West Virginia wants to get both Derek Culver and Oscar Tshiebwe going at the same time.
It’s one of the major advantages of playing the two together to find easy baskets around the rim along with controlling the glass. But it’s still very much a work in progress.
Through the first three games the pair traded off performances, as Culver even in limited action scored 29 points and 12 rebounds against Akron and Northern Colorado, while Tshiebwe accounted for 20 points and 17 rebounds against Pitt sandwiched between 9 points and 12 rebounds in the other two.
That was until the Boston game where the pair combined for 31 points and 14 rebounds, with Tshiebwe recording his second double-double in four games.
Foul trouble had been a culprit, but so as the pair attempting to figure each other out on the floor.
“They’re still getting in each other’s way we need to make sure we can give each of them a chance to get isolated,” head coach Bob Huggins said. “If they’re both isolated, they’re not scoring.”
There’s a lot of truth in that as both players want to score around the basket so they’re trying to find ways to get both in advantageous situations.
“I want to post up, he wants to post up. I get my baskets underneath the rim and he gets to the rim and makes a post move,” Tshiebwe said. “We got to know how we play. If he’s down there I have to be apt to catch the ball and look for him. We’re getting to know each other and play with each other.”
That is coming with time, and the Boston game is a sign of what could be down the road as simply putting it on the floor for stretches is a positive in itself.
“I would say that me and Oscar experienced a different experience tonight than we did the other games,” he said. “The other games we were able to get the shots we wanted but we weren’t comfortable.”
Some of this is the ongoing development of Tshiebwe as a major basketball player. While recording a pair of double-doubles in his first four games, he is still very much learning on the fly. The good news is his natural abilities and the effort he plays with on a nightly basis carries from week to week.
But with only a few years of high school under his belt, he’s still adjusting to going against bigs that are skilled and understand the game.
“We’ve got a lot of work to do with him and he’s got a lot of work to do,” Huggins said. “Just his understanding. Derek got better as the year went on a year ago and I think he continues to get better but Derek has a better understanding of when and why then Oscar does. But Oscar wants to learn.”
Huggins has tried to force the issue with his freshman and get him to slow things down so he can focus on what he needs to do with the basketball.
“That’s why today I tried to slow down a little bit,” Tshiebwe said.
Slow and steady, just like the maturation of the two bigs.
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