! Don’t do that,’ that tough. And we’re going to come up on Christmas Break, what do you” You tell them, ‘don’t go home at Christmas? I don’t think you can do that. You can’t tell them don’t be around family at Christmas, but it’s a risk, but it's the same thing, we got to do the best job we can possibly do to educate them so that they try to avoid everything that they can avoid even though they go home. But we all know family members that have had it. The crazy thing, there's degrees of it as well, some people have it don’t even know they have it, and some people end up in the hospital fighting for their life, so it’s a tough thing to figure out.”

So far, West Virginia has been able to keep the nonconference portion of the schedule full. They were able to fill the canceled game against Youngstown State for No. 1 Gonzaga in the Jimmy V Classic, and North Texas filled in for Robert Morris on Friday that was originally scheduled for Wednesday.

“We owe it to the kids. In my mind, we owe it to the fans as well, but we owe it to the kids,” said Huggins.

West Virginia hosts the No. 19 Richmond Spiders on Sunday at 1:00 pm EST.