COLUMN: Sadler’s impact on WVU as a freshman is unrivaled
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The topic we're about to discuss will come with some obvious asterisks for a number of reasons, including the amount of information that was available upon Miles Sadler's enrollment at WVU in 2026 was not readily available for all other WVU incoming freshmen before him.
There was an interesting debate in the preseason as to whether or not the Bella Vista (Ariz.) High product was WVU's highest-ranked recruit ever to put on a Mountaineers' uniform.
The answer: It depends.
There are different recruiting services out there now than there were when Oscar Tshiebwe signed in 2018 and nearly double the amount of recruiting analysts and websites than when Devin Ebanks signed at WVU in 2009.
Public recruiting sites were still somewhat in their infancy when Jonathan Hargett enrolled in 2001 and there was no such thing as the internet when Chris Brooks enrolled in 1987, after becoming the school's first McDonald's All-American to sign with the Mountaineers.
In 1964, all the recruiting front had was "Parade Magazine," which listed Weirton's own Ron "Fritz" Williams as a second-team All-American. He was generally considered a top 10 recruit when he signed with the Mountaineers.
Technically - and that's an important word for this subject - you could find some old Rivals.com ranking that had Ebanks rated higher than Sadler or an ESPN ranking from 2001 that did the same for Hargett. You can also find other lists in 2009 that didn’t even rank Ebanks or some that didn’t have Hargett ranked as highly as ESPN, hence the debate.
Here's what's not up for discussion: It took all of two games of Sadler's first season to prove he's the best of that group, regardless of what the rankings may say.
"I feel like I’m seeing the game slow down and I’m able to find my teammates, because I feel like we have some of the best shooters in the country,” Sadler said after putting up 25 points and six assists against Stetson last week.
Through his first two college games, Sadler is averaging 20.5 points, 7.5 assists and is shooting 57% from the floor.
If that's how things look while slowing down, just imagine what it could look like when Sadler is truly comfortable with the speed and talent level of the college game.
"He’s confident when he’s on a basketball floor,” WVU head coach Ross Hodge said. “I don’t coach him like he’s a freshman. He does some freshman things, but we hold him to a high standard and he holds himself to a high standard.”
The thought of Sadler's impact being at the highest level as a freshman is one measured strictly by his obvious talent level and his statistics at the moment. He will have the opportunity in the weeks and months to come to add to that through WVU winning games, possibly getting back into the top 25 polls and whatever may follow after that.
And by saying Sadler may finish as the most impactful freshman for the WVU men's hoops program ever, well, that also comes with some asterisks.
First, you have to remember guys like Williams, Jerry West, Mark Workman, "Hot" Rod Hundley and Rod Thorn were not permitted to play as freshmen, due to NCAA rules at the time.
If they had been granted that right, then technically – there's that word again - we wouldn't even be having this discussion at all.
And also, there was something called the "Scholastic Coach Magazine" that circulated in 1956 that listed West as a national high school All-American - along with the likes of Oscar Robertson and Jerry Lucas - but the more referenced "Parade Magazine" didn't begin until 1957, when West was already at WVU.
If there had been a more established recruiting database back in the 1950s, then West would unmeasurably be at the top of the list pretty much like he is with everything else associated with WVU men's basketball.
For now, we stick with how Sadler can evolve into being the top freshmen to impact WVU hoops. Winning is how it happens. There are some major opportunities for Sadler and WVU to turn some heads.
North Carolina is on the schedule. Kansas may be a nonconference opponent in Las Vegas, as well as during the Big 12 season. There are rivalry games with Virginia Tech and Pitt. Wake Forest might be interesting. Auburn should be a very interesting matchup. Then comes Big 12 play.
WVU won with Tshiebwe as a freshman. Unfortunately, we never got to see how that potential fully played out due to COVID-19 cutting that season short.
WVU was an NIT team during Brooks' freshman season. It was a disaster during Hargett's freshman season. Ebanks helped lead WVU to the NCAA tournament as a freshman, but a first-round loss to Dayton made that first year sort of ho-hum.
Obviously, Ebanks' larger impact on the program came a year later during WVU's run to the 2010 Final Four.
Which sort of leaves the door open for Sadler to impact the program as a freshman like it's never been impacted before.
So far, so good.
"His heart is in the right place, and he'll continue to get better," Hodge said of Sadler. "He has merged his heart for being coached with his humility and combines it with his high level of confidence and competitive spirit."