MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia’s 7 p.m. season opener Tuesday against Oakland at the Coliseum marks the first time seven of the Mountaineers’ 15 players will represent WVU.
Among those seven is 6-foot-8, 235-pound fifth-year senior Pauly Paulicap, whose backstory is as unique as his name.
“I didn’t play any sports from seventh through mid-11th grade year,” Paulicap said. “To what some people believe was random, I decided to play basketball and I was very raw to the sport. I didn’t know much about it or how to play. All I could do was dunk.
“Once I started playing, I was uncomfortable at first and then I realized over time, I was getting better. That’s when I developed being process driven. I also did track as well. Once I found myself within the structure of a sport, I was able to develop both as a person and an athlete. I was told to do this and I did it. It helped me with my ability. I wasn’t very into sports growing up, but I love sports. It saved my life.”
To this day, Paulicap is unsure where he would be had he not gotten into athletics. They helped him overcome what he described as a troubled childhood.
“I was a bad kid and I was all over the place bouncing off the walls,” he said. “I was a person of interest. I did my own thing and was doing whatever. Eventually, life started happening and it happened at a really young age, so I was forced to grow up. The adversity of life hit me and I realized, ‘OK, I can’t be out here playing around anymore. It’s not a game and not a joke.’
“Without saying too much, it got real and I needed to do something. I needed some sort of structure and something to ground me and get me to realize it’s either something or nothing. I didn’t want to be a statistic and be what everybody expected me to be. I was getting in trouble and everybody kind of expected me to be a failure. I didn’t want to give them that satisfaction by proving them right. I grew up, matured and made the decision to play sports.”
Paulicap credits much of his basketball success to his days playing high school volleyball — a sport the Elmont, New York native says helped him immensely on the hardwood.
“Playing volleyball was the best thing I could’ve done for myself for basketball,” Paulicap said. “It worked on hand-eye coordination, my footwork, my timing and all this different stuff. It’s weird that I was able to apply that to basketball. Now looking at somebody coming to the basket, that’s just the volleyball going up, so I’m going straight for the ball and not worried about who’s going to dunk it.”
Paulicap’s college basketball career began with a two-year stint at the junior college level and Harcum College. He was there two years, redshirting his first season after suffering a foot injury, before averaging 9.3 points, 7.3 rebounds and finishing as the sixth-leading shot blocker in NJCAA.
Paulicap spent his next three seasons at Manhattan, playing extensively two of those years, while being limited to 10 games with the Jaspers in his middle season as a result of an injury.
Then came one season at DePaul, where Paulicap most recently played and averaged 7.2 points, 6.1 rebounds and 1.3 blocks before transferring to West Virginia.
“The person [WVU head coach Bob Huggins] is, that was the base of my decision,” Paulicap said. “Just knowing what type of coach he was and someone that’s not going to lie to me and someone that’s always going to keep it 100 with me — there’s no gray area. He’s going to tell you what you need to hear and not what you want to hear. I knew that’s what i needed.
“I feel like he’s the perfect coach to make me uncomfortable and that is what breeds that growth within me. I thought that was perfect within itself.”
Paulicap figures to factor into the Mountaineers’ rotation starting with their matchup against the Grizzlies. The loss of Derek Culver from last season’s team leaves a void in the front court, and while redshirt freshman Isaiah Cottrell is likely to fill some of it, he’s only played 10 games at this level after suffering a torn Achilles tendon last December.
“He’s getting better and better,” Huggins said. “He’s starting to rebound the ball better, particularly at the offensive end. Of our bigs, he’s the best low post scorer we have.”
How that rotation is sorted out remains to be seen, but returning guards Taz Sherman and Sean McNeil, swingman Jalen Bridges and forward Gabe Osabuohien figure to factor in heavily.
Kedrian Johnson is back near full strength after enduring several preseason injuries and will likely have a role at point guard along with Old Dominion transfer Malik Curry.
“I was hoping Taz, Sean, JB and Isaiah shot it very consistently, because then we could really spread people, get some easy ones and get to the basket and not have the lane so congested,” Huggins said. “But [in an exhibition against Akron], we were not very consistent making shots. Taz was, but we took Taz out for 18 minutes, and in those 18 minutes, we scored four field goals, which means those other guys weren’t very consistent.”
Now comes the first contest that counts, one that pits West Virginia against an Oakland team guided by head coach Greg Kampe, who enters his 38th season in that role.
Huggins is one of 11 active Division I coaches with more career victories than Kampe’s 644, a number that leaves him with the third-highest win total of active Division I coaches at a current school, behind only Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski and Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim.
“They run some unconventional things that are really different looks, and Greg always has,” Huggins said. “It’s really important we learn where they’re coming from.”
The Grizzlies finished 12-18 last season, though they advanced to the Horizon League final and took Michigan to overtime in a 10-point loss early on.
Jalen Moore, a 5-foot-11 junior, led Oakland with 17.9 points per game a year ago, and figures to be a focal point again. The Grizzlies have also added 6-7 graduate student Jamal Cain, a Marquette transfer who combined for 44 points in their two exhibitions.
“I don’t know if they’ll try to do it against us, but against the teams they’ve played to this point, they’ve done a lot of isolations,” Huggins said. “I don’t think it’s one particular guy — more whoever they think they can take advantage of.”
Tuesday’s contest will be carried by Big 12 Now on ESPN+ and marks the first time the Coliseum has permitted full capacity since the start of the pandemic.
“It’s a lot different seeing the fans packed in the Coliseum,” Bridges said. “Last year, I’m not sure we got over 25 percent capacity. Now we’re back to 100 percent. Sometimes on the road last year, it was like covid didn’t exist. I’m excited to play in front of big crowds.”