MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – ESPN's college basketball expert Dick Vitale continues to tout
Bob Huggins' 2020-21 West Virginia team.
Vitale, in a weekend tweet made to his 800,000-plus followers, said the Mountaineers this year are "a hoops team that will be a major factor on the national scene and the Big 12 Conference."
Vitale mentioned West Virginia's two bigs,
Derek Culver and
Oscar Tshiebwe, giving WVU "a strong inside duo."
Vitale also made it a point to ask why Huggins is not yet in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
This mirrors a tweet Vitale made earlier this month when he listed West Virginia, Kansas, Baylor, Texas Tech and Texas among the national elite teams for 2021.
"Keep this in (your) memory bank if it is all clear to have college hoops this year, the Big 12 Conference will have five national elite teams ala Kansas, Baylor, West, Virginia, Texas Tech and Texas. Bracketology has all five in their top 12!" he wrote.
West Virginia, coming off a 21-win campaign that included a 12-point home victory over fourth-ranked Baylor before the season was abruptly canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, has nearly every key player returning in 2020-21.
Huggins also has what he believes could be the best class of newcomers he's had since returning to West Virginia in 2008 that also includes freshman forward
Jalen Bridges, a top 100-caliber player who redshirted last season.
From top to bottom, this could be Huggins' most talented team at West Virginia possibly rivaling some of those outstanding Cincinnati teams he had in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
We'll see.
