Through West Virginia's four games, the Mountaineers have had things go in a few different ways.
They opened the season with a blowout win which saw them catch fire from the field. Their second win involved a second half in which they couldn't make a shot seemingly. Their third game was a blowout loss to a rival on the road. Their fourth game was a wire-to-wire bounceback victory.
Four games into this, there is still a lot to learn about the Mountaineers, but head coach Darian DeVries is hopeful he will learn a lot of those lessons this week as his team plays in the Battle 4 Atlantis tournament in the Bahamas.
"The biggest thing for us is continuing to get better and continuing to grow. I think we’re making some good strides throughout the year and this is a tremendous opportunity to see where we’re at with things. But most of all come down and compete and that’s the biggest thing we want from our team is every possession, leave it all out there," DeVries said.
WVU's fifth game of the season will be a new type of challenge, facing one of the best teams in the country in No. 3 Gonzaga. They will then have another shot at a power-four opponent in either Indiana or Louisville and then a third game against one of four teams.
"The biggest thing is we’re coming down here to compete and win some games," WVU's Tucker DeVries said. "Really, we’re here to play basketball and really focusing on that."
Through four games there have been some good and some bad from the Mountaineers, but they are still searching for more consistency and are continuing to gel as a team. Most importantly for DeVries, he sees this week as three opportunities to get three wins.
"We’re here to play basketball. We’re here to compete and try to win games and we certainly want our guys to take in the scenery and enjoy where they’re at but this is about us playing basketball," DeVries said.
WVU's Javon Small called this a business trip, and it's likely this trip could have major implications on WVU's ceiling as far as a potential postseason tournament picture goes.
Say WVU goes 1-2, for example, this week, that would mean the highest win total they could reach before Big 12 play is eight. That means they would likely have to get nine or more wins at minimum to get near the NCAA Tournament bubble. That's a lot easier said than done for a coaching staff and team that has not seen the rigor of Big 12 basketball.
DeVries knows this week will teach him a lot about his group but what he wants to see is their commitment to winning and finding a way to do the little things it takes to win games.
"For us, I felt like we’ve turned the ball over a little more than I would like for us. Continue to get great ball movement and player movement. I think we’ve really made some strides there the last week or so. The number one thing is just our overall physicality, got to continue to get better in some areas there and rebounding is definitely a big part of that. Kind of all the things that matter for winning that’s what we want to continue to put our focus on," DeVries said.
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