Huggins talks mood of team, Oakland
West Virginia (4-5) will look to rebound after two consecutive losses when the Mountaineers play host to Oakland (4-7) Wednesday night inside the Coliseum.
Tipoff is set for 9 p.m. as the Mountaineers will meet their Summit League opponent for only the second time on the basketball court. The Golden Grizzlies are led by Greg Kampe, who's entering his 29th season atop the program and has compiled a career record of 494-356.
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"Greg's done a great job. They're always one or two in their league and they actually had Pitt down five inside of two minutes," head coach Bob Huggins said. "They're good and he does a great job with them. They're playing five guys 6-foot-5 or under and the power forward's got ball skills."
Since the Mountaineers 81-66 loss to Michigan, the players have been coming to practice early to participate in voluntary workouts and practice shooting.
"We work making shots in practice, just don't make any in the game," he said. "We shot it real well yesterday."
One Mountaineer that Huggins said will suit up for Wednesday's matchup is Aaric Murray after he didn't make the trip to Brooklyn against the Wolverines. Huggins said the junior center has been handling things well in the past couple days, and was real good two days ago.
"He was alright yesterday," Huggins added.
Huggins said that there haven't been any concrete determinations in changes to the starting five, but he reiterated the point that it's not about the best five players, instead the five guys that play the best together on the floor.
"Sometimes that varies as to how people play," he said. "Casey Mitchell was a junior he played a whole lot more against zones than he did man. It kind of depends on matchups, how people are trying to play."
Two players that have taken advantage of their time on the court have been freshmen Terry Henderson and Eron Harris, and the pair have went from backup players to being in line for a significant amount of minutes.
"We haven't given up on anybody, we're still working on our inside guys," Huggins said. "But we've just got to shoot the ball better. We go through self-imposed droughts."
The matchup will be televised by ESPNU.