Morgantown, West Virginia – With juniors Jordan McCabe and Emmitt Matthews, Jr. entering the transfer portal in back to back days, the question now becomes who could be next to leave the West Virginia basketball team?
It’s very unlikely that McCabe and Matthews are the final two players to decide to enter the transfer portal and one player in particular seems to have a lot of smoke around his potential departure from Morgantown.
Derek Culver. Yes, the first team Big 12 Player, the 2nd leading scorer and top rebounder for the West Virginia Mountaineers this past season.
As a junior, Culver has two years of eligibility remaining and a change of scenery could be exactly what he needs. While he put up tremendous numbers during the regular season, his weaknesses and flaws were completely exposed in the NCAA Tournament against Morehead State and Syracuse.
His bull in a china shop style of play is really only effective against smaller, less talented players. Against a shot blocker or an equal talent, he is largely ineffective. Also, his body language was terrible at the end of the season and it appeared that he was uninterested in playing defense or giving his best effort.
Then this….
Yesterday, he posted the following message on his personal Instagram account:
“This wasn’t supposed to be like this. Bitter not even sweet just bitter.”
While it could literally mean anything, it’s also suspicious timing after a very disappointing end to the season. In addition, Jordan McCabe and Emmitt Matthews, Jr. were the very players that he came to West Virginia University with in the 2018 recruiting class, and they’re now gone.
No one knows for sure what’s going through Derek Culver’s head other than Derek Culver and his close, personal friends and family, but don’t be at all surprised if he follows Jordan McCabe and Emmitt Matthews, Jr. in the transfer portal soon.
