Culver makes most of first start, dominates glass with Ahmad

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It’s night and day when you compare the beginning of Derek Culver’s freshman season to now.

Culver’s freshman season got off to the worse kind of start you could imagine with the Youngstown, Ohio native being handed down an indefinite suspension for a violation of team rules on Nov. 15, six days after West Virginia suffered a season-opening, overtime loss to Buffalo, a game that Culver didn’t play in.

As the early part of the season progressed, Culver would eventually work his way back onto the floor and was reinstated on Dec. 18.

Since making his debut as a Mountaineer on Dec. 22 against Jacksonville State, Culver has emerged as one of the team’s top contributors and on Saturday, earned his first career start against Oklahoma.

“I think he deserved it,” head coach Bob Huggins said. “No other reason than I thought he deserved it.”

Culver answered the call as West Virginia earned its second Big 12 win of the season, scoring 13 points and hauling in 14 rebounds, one board shy of tying his career-high of 15 which was accomplished against Oklahoma State on Jan 12.

Saturday also marked the eighth game Culver reached double figures in points and the fourth game this season he achieved a double-double.

What Culver has been able to accomplish on the floor is impressive when you consider the fact that he’s missed the first 10 games of this season and wasn’t allowed to practice with the team until he was reinstated.

With this in mind, it leads to the idea that Culver’s best has still yet to come.

“He’s a workhorse. He never stops working,” junior guard James “Beetle” Bolden said. “It’s hard to box him out. It’s hard to to get a body on him as you can see. He just never stops. He gets key rebounds for us and sometimes he gets all of the rebounds. So I love seeing that from him. He’s just going to continue to get better from here.”

Culver credits his development and turnaround to his coaches, who’ve showed him the importance of preparation.

“They prepared me week in and week out with the best scouting reports of who we’re playing and you know just them always staying in my ear and talking about do the simple things and play hard and when you play hard, you just got to run into things and that’s what I’ve been trying to do,” Culver said.

“With that being said, I’ve been following their lead and they’ve been showing good results ever since.”

While Saturday turned out to be a good result for Culver, he was not alone.

West Virginia’s lone senior in Esa Ahmad, who was the first one on the court for the Mountaineers during pregame, served as a complement to Culver’s presence in the paint and on the glass with a strong showing himself, boasting a double-double with 12 points and 13 rebounds.

Behind both Culver and Ahmad was junior Wesley Harris who tallied seven rebounds against the Sooners.

“Esa was terrific,” Huggins said. “Wes (Wesley Harris) had a great spurt for us when we were struggling a little bit. You almost expect it from Derek (Culver) anymore.”

How was West Virginia able to outrebound Oklahoma, 46-30?

Culver credited assistant coach Erik Martin’s instruction and both he and Ahmad said it came down to their effort and working hard.

“We want it more and I feel like we wanted it more today,” Ahmad said. “We know we just got to stay like that. We know we can play like that.”

According to Culver, rebounding was an emphasis for the team during practice leading up to the Oklahoma game, citing West Virginia’s size and inability to win the rebound battle against some opponents this season.

The Mountaineers lost this battle just twice during the non-conference part of the season, but had a three-game skid in this category, getting outrebounded by TCU, Kansas and Baylor. West Virginia won the rebounding battle against Tennessee and tied with Iowa State before recording its biggest rebounding margin of the season at plus-16 against the Sooners.

“That’s been the emphasis in practice this week,” Culver said. “We have to really stretch the boards because we have a lot of size. There’s a lot of games we haven’t really been capitalizing on that size. We’ve been outrebounded by teams we shouldn’t be outrebounded (by).”

Culver and Ahmad showcased just what the Mountaineers can do in the paint with the size they have, but the key moving forward will be to keep each other in check and production from each big man including Harris, Logan Routt and Andrew Gordon.

“We just kept playing hard,” Culver said. “I believe I missed a couple rebounds, but Esa (Ahmad) had my back today. If we just hold each other accountable and look out for one another, I feel like we’ll be alright because we have the talent, we just have to hold each other accountable.”

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