Between The Eers: What Could Have Been
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Good Thursday morning everybody,
00:11 Scott Callen here on Between the Ears.
00:14 Make sure you hit that subscribe button
00:16 on Mountaineers Now at our YouTube page.
00:19 Give us a like as well.
00:22 West Virginia wrapped up the home portion
00:24 of the regular season last night
00:26 with a 93 to 81 loss to the TCU Horned Frogs.
00:30 And I kind of wanted to talk about this at some point,
00:34 but I kind of wanted to wait as long as I could
00:37 so we could really just kind of focus on the season
00:39 and the issues that they were having.
00:42 But it's time, it's time, right?
00:44 It's time to talk about what this team could have been.
00:48 And we're not gonna get into the bob hugging stuff.
00:50 We've already done that.
00:51 We said we're gonna move on from that.
00:54 Yes, what happened last summer 100% absolutely impacted
00:59 what happened this season,
01:03 but we're not focusing on that
01:04 and what that whole situation was.
01:08 We're gonna just talk about
01:10 what this roster would have looked like.
01:12 So nothing controversial,
01:14 but you're talking about,
01:17 Trey Mitchell probably doesn't leave.
01:20 As a matter of fact, I would almost probably guarantee
01:22 he probably doesn't leave.
01:23 Now, maybe I'm wrong on that, I don't know.
01:26 Just from the outside in,
01:27 it seemed like he would have been a part of this.
01:31 Joe Toussaint loved West Virginia,
01:33 and I feel like he probably would have been another guy
01:36 that remained with the team.
01:39 I mean, he may have looked elsewhere
01:43 to try and get a starting spot,
01:44 but who knows, maybe he would have started here
01:47 alongside Kurt Kriese.
01:49 And maybe they go with Kur, Joe Toussaint, Rayquan Battle
01:54 as the three kind of backcourt-ish guys.
01:58 Then you go Trey Mitchell, Jesse Edwards, but who knows?
02:03 Jimmy Bell, I think, was gonna leave regardless.
02:06 But Toussaint and Mitchell, those are the big ones for sure.
02:11 Muhammad Wagi, James Akonkwo.
02:16 I feel like probably one of those may have still left,
02:21 but more than likely, you at least get two of those guys.
02:26 If both of those guys come back,
02:28 your depth in the frontcourt would have been unreal.
02:32 I mean, a complete difference from what it was this season
02:36 at the beginning where they had Jesse Edwards
02:38 and nobody else, and then Jesse Edwards goes down,
02:41 and it was really Pat Sumnick playing out of position.
02:45 So the difficult thing for, I think,
02:49 a lot of folks to really understand is
02:52 they look at the Kurt Kriese's and the Jesse Edwards's
02:57 and the Rayquan Battles of the world and think,
03:00 yeah, those guys were good,
03:02 but would they have made much of a difference
03:04 on a team that would have been completely put together?
03:08 And I think, yes, 100%, absolutely.
03:11 When you're talking about these three guys
03:13 and the guys that they're playing with right now,
03:15 and this is no ill will or disrespect
03:17 to those that are on the team,
03:18 but there's guys that are playing minutes
03:22 that probably they wouldn't have got
03:25 if the full team was together,
03:27 if Trey Mitchell and Joe Toussaint and Moe Wagee
03:31 and James Acompo were here.
03:33 And that's not, again, a disrespect or a shot at them.
03:37 It's just they weren't necessarily ready
03:39 for those types of minutes or those types of roles.
03:42 And when I look at that starting five,
03:45 I mean, again, I kind of hinted at it.
03:47 You would have Kurt Kriese, you would have Joe Toussaint,
03:51 you would have Rayquan Battle,
03:53 you would have Trey Mitchell,
03:55 you would have Jesse Edwards.
03:56 I don't know if there's a better starting five.
03:59 I don't want to say in West Virginia history
04:03 because there's been some good starting lineups,
04:06 obviously the one that went to the Final Four,
04:09 but as far as talent is concerned,
04:13 I don't know that there's much better,
04:16 at least in the Huggins era.
04:18 And when you go to the point guard position with Kerr,
04:23 I mean, to just imagine what Kerr would have done
04:28 with those guys at his disposal,
04:33 I mean, it just would have blown my mind
04:36 to see what he could have done.
04:38 I think he could have,
04:39 I don't know that he would necessarily
04:41 average a double-double with points and assists,
04:43 but he'd be pretty damn close.
04:45 Because you got to think,
04:47 all these guys that he's given the ball to now,
04:50 let's face it, they're not putting it in
04:54 as much as they probably should.
04:56 If you have Trey Mitchell,
04:58 if you have Rayquan Battle, Joe Toussaint,
05:01 all those guys are going to help you spread the floor
05:04 and open up more opportunities
05:05 for Kerr to dump it down into Jesse
05:08 or kick it somewhere out from beyond the three-point arc,
05:13 and he's probably going to end up getting
05:14 three or four more assists a game.
