The West Virginia Mountaineers are the toughest, most complete team in college basketball right now and anything less than a trip to the Final Four in Atlanta, Georgia would be considered a failure.
The Mountaineers have the size, strength, scoring, coaching and depth to beat anyone anywhere, but the NCAA Tournament is tricky and winning a national championship takes winning six consecutive games. According to Bob Huggins, “My whole thing this week is you say you want to win a National Championship. I’ve never experienced that, but I know that you have to win six in a row. If we can’t win six in a row in the regular season, it’s going to be hard to do come March.”
West Virginia started the season by winning seven games in a row, but have not won more than four games consecutively since then.
Huggins continued, “I’m trying to keep them motivated, make them understand how hard you got to play. I’ve told my teams this forever – if you want to advance in the NCAA Tournament, you have to make some open shots.”
The Mountaineers’ kryptonite is their proclivity for scoring droughts and occasional poor shooting. However, this is a team with talented scorers in the starting lineup and off the bench, which makes the consistent scoring droughts even more perplexing.
Taz Sherman, Sean McNeil, Miles McBride, Jermaine Haley, Emmitt Matthews, Jr. and Derek Culver are all scorers capable of creating their own shots and getting buckets when the team needs points.
There are just not a lot of real weaknesses on this team and there doesn’t appear to be a more complete team in the nation right now. While some teams are better offensively, the Mountaineers’ toughness, defense and depth make them a real favorite to win the National Championship this year.
