West Virginia wants to play two big men at a time.
It’s no secret. In fact, it’s a big part of the formula that veteran head coach Bob Huggins believes will lead the Mountaineers to a successful season.
“If we’re going to score the ball, that’s what we’ve got to do,” Huggins said.
But with that comes some adjustments.
One of those has been the fact that thus far early in the season, West Virginia is getting a dose of opposing teams shying away from matching that personnel and forcing those bigs to play on the perimeter. Because of the prevailing style of one big and four perimeter players, it has forced either Derek Culver or Oscar Tshiebwe into playing out of position.
That makes it difficult to play them both at the same time, but in a way it’s how college basketball has evolved over the past several years with spacing the floor and an emphasis on the perimeter. That makes the Mountaineers a throwback of sorts, with multiple bigs that can score in the post.
“But when we have two guys like we have, you’ve got to use them,” Huggins said. “Derek is averaging a double-double and Oscar is just now starting to get back and be the Oscar we saw a year ago. That’s a heck of an advantage for us.”
Culver comes out of the first five games averaging 15.4 points and 10.8 rebounds while playing right around 28-minutes, while Tshiebwe is at 9.2 points and 8.2 rebounds despite only being on the floor around 20-minutes per game largely due to foul trouble.
Huggins has seen the biggest adjustment with opposition going to more guard-oriented lineups because it gives them a better chance to score as opposed to just using two bigs to match the size.
“I think that’s the prevailing style but we’re not playing two-stiffs. Those two guys are good players. Why would you put two guys out there that can’t score and take up space with this size? They make it harder for the other teams to score over, but they can generate more offense by putting a guard out there or somebody that can make shots,” Huggins said.
That’s not to say Huggins is against doing the same, because ultimately, he just wants to find a way to win basketball games. But he believes that the best way to do that is with a pair of capable big men on the floor at the same time patrolling the paint.
“But whatever we need to do, that’s what we’re going to do,” Huggins said.
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