05:16 If you have Trey Mitchell,
05:19 Jesse Edwards isn't getting all the attention
05:22 down on the block, and vice versa.
05:25 Trey Mitchell's not getting all the attention.
05:27 Trey can stretch the floor,
05:28 he can step out and shoot threes.
05:30 That allows Jesse to kind of go one-on-one in the post.
05:33 He's not going to get doubled as much.
05:35 Rayquan Battle, you can't focus your attention on him,
05:38 and I think he would have probably benefited
05:40 more than anybody,
05:41 because you have those two anchors in the front court,
05:45 Kerr's able to slice and dice things with the ball,
05:50 and Joe Toussaint or Kobe Johnson,
05:53 whoever you want to put at the two spot,
05:56 they're capable of knocking down shots
05:58 and getting the ball to the cup.
06:00 And Rayquan Battle's the biggest factor of it all,
06:03 because he's the do-it-all guy.
06:05 He can score in all three levels.
06:07 And you can't defend him the same way with that group
06:11 as you can with this group.
06:13 So I really do believe that that team,
06:17 assuming that's the pieces that would have been there,
06:21 Trey Mitchell, Jesse Edwards,
06:23 Kerr Creasa, Joe Toussaint, Rayquan Battle,
06:27 so on and so forth,
06:29 I think they would have contended for a Big 12 title.
06:33 I really do.
06:34 And it's hard to kind of talk yourself into it,
06:36 because you look at it and there are some of those pieces
06:42 that are here and playing now,
06:44 and they've only won nine games,
06:46 but again, that starting five is much different.
06:50 The bench is much different.
06:54 The bench that's in place now,
06:56 they're not playing a whole lot of minutes
07:00 with what would have been here.
07:01 Quince Lozinski probably would have never ended up
07:04 at West Virginia.
07:05 Again, no disrespect to Quince,
07:07 but Quince probably not here.
07:09 Ofri Naveed, probably not here.
07:13 So take that for what you will.
07:17 But I think they would have finished in the top three,
07:21 top four at worst in the conference.
07:24 And that's assuming, of course,
07:27 Raekwon Battle is eligible at the start of the season.
07:32 Even if he would have become eligible
07:36 at the time that he did,
07:37 I still think this is a top four,
07:40 maybe top five Big 12 team.
07:44 And it's definitely a team that would have made some noise
07:46 in not only the conference tournament,
07:48 but the NCAA tournament,
07:50 because as you get deeper into this thing,
07:53 that team's only going to get better.
07:55 They're only going to figure each other out
07:57 more and more.
07:58 They're going to understand how each other plays.
07:59 They can play off each other more.
08:02 And I just think that the ceiling for that team,
08:06 it's really hard to put one on them.
08:08 I think at worst, they're sweet 16 caliber.
08:11 And I think you could easily say lead eight,
08:14 and maybe final four.
08:15 Again, all that depends on matchups
08:19 and the region that you're in and whatnot.
08:20 But it's just really hard, I think,
08:25 for a lot of West Virginia fans to wrap their minds around
08:28 that kind of all-star caliber team
08:33 that they could have had
08:35 and go to what they ended up having this past season,
08:43 or this season, since we're still in it.
08:46 And just kind of the chaos that came with it
08:51 and the struggles.
08:53 - It's been a brutal year.
08:55 And I feel for West Virginia fans,
08:57 because this could have been a special team.
08:59 It really could have been a really incredible year.
09:03 But it's a thing of the past.
09:08 It's something that actually was never a thing of the past.
09:11 It was kind of something up in the air
09:13 that we all kind of looked at and said,
09:17 if this team's together,
09:18 they're going to have something special,
09:21 but never came to fruition for obvious reasons
09:25 that we won't discuss here today, which we already have.
09:27 So that'll do it for me here today.
09:31 I don't want to go too much deeper into this,
09:33 but I did kind of just want to bring that up
09:35 and bring up my thoughts on what that group would have been,
09:38 how good they could have been.
09:40 I think, again, Sweet 16, for sure.
09:43 I think they could have easily won a couple of games
09:45 in the tournament, and probably then some.
09:47 Again, probably the most talented team
09:50 Huggins would have had from top to bottom at West Virginia.
09:55 So, women's conference tournament starts tonight.
10:00 West Virginia will begin their first game
10:02 in the conference tournament tomorrow.
10:04 They take on the winner of Cincinnati UCF,
10:07 and we'll kind of help follow along with that.
10:09 West Virginia men's wraps up the season
10:11 in Cincinnati on Saturday.
10:13 We'll have the post-game show for you there.
10:15 Tuesday, they begin their conference tournament play
10:18 out in Kansas City.
10:20 So, we've got more basketball talk coming up,
10:22 along with that coaching search.
10:24 So, be sure to follow along @MountaineersNow
10:27 on YouTube and our site @TheSameHandleOnX,
10:32 and make sure you hit that like
10:33 and subscribe button on our channels.
10:36 We thank you so much for tuning in,
10:37 and this has been another episode of Between The Ears.
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