MORGANTOWN — It was still a few hours away from Hope Coliseum being filled with fans and anticipation and Honor Huff was putting up one shot after another.
The first one falls, then another and another. It is a near constant sound of the ball swishing through the net before landing with a hard echoing thud on the empty arena floor.
“At shootaround, I think I only saw him miss once or twice,” said WVU guard Treysen Eaglestaff.
It’s the kind of scene WVU fans have generally come to expect from Huff. Twenty-two games into the season, the 5-foot-9 guard from Brooklyn, N.Y. has overcome his small stature time and again to hit the biggest shots of the Mountaineers’ season.
Many have come from 30-plus feet. Some have come off-balanced or off one leg. Doesn’t matter. Huff launched them anyway and they went in.
“He’s certainly raised the bar from an expectations level that when he shoots it, you think it’s going in regardless of how difficult it is or how deep it is,” WVU head coach Ross Hodge said. “You get used to those shots going in.”
When they don’t, that’s the other side of the spectrum. It’s the side that was in full view in West Virginia’s 63-53 loss against Baylor, in which Huff was just 1 of 9 from 3-point range and 1 of 13 from the floor overall.
Following the game, no blame was placed on the loss at Huff’s feet. Eaglestaff, who is also Huff’s roommate, was quick to note that.
“It was really just the luck of the draw that some of those shots rimmed out and didn’t go in for him,” Eaglestaff continued. “We have full belief in him and what he can do with a basketball and we’ll never tell him not to shoot the basketball. Even after a night like this, we know what he can still do.”
Hodge told a somewhat different story. Maybe no one inside the program eyed Huff’s off night. That did not include Huff himself.
“What you love about Honor is he is going to take ownership and accountability,” Hodge said. “He’s already down there on the floor getting some shots up. He’ll learn from it and get better.”
West Virginia’s offense has not been a well-oiled machine this season. Even with Huff ranking in the top five nationally in 3-pointers, the Mountaineers (14-8, 5-4 Big 12) are still last in the Big 12 in scoring (70.8 points per game) heading into Thursday’s road game against Cincinnati.
Big nights from Huff – he’s had seven games this season with at least 23 points – or even from Eaglestaff or Brenen Lorient somehow always served as a distraction to that fact. Their ability to make a shot at the right moment, coupled with WVU’s defensive capabilities, still produced a winning formula.
“You know if you miss shots, like, you could go 5 for 20. It doesn’t matter as long as you can get stops,” Eaglestaff said. “In the Big 12, we know individually that we all have to play better. We’re playing the highest level of college basketball, so we all have to get back to work.”
That is where WVU finds itself this week, getting back to work, because the Mountaineers find themselves in a scoring drought heading into the second half of the Big 12 season. WVU hasn’t reached 60 points in its last three games.
That stood out against Baylor, a game that saw WVU fall behind 15-5 early, before going nearly eight minutes of the second half without a point.
“It starts with me, obviously,” Hodge said. “Everything that happens poorly in this program is on me. If it’s a slow start or not finishing great or poor stretches of play, ultimately it’s on the head coach. We’ll evaluate it all and go back and look at those possessions and try to take the emotions out of it and be objective as you can when you’re evaluating it. Like, is this a good shot or is this not a good shot?”
Defenses have begun to play Huff physically. That’s expected in the Big 12. As Eaglestaff said, it’s what WVU players signed up for this season in order to get their shot at playing some big-time college basketball.
The loss to Baylor put the Mountaineers firmly in the prove-it stage, as in it’s time to start playing at the highest level or forget about good postseason play.
Can Huff get going again? He’s shooting a combined 28% from the floor over his last six games. There are other questions, too. Can Harlan Obioha be a force in the middle? Can Eaglestaff be a consistent scorer to take heat off of Huff?
Hodge looks the other way. It’s always defense first with him.
“You talk about it during timeouts that, hey, we don’t have to press offensively, but we’re going to have to play with a higher level of desperation and urgency on the defensive end of the floor,” he said. “That’s where your urgency needs to kick in.”
As for WVU’s offense? Hodge likes the shots the Mountaineers are getting. His belief is those shots will begin to go in.
“Offensively, you just have to keep letting the game come to you and make the right play,” Hodge said. “More often than not, when guys are put in those positions, they’ve proven that they can make those shots.”
“We have to evaluate everything. It starts with me and I have to do a better job.”
