Three Reasons Why West Virginia Will Win the Big 12 Championship
We're now in the back stretch of the college basketball season, the meat of conference play when contenders and pretenders are starting to reveal themselves. It's the glorious lead up to March when the stakes truly rise and games matter. It's college basketball at its most sublime.
In a year marked by non-stop turbulence across the rankings, the upheaval has elevated less-heralded teams where the blue bloods usually reside. For West Virginia, a team ESPN picked to finish 5th in the Big 12 this year (they're now singing a different tune), 2020 has been a season of ascension. It's not just that the Mountaineers are good (they are), but as the season wears on more and more we find them looking genuinely fantastic. Currently sitting at 16-3 and coming off a pair of blow out wins, this Bob Huggins team looks like it's built for big things and you can bet good money that a Big 12 crown is on its to-do list. Is it West Virginia's year to finally raise a championship banner? It may well be. Here are three reasons why West Virginia is in good position to win the Big 12 in 2020.
1. Defense is once again king- During Jevon Carter and Daxter Miles tenure in Morgantown, the Mountaineers patented the Press Virginia brand and lorded in nightmarish fashion over any and everyone that attempted to break its 40 minute full-court press. Last year, its first without the two aforementioned former stars, saw West Virginia labor fruitlessly to establish any kind of identity on the court. Consider that problem now solved.
The Mountaineers have not only reinvented themselves defensively, they've done so in a way few could have predicted only a year after limping to 15 wins. In managing to create a turnover on 25% of its opponent's possessions and ranking 2nd in the Big 12 in steals, the Mountaineers have taken their former Press Virginia defense and condensed it into a half court tempest. In addition, West Virginia is only allowing 57.8 points per game, which yields a huge advantage in continuing to pad the win column, even on the type of bad shooting days that Oscar Tshiebwe and co. have experienced more than once this season. A greater equalizer, there is not.
Last and far from least is that defense seems to be a veritable point of pride for this team. Arkansas transfer Gabe Osabuohien eats, sleeps and breathes it, anyway. Since joining the team, the Toronto native has thrown himself -literally and figuratively- into the art of defending with junkyard dog-tenacity and the rest of the team has followed suit. It's gritty and jarring and at times not much fun to watch, but Bob Huggins' team is as tough as any in the nation and their play does the talking. This defense is for real.
2. Bob Huggins has more guys than you- In basketball terms, it's more like a small army. Regardless of how you refer to the Mountaineers roster, the depth that Bob Huggins has at his disposable is relatively absurd. Beyond a big, athletic starting five headlined by Oscar Tshiebwe and Derek Culver, the Mountaineers effectively rotate up to a dozen players in any given game. Beyond the fact that West Virginia can simply out-gas their opponents by constantly subbing in fresh legs, the bench is only getting more and more dangerous and the box score proves it. Out of the 1,769 minutes West Virginia's bench has contributed this season, it's managed to produce 606 points, nearly half of the team's total point output in 2020. When two starters (sorry, Emmitt Matthews and Jordan McCabe) are still trying to find their rhythm offensively, you need seven of your closest friends to pick up the slack which they've done and then some.
In addition, new pieces such as Taz Sherman, Sean McNeil and, especially, Miles "Deuce" McBride have turned in multiple big games en route to combining for 51 made three-pointers on the year. Quantity is enough to bludgeon most teams over 40 long minutes, but the Mountaineers boast quality in equal measure. Between defensive work horses and up-and-coming scoring threats comprising arguably the nation's most complete bench, everyone is enjoying a turn in the limelight. The multiple nature of Bob Huggins' team renders it almost amorphous; it can reshape itself as-needed. Given that the Big 12 features three of the top 10 teams in the nation per the NCAA NET ratings, this might turn out to be the most important trait of a very young, on fire West Virginia team as it continues it's climb. Strength in numbers, after all.
3. This team is only getting better- You can't argue with results. Wins are wins and without substitute. However, one can identify potentially alarming trends, the type that signal trouble on the horizon. West Virginia has lost three games this season including an absolute train wreck on the road to a 7-9 Kansas State team. Immediately following that loss, however, this team looks galvanized. They look feral. Whatever that loss did to them, it might have sparked something season-defining. It's a witch's brew of everything I've already mentioned powering this team: rebounding, defense, depth and, as we've seen in West Virginia's last two runaway wins, scoring.
The Mountaineers still haven't seen Baylor, Oklahoma or Iowa State, will have to travel to Texas Tech and get another shot at Kansas at home, so this season still has many blank verses waiting for ink. However, it's apparent that this is not a team that has any intention of settling for a middle seeding come March. It's out for blood. Taking into account the overall youth of the team (Logan Routt and Chase Harler are the only two seniors) and that it's current stars in Tshiebwe, Culver and McBride are sophomores and a freshman, respectively, it stands to reason that Bob Huggins' guys have yet to peak. For the rest of the conference, that's a scary proposition to wrestle with.
Assuming the best is yet to come, it bodes well that Kansas, while still very good, is dealing with a bevy of in-house problems and that last year's national runner-up, Texas Tech, seems to have backslid. As the final month of college basketball readies to commence, it seems as though West Virginia has every tool in its belt needed to win one of the most competitive conferences in America. What happens between now and the start of March Madness is anyone's guess and it's only appropriate that the final stretch of the regular season concludes as manically as it started. An old bear coaching a young, hungry team that is just now getting their druthers might be exactly the type of team that wins its conference and beyond.
Don't say you weren't warned.
