West Virginia Mountaineers basketball is back! The Mountaineers have opened up 2-0 to start the season for the fourth consecutive year and the second consecutive year under head coach Ross Hodge. Now, while the Mountaineers have a tough out of conference schedule they haven’t gotten into the bulk of it yet.
The two Mountaineer wins were a 91-46 win over Niagara last Monday night in the season opener, and a 91-53 over Stetson this past Friday night. Here’s what stood out to me through these two games.
Miles Sadler instantly making an impact
It took about ten minutes, but you saw how good five-star true freshman point guard Miles Sadler is AND how good he can be. Through two games, Sadler as the primary ballhandler is averaging 20 points, seven assists, two rebounds, and two steals to go with shooting 56% from the field and 33% from three. Yeah that’s pretty good. Again it’s only been two games and they haven’t faced a high major opponent yet, but the 19 year old freshman has not looked fazed in his first two games at the division one level. He also is extremely quick, if he intercepts a pass he is as good as gone you can’t catch him.
Sadler was already one of, if not the main reason I was excited for this season of Mountaineer hoops and I can’t wait to see how his game grows as he gets more and more reps.
Guards Are Really Good
Miles Sadler isn’t the only guard making headlines for the Mountaineers, pretty much every guard that was expected to have a role on this team has shown enough reasons to be excited. Saint John’s transfer Jonson Sanon is the Mountaineer’s second leading scorer averaging 13 points a game, while Butler transfer Finley Bizjack is third averaging 12 points a game. Florida State transfer Martin Somerville and Utah transfer Seydou Traore are averaging nine and six points per game respectively.
Through two games you can see that this Mountaineer guard rotation has a bunch of guys that can score and get a bucket when you need them to. I’ll be interested to see how each of these players see their roles change as they face tougher competition, but it is good to see that Ross Hodge will have multiple guys that can get a bucket on the floor at all times.
Bigger than last year
One reason I am bullish on Miles Sadler working for this team come Conference play is that even though he’s listed at 6’0 that won’t be that big of an issue because of the size of teammates he’ll be sharing the court with. This Mountaineer team is BIG and LONG, certainly the biggest and longest since I started watching as a freshman in 2018. They’ve had big and long guys over the years like Oscar Tshiebwe, Jesse Edwards, Amani Hansberry, and Harlan Obioha to name a few. But those are guys that were spread out over different iterations of West Virginia basketball. Here are the sizes of players on this iteration of WVU basketball that will share the court: Brenen Lorient 6’6, Amadou Seini 7′ 1, Mouhammed Sylla 6 ’10, Javan Buchanan 6′ 7. That is going to allow the guards to have a lot of freedom in how they run the offense. They’ll be able to get into pick and rolls and mismatches on defense while also having guys that they can get the ball to in the post. It’s also going to give the Mountaineers a much needed presence when they get into the bulk of their non-conference slate, and in conference play. They have been able to use the size to their advantage so far, I will be interested to see how they match up against Auburn and North Carolina in the coming weeks.
Those are a few things I’ve noticed through two games of Mountaineer basketball. I am very excited to learn more about this in the coming games. They have one more “tune up game” against Mercer this Thursday at 7 o’clock before taking on Auburn next Tuesday. I can’t wait. Let’s Go!
