Sunday Morning Thoughts: Reality is Coming Fast at West Virginia

Because of what Darian DeVries accomplished with West Virginia in his one and only year, it heightened expectations to some degree, leading people to believe that achieving that type of success in year one is the bar.

The reality is, if you don’t have a group that has a clear identity, it’s going to make life extremely difficult. This team prides itself on its defensive play, but against high majors, they’ve allowed teams to shoot 38%, 46%, 45%, and 51%. I bet you can guess which one the Pitt game is, and what we’ve learned since the Backyard Brawl is that the Panthers aren’t very good, even dropping a buy game to Quinnipiac.

If you’re not elite or, at the very least, really good at the one thing you’re supposed to be good at, well, you better make up for it somewhere else. And to this point, West Virginia has found zero answers. Aside from Honor Huff, they don’t shoot the three-ball well as a team, they don’t dominate the interior, and they aren’t a good free-throw shooting team.

When the opposition solves the Mountaineers’ plan on defense, it puts a ton of pressure on Honor Huff offensively to keep this team in a game. No offense to Huff because he’s elite at what he does, but you can’t have a player who is strictly a three-point specialist as your one and only reliable offensive threat. You need a presence in the paint, someone to put pressure on the rim, or both.

Chance Moore has been able to do the latter, but the floor spacing for him hasn’t been ideal. He’s had to just fight his way to the cup because the defense doesn’t respect any of the Mountaineers’ shooters not named Huff.

The reality is, this team does not have the pieces to replicate what happened a year ago. Javon Small was able to create his own shot, scoring from any spot on the floor. Honor Huff, while a great shooter, doesn’t have the same skillset or ability as Small, and quite honestly, that’s what this team needs to be able to overcome its offensive shortcomings.

There is still plenty of time for this group to figure things out, but as I’ve stated on numerous other occasions, everyone else is getting better throughout the season, too.

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