Tshiebwe, Culver expected return good news for West Virginia basketball

West Virginia should have their front court in-tact next season.

Both sophomore-to-be Oscar Tshiebwe and junior Derek Culver are expected to be back for at least one more year together to lead the Mountaineers efforts in the post.

Well, that is according to a report by Jon Rothstein. But that report is quoting none other than head man Bob Huggins. And if that isn’t a good enough source, there isn’t one outside the two players themselves.

Now obviously it goes without saying that this early in the process things can change. While this is good news for now, it is far from concrete. But if it does stick, what does this mean for a team that is coming off a 21-10 season even with the youth?

First of all, it gives Huggins one of the most impressive front-courts in the Big 12 Conference and perhaps nationally as the two both flirted with averaging a double-double this past year.

Tshiebwe, the second McDonald’s All-American in school history, certainly lived up to the hype. While there were moments of growing pains, the physically imposing freshman averaged a team leading 11.2 points and 9.3 rebounds per contest. That was with Tshiebwe still clearly trying to find his footing at the college level against athletes that were more polished than what he squared off against in high school.

It's safe to assume that with another full off-season Tshiebwe is going to take things even further after he recorded 10 double-doubles in 31 games this past year. Especially efficient on the offensive glass, Tshiebwe became one of the best in that department in the league. Focuses for the Congo native will be to further expand his offensive skill set and refine some of the smaller areas of his game as he becomes more accustomed to basketball at this level. The upside here is immense in year two.

Culver won’t have the same learning curve entering his third season with the Mountaineers but the Ohio native is looking to build off a year where he accounted for 10.4 points and 8.7 rebounds per game. He finished with five double-doubles, but double-digit rebounds in a dozen games.

Along with Tshiebwe, the duo developed into one of the most difficult 1-2 punches in the post across the landscape of the Big 12 Conference. The pair combined for 45-percent of the offensive rebounds and 44-percent of the defensive rebounds for the Mountaineers this past year.

Scoring? The two accounted for 31-percent there although you can certainly argue that both on the floor at the same time created issues with spacing for the rest of the team. Finding ways to be creative will be a concern heading into this year to avoid log jams.

Culver will provide an experienced big that can score and rebound but ideally with his shot selection he’d want to improve on his 45-percent field goal rate and expand his offensive repertoire. The latter was starting to develop later in the year, but would be a major boon to his production.

Both players are going to have to be more conscious of each other on the floor and how to play together more effectively which should come with more time. The duo also will need to avoid putting the ball on the floor when they do get position on rebounds, as that plagued them at times.

Still with both expected back, Huggins is going to have a lot of options on how he decides to utilize them either together or in waves. The program also will welcome back Gabe Osabuohien and newcomer Isaiah Cottrell to add even more depth and versatility to the front court.

Huggins will have options and it’s a good guess that the Mountaineers are again going to feature the bigs in 2020.

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