West Virginia is getting used to these longer layoffs.

After one for the Christmas holiday, the Mountaineers now won’t play basketball for a week due to the disruption that COVID-19 continues to play on college athletics. Originally scheduled to play TCU in Fort Worth Monday night that game was previously postponed due to issues in the Horned Frogs program.

Then it hit home with guard Taz Sherman, forward Gabe Osabuohien and guard Kobe Johnson each ruled out due to COVID-19 health and safety protocols for the Texas game.

The end result was about as expected with West Virginia battling but looking like a team that was missing its best player falling to the Longhorns 74-59 in a game that really wasn’t that close.

“Obviously when you play without the best player in the league it’s going to affect you. That’s going to hurt us and the two other guys that are going to contribute a lot to us,” Huggins said.

It’s an unfortunate break for a team that has done everything asked of it when it comes to following the health and safety protocols that are in place. Even going as far to wear a mask on the plane despite it being nothing but people from within the program.

“We didn’t have to do that, but I asked them to do it and they did it. They’ve been very compliant with what I’ve asked them to do,” Huggins said.

The unexpected break caused by the postponement of the TCU game could end up being a good thing for the Mountaineers as they now will have more time to get those players back. But it isn’t a certainty that all three will be available against Kansas State in Morgantown.

“I don’t know. I’ve heard various scenarios and I don’t know which one is the believable one,” he said.

There is nothing that can be done about it bow, so the focus is simply on trying to make the best of the situation. That means focusing on things that they can control.

Huggins does think that the extra time before the next game will help to accomplish some things on the court that the team simply didn’t do in the game against Texas. He pointed to one instance in particular where he drew up a play on the sideline and then they didn’t execute it.

“We can maybe learn the sets so after a timeout we can go run a set that at least I think will work,” Huggins said. “We run around out there like we don’t know what’s going on.”

----------

• 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