MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — The 2021 version of Best Virginia hits the floor Wednesday and Friday for a pair of exhibition games in preparation for its July 17 opener in The Basketball Tournament (TBT).
Wednesday’s exhibition will be played at the Beckley-Raleigh County Convention Center, while Wheeling Park High School is the site of Friday’s exhibition.
For head coach James Long, Wednesday marks a chance to guide Best Virginia at a venue he has plenty of experience coaching in. As the head coach of the men’s basketball program at WVU Tech, Long will return to the Golden Bears’ home court.
“I’m in Beckley now and there are some of the best people in the world there,” Long said. “I’m excited to get down there and connect with everybody. We’re hitting the southern part of the state and the northern part of the state. We’re getting all around and we have a good aura.
“We’re really excited about getting out and connecting with the fans, because even if you play professional in these different places, there’s something different about being a Mountaineer and being in the state. We’re not taking this stuff for granted. Regardless of what happens in the tournament, this is a special experience.”
One year after covid-related issues forced Best Virginia to withdraw from the TBT, the team will make its second showing in the event.
For Long, a Charleston native who played at Wofford and then West Virginia, it marks the first time he’s been involved with the TBT.
While he has plenty of familiarity with the Mountaineer basketball program and this particular TBT roster, it will be a different experience coaching players he grew up watching and others who were past teammates.
“That’s been the exciting challenge for me,” Long said. “There’s going to be things I don’t do well, but this is all going to make me better. Guys I grew up watching are older than me and that’s one dynamic, but guys that I played with — and I necessarily didn’t play that much — it’s just finding my voice and how I can be effective.
“It’s being prepared for questions and problems that may arise and being knowledgeable basketball wise. I’ll bank on that and connecting with each person. The most important thing you can do as a coach in general is coach each person for who they are.”
Three members of Best Virginia — guard Alex Ruoff and forwards Kevin Jones and John Flowers — had already finished their careers at WVU before Long went off to college.
The other nine players on the roster were at one point Long’s teammate as Mountaineers.
“These guys have given me a lot of confidence before we got here saying that they respected me and this is me and (assistant coaches Dave Tallman and Da’Sean Butler’s) show,” Long said. “They’ve done a great job instilling confidence in me. It’s a new challenge and it’s something that I’ll learn along the way, but I appreciate them letting me come here and getting me better as a coach.”
Perhaps Long’s toughest challenge is meshing together strengths different players possess.
Some members of Best Virginia have never played together competitively. Others last did so several years ago, while Ruoff, Flowers and Jones were done at WVU in 2009, 2011 and 2012, respectively.
“You have all these different strengths playing off of each other and my job as a coach and our coaching staff is putting these guys in positions to use these strengths off of each other,” Long said. “And the conversations of, ‘Hey you do this well, this is your spot’, and laying those out.”
For certain players, particularly those out of college for a longer time, those strengths will be different than what they were during their West Virginia careers.
“Ten years later, we’re different players then we were in college,” Flowers said, “and you’re going to see a lot of that from everybody.”