MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - For all you parents out there putting your eggs into one basket by having your children concentrate solely on one sport, consider Sagaba Konate's path to major college basketball success.
 
His road to West Virginia University, Big 12 Conference basketball and possibly beyond didn't just come by way of blacktop courts and air-conditioned gymnasiums. It also included the soccer fields where his love of athletics first developed in his native Bamako, Mali.
 
"I didn't really take basketball seriously until I got (to the U.S.) in 2014," Konate said recently.
 
He was a soccer player first before crossing over to the hardwood once he hit a four-inch growth spurt between his 16^th and 17^th birthdays. And Konate wasn't a goalkeeper, either, but rather a 6-foot-4-inch striker with the ability to score goals.
 
That helps explain his amazing feet, timing and coordination - a rare combination to see in a man his size (6-feet-8 inches, 260 pounds).
 
"I always liked to block shots and dunk the ball, that's all I did in high school," Konate admitted. "I didn't really work on my post-up moves and stuff like that."
 
Joe Alexander had some of Konate's explosiveness when he was at West Virginia before becoming an NBA first-rounder and now playing overseas.
 
Many, many years before, Chris Brooks had some of what Konate has around the basket, too, but Brooks was 2 ½ inches shorter than Sags and didn't have Konate's soft hands nor his deft shooting touch.
 
There are likely others I am forgetting, but the point is what Konate possesses is rare, especially around here. The most exciting part of his game is that he's barely scratched the surface playing for one of the best instructors anywhere, Bob Huggins.
 
The list of bigs Huggins has developed is long and impressive, names such as Kenyon Martin, Danny Fortson, Corie Blount, Jason Maxiell, Pete Mickeal and Dontonio Wingfield during his time at Cincinnati, Bill Walker during his brief one-year stay at Kansas State and more recently at West Virginia, Joe Alexander and Kevin Jones.
 
All of them were slightly different, but they turned into NBA players because Huggins helped them focus on the specific things they could do well - whether it was scoring, posting up, defending, blocking shots, passing or doing a combination of all the above in the case of Martin.
 
Where exactly Konate sits in relation to some of his best guys is a question Huggins probably won't answer candidly, but there is no question Konate possesses some of their outstanding qualities.
 
He's got some of Martin's explosiveness and timing near the rim, although Martin was slightly taller and was able to perform his amazing feats on a much more consistent basis and for far longer than Konate has been able to do at this point in his young career.
 
He's got some of Fortson's and Maxiell's girth down low near the basket, but those guys were far better finishers around the rim than Konate is right now.
 
He's even got a little of Jones' smooth shooting stroke on the perimeter, although Konate's range is not nearly as deep as KJ's nor can he make them as consistently as Jones did during his outstanding career at WVU.
 
What Konate has is an abundance of potential, and it's Huggins' job to figure out how to help Konate tap into that potential and transform it into production.
 
What we saw from Konate during his freshman year was a rollercoaster ride. One night he was outstanding, such as his 13-point, eight-rebound, three-block performance against TCU would suggest.
 
Then three nights later against Baylor, he completely disappeared. It was that way for nearly the entire season.
 
"I thought the language barrier really hurt him," Huggins said after Saturday's 35-point win over Texas. "But his English is pretty good now. He knows a lot of words now that he probably shouldn't know!"
 
Huggins was probably using some of those words at the beginning of this year when Konate started it with four points and six rebounds in a season-opening loss to Texas A&M, followed four days later by a one-game disciplinary suspension for the American game.
 
Two games after that, he responded with a career-high 20 points, seven rebounds and four blocks against Long Beach State, proceeded three games later by Missouri when he scored just two points, grabbed one rebound and used up all of his fouls in WVU's come-from-behind victory over the Tigers.
 
"We've had a tendency to play good and then kind of think we are better than we are and not do the things we need to do," Huggins explained.
 
Up and down, down and up - that was the pattern Konate was continuing to follow until things started to level off when Big 12 play began at Oklahoma State.
 
He scored 13 points, grabbed nine rebounds and blocked a shot in WVU's big road win against the Cowboys, which, by the way, looms much larger now after the Cowboys' Bedlam win over fourth-ranked Oklahoma last Saturday.
 
Since Oklahoma State, Konate has scored double figures four times, posted double-doubles in points and rebounds three out of his last five games and has blocked 26 shots in conference action heading into tonight's game against TCU.
 
His scoring and rebounding averages are up to 9.3 points and 8.2 boards per game, and he continues to shoot the ball effectively from the floor and at the free throw line.
 
And those blocks, oh those blocks … they are seemingly coming in droves now that we've reached Big 12 play. Some of them are beyond description, which has served to energize the home crowd and his teammates. It's getting to the point now where fans in the Coliseum cheer louder for a Konate block than a Mountaineer basket.
 
"We all know early on when we had a bunch of young guys in there, they're blowing their whistles right and left and come out there scratching their heads because they weren't sure what they were supposed to call," Huggins admitted. "As we've gotten into league play we've got veteran officials who know the difference between a block and a foul. I think that's helped him."
 
Last Saturday, Konate more than held his own against Texas' Mo Bamba by scoring 10 points, grabbing a career-high 14 rebounds and blocking six shots. Comparatively speaking, Bamba's numbers were nine points, 13 rebounds and four blocks.
 
Konate scored 16 points, grabbed 10 rebounds and made five spectacular blocks in West Virginia's 71-66 loss to Kansas last Monday night.
 
That's the consistency good players must demonstrate on a nightly basis. Smoothing out those ups and downs is starting to turn Konate's immense potential into production, which is what all of those outstanding bigs Huggins had through the years were able to accomplish.
 
"He's a talented guy," Huggins said.
 
"My goal is to graduate and go to the NBA, but I'm not really focusing on that right now," Konate added. "My (immediate) goal is to win a national championship here."
 
Will Konate get there?
 
Watching him try is going to be the fun part.