West Virginia Mountaineers basketball could use more three guard lineups

The West Virginia basketball team is still very much a work in progress but head coach Bob Huggins already has an idea of how things are going to look this year.

And it could be quite different than what you’ve become used to.

The Mountaineers won’t be joined by two players on the trip to Spain as they finish up their coursework in guard Taz Sherman and forward Ethan Richardson, while the 13th and final scholarship has yet to be filled but expect the Mountaineers to utilize a three-guard lineup more this upcoming season.

“We can get away with playing three perimeter guys because we’ve got a couple small guards but we’ve also got some big guards ...” he said. “We’ll be able to play three guards a lot more than we’ve played three guards in a long time.”

The roster clearly dictates some of that with six guards out of the ten players on scholarship that are currently with the team but the size of options such as the 6-foot-7 Jermaine Haley and the 6-foot-3 Sean McNeil helps the Mountaineers in regards to rebounding the ball.

Now that doesn’t mean that West Virginia won’t continue to throw the ball into the post to sophomore Derek Culver or true freshman McDonald’s All-American Oscar Tshiebwe.

No, in-fact Huggins plans to use both of them together on the floor at the same time with triangle principles which the veteran coach has used in the past.

Although both offer a similar skill set in the front court, to go along with Logan Routt, who was placed on scholarship, the goal is to create an edge on the glass.

“A lot of rebounds. Back to dominating the glass like we did at one time,” he said. “The last time we were able to play two bigs together like that was Kenyon (Martin) and Jermaine Tate.”

The issue that has kept Culver from reaching his potential off the floor has been what Huggins simply refers to as a “timeliness issue,” although the sophomore has done a much better job in that department with only one such instance this summer. It’s not as if he misses a lot of time, but still punctuality has been the focus in order to mature off the court as well as on it.

As far as the newcomer Tshiebwe, while he doesn’t really know what he is doing yet on the floor he plays with maximum effort and runs up and down the floor. He is long and is able to get to balls that others can’t and being able to go against Culver as well as Routt daily only can help his development.

The other newcomer in McNeil is a big guard that has the ability to hit shots.

While Jordan McCabe and Emmitt Matthews have been vocal leaders off the floor, on it McCabe is now fully cleared after off-season surgery and Huggins believes that Matthews has made significant strides in his game.

"He's obviously put a lot of time in," he said.

The plan is to move into the press once things develop over time, but Huggins says that they still have some ways to go in that department before it will be effective and might not be a factor in Spain.

“Not sure we’ll get to do it in Spain but we will get to do it,” he said.

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