Huggins: It's a work in progress
If it was up to Bob Huggins he’d take the West Virginia exhibition schedule on the road.
Unfortunately, that’s out of his control due to NCAA guidelines and the Gold-Blue Debut in front of 4,702 fans in Wheeling will have to do for now.
“We can’t take an exhibition game off campus unless there is a reason to do it,” Huggins said.
The reason of course being the ongoing renovations inside the Coliseum but Huggins and the West Virginia basketball team were able to show the fan base the first glimpses inside WesBanco Arena. The inter-squad scrimmage resulted in a 55-45 win for the Gold team.
Leading the way on both sides was senior Nathan Adrian, who paced the blue team with 19 points on 6-10 from the floor while also grabbing five rebounds. The Morgantown native also displayed an aggressiveness on the offensive end that hasn’t been seen to date.
“He’s making shots. He’s really shooting the ball well which I think has opened that up for him,” he said.
It was the first game for a slew of newcomers and Huggins saw some ups and downs from each of them. Redshirt freshman James “Beetle” Bolden finished the game with 12 points and 7 rebounds only reinforcing what the head man has said about his ability to shoot the ball but Huggins wanted to see him move the basketball in the offense instead of over handling the ball.
True freshman Maciej Bender is a skilled big man that can stretch the floor but he has to continue to be more aggressive and physical when he is on the floor, Huggins said. Another true freshman in Sagaba Konate continues to learn and develop but brings great size and willingness to learn. He finished the debut with eight points and one block in the post which caught the eyes of those in attendance.
“I think one of the great things about Sags is he didn’t know a whole lot because he didn’t start playing until he came over here. You don’t have to break a lot of bad habits you can create new ones,” he said.
Huggins also believes that true freshman Chase Harler and redshirt freshman Lamont West continue to improve but that process has to progress throughout the course of the season along with the rest of the newcomers.
"It's a work in progress," he said.
Ball security has been one of the keys that Huggins has looked for in the pre-season practices and it was an issue at times in the scrimmage as the two teams combined for 20 turnovers.
“We make some, some are unavoidable, but we have to do a better job with the ones we can avoid,” Huggins said. “We’re going to make some because we play fast.”
Switching gears, West Virginia was selected second in the pre-season Big 12 poll, something that Huggins simply referred to as “very flattering,” and a testament to how far the program has come.
“When you’re the second best team in the best league in America, you’re pretty good. And I hope that’s true,” Huggins said.