MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — Bob Huggins reads down West Virginia’s roster with an eye towards caution.
“You look at the majority of guys we think are veterans, but they’re just sophomores,” Huggins said. “We’re still really young. We kind of want to look at Emmitt (Matthews) and Jordan (McCabe) as veterans, but we’re not where we’ve been before when we were pretty good, where we had a lot of experience and guys who have been through it.”
It has made for a preseason of ups and downs for the Mountaineers, who are trying to rebound coming off a 15-21 season.
Chase Harler, Jermaine Haley and Logan Routt are the only seniors. Haley is just in his second season and Routt is a former walk-on who was awarded a scholarship this summer.
“I kind of know what we’re going to get from those older guys,” Huggins continued. “I don’t know what we’re going to get from the freshmen and our junior-college guys.”
All of the uncertainty will be on display at the WVU Coliseum at 7 p.m. Friday, during the annual Gold-Blue Debut, which will feature a team scrimmage among the festivities.
There is the argument that the times of college basketball have changed and underclassmen are at a peak when it comes to contributing and making impacts at the Division I level.
That thought is not lost on this WVU bunch and the players are not backing away from confidence just because there are nine players on the roster either in their first or second season with the team.
“You’ve had programs with freshman that have won and you’ve had programs with sophomores that have won,” said Matthews, who started the final 12 games of last season. “Us coming in as sophomores with that one year of experience under our belts, it’s not like we were playing mediocre teams. We’re playing in the best conference in basketball.
“Having young guys back, I think we have a core pieces that we need. That experience from last year helps. People can say, ‘Oh, you’re still young.’ We have veteran leadership. Guys like me, Jordan and Derek (Culver) are taking on leadership roles to help the younger guys and we’ll just go from there.”
Huggins has noted many times that this bunch has a better attitude towards learning and working together, even going as far as admitting that fact probably makes him better to be around at practice.
“We’ve had quite a few really good practices. Last year, they were few and far between as far as walking away from a drill in practice saying ‘We’ve got something done,’ ” McCabe said. “That hasn’t been an issue this year. We all want to be here and we all want to work. The biggest change is when guys want to be here, good things happen.”
GOLD-BLUE DEBUT
WHEN: 7 p.m. Friday, WVU Coliseum. Gates open at 6 p.m.
ADMISSION: Free and parking is free at the Coliseum.
WHAT TO EXPECT: The WVU men’s basketball team will be introduced and coach Bob Huggins will address the crowd. A team scrimmage will follow and an autograph session will be held on the floor following the scrimmage.
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