MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The more I read and learn about West Virginia University freshman guard Miles McBride, the more meaningful are the words longtime college and professional football coach Gary Stevens once told me about recruiting quarterback Oliver Luck to play for the Mountaineers.
 
"If you've got two players, give me the one with the intelligence because they understand what you're talking about," Stevens said. "When you talk goals they understand that. You get a talented kid and he's dumb, all he understands is 'give me the ball … give me the ball.'" 
 
For those of you too young to remember Stevens (which there are probably more who don't than do), he was also the man responsible for bringing linebacker Darryl Talley to WVU. Talley was perhaps the school's most successful recruit over the last 45 years in either football or basketball. 
 
Stevens won a fierce recruiting battle against the Mid-American Conference to land Talley, and he beat out all of those football powers in the Ivy League to sign Luck. 
 
In other words, don't sleep on Miles McBride.
 
I know McBride's recruiting profile doesn't have a whole bunch of stars next to his name, but neither did Joe Mazzulla's. 
 
Nor Jevon Carter's. 
 
Nor Tarik Phillip's. Not even Talley going all the way back to 1978 - years before McBride's dad Walt was a star forward on some pretty good Xavier basketball teams in the mid-1980s.
 
But the guys mentioned above checked all of those boxes the best coaches value the most: 

They're talented.
 
They're savvy. 
 
They're dedicated. 
 
They're tough. 
 
They're good teammates, and most importantly, they're winners.
 
These days it's difficult to excite 66-year-old Bob Huggins, who has now seen just about everything twice on a basketball court. But when the subject turns to winning, and winners, Huggins' eyes still light up like they once did the first time he saw one of those rubber Spalding basketballs sitting underneath the Christmas tree.
 
And for somebody such as Huggins who has won so much and was forced to sit through a 21-loss basketball season last year, it's almost as if McBride is riding into Morgantown on the Carpathia.
 
This kid has done nothing but win at whatever he's done. Cincinnati Archbishop Moeller was winning football games when McBride was its quarterback until a broken foot prematurely ended his sophomore season (and his football career).
 
His injury also robbed him of 28 basketball games that year before he returned to the floor for the state semifinals. McBride got the Crusaders through that one but not the finals where it lost by one point to Massillon in an epic defensive struggle.
 
His 15 points were nearly half the team's total that night.
 
During the next two years, a fully recovered McBride led Moeller to back-to-back state championships, the most recent one coming last spring to complete a perfect 29-0 season. It was the first Ohio boys team in 24 years to run the table and win a state title, which now makes that Moeller squad one of the great basketball teams in state history.
 
When you've won as much as McBride has it's probably easier to remember the losses instead of the victories, such as that one-point defeat to Massillon in the 2017 state finals.
 
"I remember a lot about that game and I talked to guys who were seniors during that time and it still hurts," he said last month. "I wish we could have gotten it done."
 
McBride, perhaps even more so than McDonalds All-America forward Oscar Tshiebwe because Derek Culver is still standing underneath the basket, could be the necessary prescription for what the Mountaineers lacked most last season – a tough, relentless, physical perimeter defender.
 
All you have to do is pop in the tape of last year's Coastal Carolina loss in the CBI tournament to be reminded of just how bad West Virginia's perimeter defense was.
 
It was so bad that Huggins had to re-watch that game in his basement with no one else around.
 
When was the last time a Huggins-coached team gave up 109 points in a basketball game to a team not named UCLA?
 
You ask Huggins about his newcomers … Tshiebwe, easily the school's most decorated basketball recruit since Chris Brooks 33 years ago, or high-scoring junior college guards Taz Sherman and Sean McNeil, or even Arkansas transfer Gabe Osabuohien, and eventually he is going to steer the discussion in the direction of McBride.
 
He did it twice during his 40-minute session with the media yesterday afternoon to tip off preseason practice this Friday.
 
"Miles is playing great," Huggins said, unsolicited. "If we were playing today, Deuce would see a lot, a lot of playing time. He's gotten stronger. He's making shots and he defends."
 
Out of those 28 words, you can parse "a lot" (which he said twice) and "defends" to get a better idea of just how prominently McBride fits into the soon-to-be-hall-of-fame coach's plans this season.
 
This is what Huggins had to say about McBride before West Virginia departed for its 10-day tour of Spain a month ago.
 
"He's going to play – I don't know where or how, but he's tough enough, physical enough and athletic enough that I wouldn't be afraid to put him on any of the threes we're going to play," he said.
 
"I don't know if he's a point or a two, but it's kind of like what everybody said about Tarik. 'Can he handle it?' 'Well … he gets it where it's supposed to go.' 'Can he pass it?' 'Well, he generally finds the open guy' and I think Deuce is that way," Huggins added.
 
Huggins has seen enough dumb basketball lately watching AAU games to last a lifetime. He's seen a lot of it from his own guys, too. Just the other day he got his guards together and told them that he sometimes walks out onto the court now with a much greater appreciation for what he once did as a WVU player back in the mid-70s.
 
"I didn't do near the dumb things that you do," he told them, only half-jokingly. "I knew when a guy was open you were supposed to pass it to him. You're not supposed to hold it until he gets covered."
 
When you watched Bob Huggins' really good teams at Cincinnati and West Virginia they all generally possessed the same traits. 
 
They shared the ball. 
 
They played tough, relentless, in-your-face defense. 
 
They rebounded the basketball.
 
And nothing ever bothered them.
 
They played just as well on the road as they did in front of 14,000 screaming fans inside Cincinnati's Shoemaker Center or inside the WVU Coliseum. 
 
That's because Huggins surrounded himself with winners who despised losing as much as he does.
 
That might be the No. 1 reason why Miles McBride is in Morgantown right now playing college basketball for the West Virginia Mountaineers.
 
Huggins was the only coach from a major program willing to offer the 6-2 guard a scholarship after he got hurt two years ago (many of the others waited until he was healthy). Otherwise, Miles might be wearing an Ohio State, Xavier or Purdue jersey instead of a Gold and Blue Mountaineer one.
 
And as for his team's shaky perimeter D, Huggins says his guys still don't really guard anybody.
 
"But we will," he quickly added.
 
That's because freshman Miles McBride is probably going to be out there a lot doing the guarding.