Basketball experts and fans, please keep sleeping on the West Virginia Mountaineers. Please keep ranking them #15 in the nation or #3 in the Big 12. Show them absolutely, positively no respect.
Although the West Virginia Mountaineers basketball season ended in a disappointing fashion when the NCAA announced that the Tournament would be canceled, Bob Huggins has built a team ready to compete for a National Championship next season.
With the news that Oscar Tshiebwe will both return next year, the Mountaineers will be one of the biggest, deepest, most talented teams in the country. While West Virginia will lose Jermaine Haley, Chase Harler and Logan Routt, Huggins brings in talented JUCO guard Kedrian Johnson (the #4 ranked JUCO player in the country), four star forward Isaiah Cottrell, four star Jalen Bridges (who Huggins referred to as “one of his best players in practice) and Taj Thweatt (one of the best high school players in the state of New Jersey).
Several “way too early predictions” have come out for next season and West Virginia has been given nominal respect, but there simply isn’t a team that will have the level of size, depth and talent that the Mountaineers will in the Big 12 or perhaps in the country.
The window for West Virginia to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament will close quickly with Oscar Tshiebwe almost certainly turning professional next season and the Mountaineers’ legendary head coach in the twilight of his career.
Bob Huggins has done everything in the game of college basketball except win a national championship and this team gives him a better shot than any in his entire illustrious time on the sidelines. Don’t tell the rest of the country, but anything less than a National Championship would be a disappointment for the Mountaineers this season.
