COMMENTARY
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Given 48 hours to bristle and seethe over West Virginia’s punchless exit from March Madness, you wonder how the postseason evaluation will proceed. Does a double-digit loss against a double-digit seed lead to new philosophies, or is it treated as a one-off to an otherwise encouraging season?
Against Stephen F. Austin, fiery, furious West Virginia became bungling, incompetent West Virginia. The grody manner by which it unfolded—22 turnovers and only three 3-point baskets—gave rise to the legions of Bob Huggins critics who think the coach relies too heavily on athleticism over skill. (Critics who, perhaps, favor their own ideas too heavily over his 786 career wins.)
Then again, Huggins fed the detractors before leaving Barclays Center.
“We can’t pass, but we haven’t been able to pass all year,” he said. “I think—you know, I’m starting to think anyways—that when we spend a lot of time trying to teach guys how to pass, I think sometimes you better go recruit some guys that can pass because I’m not sure that it’s something …
“It’s kind of like shooting. If you’re a bad shooter, you can become a little better, but you’re never really going to be a good shooter. I think, if you’re a bad passer, you can get better, but you’re never going to be a good passer. It’s a skill thing.”
Regarding that “skill thing,” West Virginia hasn’t exactly possessed a ton of it recently. During the past two seasons, from 340-plus Division I teams, the Mountaineers ranked 285th and 269th in 3-point accuracy, 272nd and 270th in foul shooting, 120th and 185th in assist/turnover ratio.
Yet WVU also ranked 40th and 34th in winning percentage, which is a fairly important metric last time I checked, and spent 33 of 38 possible weeks in the AP top 25.
Regarding that “skill thing,” West Virginia hasn’t exactly possessed a ton of it recently. Yet it has ranked 40th and 34th in winning percentage nationally the past two years, and spent 33 of 38 possible weeks in the AP top 25.
From those seasons that produced a 51-19 record, much weight is given the two losses that ended them. A 39-point whipping against Kentucky, softened somewhat by reaching the Sweet 16, highlighted WVU’s lack of ball movement against a superior defense with NBA length. SFA has no NBA draft picks and was the shortest roster West Virginia encountered since the nonconference days of December.
As Thomas Walkup displayed, being 6-foot-4 with poise and know-how is sometimes enough. He scored 33 to send the Mountaineers packing.
One colleague misidentified Walkup as a “terrific shooter,” but the most Lumberjack-looking of all the Lumberjacks made only 21-of-79 from 3-point range the past two seasons. That’s 26 percent, and hardly terrific. (His percentage would rank seventh on this year’s WVU roster, by the way.)
Walkup didn’t make his second and final 3-pointer against WVU until the final seconds. He made his baskets by head-faking Nate Adrian out of his Nikes, out-positioning Daxter Miles, beating Jonathan Holton off the bounce and making 19 free throws (seven more than his career-high).
Skill shines in many forms, not just in pretty jumpers from deep, and Walkup’s game beamed brightest on Friday night when SFA pulled the lopsided upset despite hitting only 31 percent of its shots. Walkup came within 2 seconds of sparking the ‘Jacks past Notre Dame on Sunday, a performance that at least gives Mountaineer Nation a little solace.
Where does such a sour postseason experience mean to Huggins and his assistants? Do they place a higher premium on skill for their 2017 recruiting and beyond?
Huggins notes that he has always led programs where he had to take a best-available approach to recruiting. Thus, it’s not as if he can hand-pick the top-100 prospects who fit his preference. The incoming 2016 class might address the skill void. It includes 6-foot-10 Maciej Bender, whose pick-and-pop versatility has the staff fawning. Chase Harler is the state’s two-time Gatorade player of the year, though he wasn’t recruited by many power-conference schools. (Ask Thomas Walkup if that’s a setback.) The top athlete among the newcomers is Sagaba Konate, a raw 6-8 forward who was coveted by Pitt and Purdue.
How those newcomers adapt will determine whether Huggins remains committed to playing scatterball long-term. Nine of the top 11 regulars are eligible to return, though they’ll face lingering questions of what went wrong in Brooklyn. NBA teams blow up their rosters based on such playoff failings but WVU already underwent the college version of a detonation two seasons ago, after the program twice missed the NCAAs and Huggins famously promised to “fix it.”
Coming within a eyelash of sharing last year’s Big 12 title and finishing as the stand-alone runner-up this season shows Huggs has fixer-upper chops. Now the challenge becomes navigating the thinner margins of the postseason, where elite teams overcome their deficiencies instead of amplifying them.