MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — West Virginia will play its first game in 22 days Thursday when the Mountaineers make their first appearance in the second instance of College Basketball Crown, an eight-team postseason event with seven contests played over a stretch of three of four days in Las Vegas.
The Mountaineers (18-14) oppose Stanford (20-12) at MGM Grand Arena in a matchup with an 8 p.m. (EST) tip time airing on FS1.
“Anytime you get a chance to represent your university and in our case a state and themselves, you have to take advantage of those opportunities,” Mountaineer head coach Ross Hodge said. Us specifically, if anyone was wondering why the Crown and not the NIT, the partnership we have with FOX in the Big 12 is what is contractually obligated. The two top teams that don’t play in the NCAA Tournament go to the Crown. Aside from that, for our group in particular, they really do enjoy each other and they enjoy playing basketball, so it makes it an enjoyable experience to keep playing.”
The inaugural Crown last year featured 16 teams, including five from the Big 12 — Arizona State, Cincinnati, Colorado, UCF and Utah. Nebraska defeated UCF in the title game.
This year, WVU is one of three Big 12 squads along with Baylor and the Buffaloes. In addition to the Cardinal, the rest of a CBC field that has been cut in half features Oklahoma, Creighton and a pair of Big Ten teams in Minnesota and Rutgers.
Players have an opportunity to earn money through a Name, Image and Likeness prize pool of $500,000 that pays each team $50,000 for advancing to a semifinal, $100,000 for being in the final and $300,000 for winning CBC.
While programs such as Cincinnati, Indiana and Seton Hall announced they would pass on a postseason event after failing to qualify for the NCAA Tournament, Hodge says West Virginia never considered that.
“Anytime you get to continue to play, it’s hard to not take advantage of those opportunities unless maybe your players came to you and said we don’t want to do this,” Hodge said. “As a coach, you have to honor that and evaluate it all like is this worth trying to coerce? When you have a group that legitimately wants to keep playing and gets opportunities to be together, I’ve always been of the mindset that you need to honor that and have an appreciation level.”
When the disappointment of a 20-point loss to BYU in a second-round Big 12 Tournament game back on March 11 had subsided, the Mountaineers felt it would be best to end the 2025-26 campaign in Las Vegas.
“I can’t speak for anybody else, but our group loves each other too much. That’s the greatest part of playing longer is being able to be with each other and keep these experiences going as long as possible,” said guard Honor Huff, one of the team’s seven seniors. “I don’t think it was anybody’s mindset to not play. We love to compete and play basketball. If you can put a college uniform on again, why would you not? Especially for us seniors.”
One plus to participating in this year’s CBC as opposed to the 2025 version is a calendar shakeup that now has the transfer portal officially open on April 7 — one day after the National Championship.
Previously, coaches risked getting a late start on reshaping future rosters.
“Anybody with a pulse knows the portal is always kind of open, be honest. But the biggest difference is if you were still playing a year ago, you could be sacrificing time where you could have people on official visits or you could physically be in person with people already in the portal,” Hodge said. “Now, other than kind of collecting names and seeing who’s in it and those type of situations, you’re not losing the opportunity to have somebody come visit because you’re still playing.”
— — — — —
As a guest on Three Guys Before The Game, Hodge revealed last week freshman point guard Amir Jenkins played the entirety of the season with a torn labrum in his left shoulder and the end of it with a torn labrum in his right shoulder suffered during a loss at TCU on February 21.
Jenkins is scheduled to undergo surgery on the left labrum Wednesday, while he will also need surgery on the right labrum at a later date.
“They’ll see how that goes and then he’ll have to have surgery on the right one,” Hodge said. “There’s not a longterm prognosis until they actually get in there and perform the surgeries.”
Jenkins did not make a field goal over his final five contests, all of which came directly after the second labrum tear in Fort Worth. He was 0 for 9 during that time and did not attempt a shot or score while playing only 6 minutes against BYU in Kansas City.
Utilized as the team’s seventh man for much of the season, Jenkins finishes his true freshman campaign with an average of 3.4 points across 16 minutes. He had 65 assists and 23 turnovers.
“Without him playing, it probably means Honor has to play a little more point guard and Morris [Ugusuk] will probably get more minutes than what he had at the end of the year,” Hodge said.
Jenkins, who reclassified to enroll one year early at WVU, gave it a go throughout the year while clearly hobbled, which made a strong impression on teammates.
“He could have tapped out a long time ago,” Huff said. “His heart. for a young guy to come here and he’s supposed to be in high school, it’s admirable. If I have a little bruise on my leg, I can’t say much. He’s playing with two bum shoulders. His heart is truly motivating and I’m glad I got to have this year with him, because he’s one of my best friends on the team.”