It’s been nearly six months since West Virginia concluded the 2015-16 men’s basketball season in Brooklyn, New York - an abrupt and unceremonious ending to what looked like another postseason run to remember.
Season sweeps of Iowa State and Baylor and an 11-point home win over No. 1-ranked Kansas had the Mountaineers hovering near the top 10 for the latter part of the year.
A dramatic, unforgettable, last-second victory over sixth-ranked Oklahoma during the Big 12 tournament semifinals that had to be confirmed afterward by replay boosted West Virginia to its first-ever Big 12 championship game appearance, where top-ranked Kansas was required to overcome a halftime deficit to capture its 10th straight Big 12 tournament title.
The final Associated Press poll had West Virginia ranked No. 8, just the eighth time in school history WVU ended the regular season ranked in the top 10. That’s how good Bob Huggins’ Mountaineers were playing at the end of the year in a basketball league most experts regarded as the best in the country.
So on the basis of that, West Virginia was the flavor of the month when the talking heads, bracketologists and experts began breaking down the NCAA tournament, many predicting another Final Four run for Huggs.
Unfortunately, about 30 minutes into the Mountaineers' second-round NCAA tournament game against Stephen F. Austin, it became clear that wasn’t going to happen.
The Lumberjacks ended up beating West Virginia the way West Virginia beat teams all season long - forcing turnovers and creating chaos.
The Mountaineers turned the ball over 22 times - 15 of those coming from just three players - and a postseason run that was supposed to take West Virginia all the way to Houston ended up getting diverted right back in Morgantown after just one big, bad bite out of the Big Apple.
Soon after the loss, soon-to-be senior forward Nathan Adrian left town for a couple of days, heading to Lake Norman near Charlotte, North Carolina, with some buddies to get his mind off the defeat, do a little contemplating and recharge his battery.
“It was a lack of focus during the week,” admitted Adrian yesterday. “We didn’t practice well and we didn’t prepare for it as well as we should have and I think they just came out ready to play. It’s a lesson you learn and hopefully we don’t do it again.”
For Adrian, one of five seniors on this year’s team, he’s learned his lesson by putting in the time this offseason to get into the best shape of his life.
It means dedicating himself to the game like he never has before, and it also means taking on an appearance that more closely resembles Happy Gilmore’s caddy than a Power 5 conference basketball player, whatever one looks like these days.
“I’ll probably shave my beard but the hair stays,” he laughed.
The word over at the basketball practice facility is Adrian has been one of the mainstays putting in the work to help get the team ready for what is shaping up to being another very challenging and demanding basketball season.
“When you realize it’s your last year, you kind of take it a little more serious, I guess,” said Adrian of his new-found resolve.
Huggins is clearly taking things seriously, based on the schedule he’s lined up for his basketball team this year.
There are late November games against Illinois and Temple back up in Brooklyn where the Mountaineers stumbled, a marquee, made-for-TV contest at Virginia on December 3, a bunch of tricky non-conference games against mid-major teams usually in the 75-to-150 range in the RPI, and then a Stillwater-to-Lubbock junket to tip off what will be another very demanding year of Big 12 basketball.
Adrian has been in on 103 of these now during his three-year career that includes a career high 16-point performance against William & Mary, several strong offensive games in league play and many, many others when he’s helped his teammates score easy baskets.
He is without question West Virginia’s best passing big man, his field goal shooting last year improved drastically to nearly 50 percent (after dipping down to 30.7 percent during his sophomore season), he’s one of the team’s better defenders and his high basketball IQ makes him a valuable asset on the court.
So far this fall, Adrian says he likes what he sees from the group of players Huggins has assembled for 2016-17.
“Everybody is playing well together,” he said. “As a whole we’re all doing well. I think we will be a more well-rounded team this year. There won’t be one guy who necessarily does everything, but we’ll all be contributing our own parts.”
Gone are West Virginia’s top two scorers, Jaysean Paige and Devin Williams, the team’s top two rebounders, Williams and Jonathan Holton and, statistically, two of the team’s better defenders - Paige and Holton.
That is what most of the outsiders see.
What those inside the basketball practice facility see are five experienced backcourt players returning in Jevon Carter, Daxter Miles Jr., Tarik Phillip, Teyvon Myers and James Long, an emerging force in small forward Esa Ahmad, some capable and experienced bigs in Elijah Macon and Brandon Watkins and some valuable additions in redshirts Lamont West, Logan Routt and James (Beetle) Bolden, as well as newcomers Maciej (Magic) Bender, Sagaba (Sags) Konate and Chase Harler.
And then, of course, there is Adrian.
It’s an interesting and intriguing mixture of players that will undoubtedly require Huggins to do some more tweaking and tinkering in his basketball laboratory. He has gotten very good at doing this lately - taking what he has and figuring out how to get the most out of them.
But one of the things he probably won’t have to do a lot of this year is yell out “PASS THE BALL!” because the ball-stoppers on offense are gone.
“We play well together. We’re sharing the ball well so we’ll see how that translates onto the court,” Adrian said.
Indeed, we will.
Official practice begins the first Monday of October and the Mountaineers will hit the road for their preseason games, first to Wheeling for the Gold-Blue Debut at the Wheeling Civic Center on Thursday, October 13, and then to Beckley on Saturday, October 29, to play West Virginia Tech at the Beckley Armory.
Just where this team fits into the national picture is still difficult to determine.
Some believe West Virginia has enough good players returning to challenge Kansas’ longstanding Big 12 reign, while others see a team that will have great difficulty replacing three significant contributors in Williams, Paige and Holton.
The latter seems to be the general impression you get from the players inside the basketball practice facility.
“Yeah, I definitely think people are sleeping on us because we ended our season so early last year and we lost a couple of guys,” Adrian admitted. “I think they’re thinking we’re going to be worse than last year and that’s not the case.”
Added Adrian, “I think we’re pretty much the same team. We’re going to play just as hard as we did last year, but I think we’re going to take care of the ball a lot better.
“And play a little smarter.”
Stay tuned.
