Guard Sherman makes impact in return for West Virginia

Marred in a seven-game losing streak, West Virginia needed any kind of spark it could get.

The return of Taz Sherman provided exactly that.

Sherman, the team’s leading scorer at 18.9 points per contest, missed the Texas Tech game as he dealt with being placed in the concussion protocol.

The Texas native took an inadvertent shot to the head in the waning moments of the Baylor game and due to experiencing two prior concussions knew the symptoms he was experiencing.

“I know I heard Doc talking to me when I was on the floor but I was kind of dazed and stuff,” he said. “I was trying to look at the goal to see if I could see it clearly and it was just a blurry image there.”

The senior experienced one concussion in high school during his junior season and then had another in November two years ago in Morgantown. The one common theme is that each have been progressively worse with headaches and sensitivity to lights.

Sherman would leave the game and then wouldn’t play in the following contest, a frustrating 60-53 loss to Texas Tech, as he had to go through and clear the multi-step protocol.

But the Mountaineers would welcome back Sherman against Iowa State and he didn’t disappoint scoring 16 points, grabbing 8 rebounds and dishing out 6 assists across his 31-minutes. It was a major boost for a West Virginia club desperate for any form of success and Sherman helped lead the Mountaineers to their first win in almost a month beating the Cyclones 79-63.

“I think it was a huge shot in the arm for everybody,” Huggins said.

Sherman practiced Monday which was his first action back since the incident occurred as he met certain standards to get to that stage.

That doesn’t mean it wasn’t without its challenges as Sherman wasn’t able to do any cardio in the build up prior to the game and that meant he was going to get winded at times. But one thing Sherman did was the fact that he was smart enough to get himself out of the game when he was tired.

“I’d say within the first two minutes I got tired. As an athlete you find a way to push through it, especially at this level,” he said. “You should know how to play when you’re tired. One thing I was trying to make sure of is that I could get my rest intervals.”

It was a difficult break for the talented guard, especially with how focused he is on the game of basketball. But now with a clean bill of health, Sherman is excited for what could come next as well as his teammates who are glad to welcome him back.

“He does it all. Professional scorer, you all know how much we need him so I’m glad he’s back,” senior guard Malik Curry said.

Now, at 14-9 the Mountaineers hope to build on that moving forward with Sherman at the center of a push toward the post-season.

----------

• Talk about it with West Virginia fans on The Blue Lot.

• SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest on Mountaineer sports and recruiting.

• Get all of our WVU videos on YouTube by subscribing to the WVSports.com Channel

• Follow us on Twitter: @WVSportsDotCom, @rivalskeenan, @JaredSerre

•Like us on Facebook