WVSports – West Virginia hoops roster faces questions

The story this off-season revolved around the construction of the West Virginia basketball roster.

Now, the focus is on what will become of it?

On the sixth day of the coaching search to replace Bob Huggins after his resignation following a DUI arrest, the Mountaineers had a total of three players opt to enter the transfer portal.

That option opened up for the players on the team for a 30-day period in the wake of Huggins resignation and while it was quiet initially that has changed.

Forward Tre Mitchell opted to enter his name into the transfer portal first Thursday and that was followed by point guards Kerr Kriisa and Joe Toussaint the following day.

Each of those players have suggested that a return to West Virginia isn’t out of the picture, but that will ultimately depend on how the players react to whomever is ultimately tabbed as the head coach in Morgantown.

It’s something that WVSports.com has reported since Mitchell entered the portal, but the fact they are at least open for a return is something that is encouraging.

That makes an already difficult situation even more so in the sense that time is ticking and each of these players are going to have a multitude of options.

Mitchell has already heard from Kentucky, Xavier, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Memphis and DePaul, while Toussaint has heard from Gonzaga, Kansas State, Seton Hall, Nebraska, Pittsburgh, Oklahoma, Oklahoma State, Notre Dame and more.

Kriisa will undoubtedly be one of the more highly recruited options if he elects to explore his recruitment a second time this off-season.

The good news is that others such as center Jesse Edwards, guard RaeQuan Battle and guard Jose Perez have indicated that they plan to at least wait things out to see what occurs with the coaching search before making their decisions on the next step of the process.

As for the rest of the roster, it remains to be seen what will unfold at this stage as the coaching search continues with a resolution expected sometime soon. It’s a difficult ask of the adminstration to work on such a tight timeframe after being thrust into a difficult and completely unexpected situation.

The roster has been something that became a rallying point for fans given the talent coming into the program but now the challenge is going to be what can be done to keep it intact? And if not that, what exactly will it look like by the time the new coach takes over?

Finding replacements aren’t easy this time of the year with options drying up so what happens next will be one of the more interesting developments with this process.