West Virginia big Wague impressing in early season

Mohamed Wague is making his presence known.

Through three games, Wague has played 53 minutes but turned that into a highly productive line of 30 points on 14-15 shooting with 15 rebounds and 2 blocks and 2 steals.

The one-time soccer player has become the best finisher at the rim for West Virginia after coming off a season where he was a first-team all-American at the junior college level a season ago. Last season at Harcum College, Wague averaged 14.8 points and 11.9 rebounds per game and has carried that over.

Wague has impressed not only with his skill but his length and athleticism.

Despite Wague spending time at Scotland Prep, the Mountaineers got involved after former assistant Erik Martin scouted him during his time at the junior college level. Martin saw Wague play and then urged head coach Bob Huggins to come and see him.

“I said how good is he? He said I don’t know but you have to go see him,” Huggins recalled.

What stood out to Huggins immediately was his overall agility, but that became even more intriguing after he displayed the ability to catch the basketball. That isn’t always the case that those two skills mesh and when you factor in his ability to finish it made sense for the Mountaineers.

Wague isn’t even close to a finished product at this stage, but there’s plenty of reasons to be excited.

“He’s got to get stronger but that will come. His potential is great. It’s not good, it’s great and he’s just got to continue to work at things,” Huggins said.

It’s a fast track for Wague considering he only picked up the sport of basketball around five years ago. He quickly translated that from the high school level to prep school and finally junior college.

He realized that basketball might have been in his cards when he would play in the park and others would tell him that given his size and athleticism perhaps he should invest in the sport full-time.

“That’s where I really started playing,” Wague said.

Wague realizes that he still has a long ways to go in terms of his development, but being able to practice against the current bigs on the roster is something that has helped him refine things in short order.

“His mobility is second to none,” Tre Mitchell said.

The schedule is only going to get more difficult from here, but given his length and upside there are a lot of reasons to be excited about what he has brought to the table through the early going of the season.

Perhaps the best of what the Mali native has to offer hasn’t even been tapped yet.

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