MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Watching Taz Sherman play so far this season, you get the feeling that he's capable of scoring 40 points in a game at some point this year, and you also get the feeling that he could become West Virginia's first 20-points-per-game scorer since guard Drew Schifino did it 18 years ago in 2003.
 
Sherman is averaging 20.5 points over West Virginia's first six games, including a career-high 28 in the Mountaineers' 80-77 win over Eastern Kentucky last Friday night. But the 6-foot-4, 190-pound guard really hasn't found his shooting stroke yet, connecting at a Hot Rod Hundley-like 40.4% on his 104 field goal attempts so far this year.
 
Hundley was just a career 35.4% shooter despite being one of college basketball's most prolific scorers in the mid-1950s.
 
All-America guard Wil Robinson scored 706 points in 24 games for the Mountaineers in 1972 to set the school record with an average of 29.42 points per game, a mere .13 better than Jerry West's 29.29 scoring average in 31 games in 1960.
 
Ten different players have averaged more than 20 points per game in a season, doing it a total of 18 times. Center Mark Workman was the first in 1951, while Robinson and Hundley accomplished the feat three times each – Hundley because he wanted to and Robinson because he had to. West, Workman and guards Rod Thorn and Ron Williams did it twice, while forward Carl Head and guards Lowes Moore, Greg Jones and Schifino did it once. 
 
Sherman probably most resembles Schifino in size (Schifino was 6-foot-3, 190 pounds), and he is also similar to Schifino in his ability to finish at the rim.
 
Sherman so far has gotten a good portion of his 123 points inside the 3-point line, but he is a capable 3-point shooter, hitting 35.6% of his 3s last year. This year he's shooting just 27.8% from 3 so far this season.
 
The 28 Sherman scored last Friday night came on a season-low 15 shot attempts. Four of his eight field goals were from 3, and he also got eight points at the free throw line. 
 
Therefore, you get the feeling that it's only a matter of time before Sherman puts it all together and has one of those nights like Da'Sean Butler did against Villanova on Feb. 13, 2009 when he scored a career-high 43.
 

Butler is the last Mountaineer player to score 40 points in a game for the Mountaineers. Coach Bob Huggins said Monday afternoon that he sees some similarities between the two players.
 
"(Sherman) reminds me of Da' in the way he can get his feet down," Huggins explained. "He can come off a screen and get his feet down where a lot of people have a hard time getting their feet down. Da' was fantastic at it, and he was fantastic at fading.
 
"(Butler) could start, bump off a screen, fade and get his feet down and get his feet under him where he got his legs into his shot, and Taz is similar to that."
 
Huggins recalled an instance during last year's Big 12 Tournament when Sherman used an elevator screen in impressive fashion. For the unfamiliar, an elevator screen is when two offensive players move together after a third player runs between them to receive a pass in a shooting position. It's a play the Golden State Warriors have used with great success.
 
"He came through those two guys and they closed, and it was masterful how he got his feet down and got the shot off," Huggins said.
 
Although Huggins has yet to have a West Virginia player average 20 points per game for an entire season, he had a history of them at Cincinnati and Akron. For the Bearcats, guard Steve Logan did it in 2002 and forward Danny Fortson did it twice in 1996-87.
 
Akron guard Eric McLaughlin averaged 22.5 points per game in 1989 while forward Marcel Boyce averaged 20 in 1987. Huggins says all great scorers can score anywhere on the floor, to a degree, but they all have their preferences of where they like to do it.
 
For Sherman, he prefers to go inside-out.
 
"I tend to try starting off the game by getting to the rim first, to the mid-range first or to the free throw line and then I can really get my shot going," he said.
 
Sherman said it really starts during pregame warmups for him.
 
"When I shoot shots, I'm looking at how my shots are going in," he explained. "It's not about if I'm making them or not. There is such a thing as shooter's makes when sometimes the ball goes in a little differently."
 
The Missouri City, Texas, resident was one of the top scorers in the junior college ranks in 2019, averaging 25.9 points per game at Collin College in McKinney, Texas. He said he once scored 48 points in a triple-overtime game against Ranger College, coached then by Billy Gillespie.
 
"I was cramping up so bad," Sherman recalled. "I think I played like 50-some minutes in that game."
 
It's clear Sherman is capable of getting on a roll - something that hasn't happened yet at West Virginia. The 28 he scored against Eastern Kentucky didn't really seem like that many during the game.
 
"It's crazy," he said. "I didn't even feel like I was scoring all of those points because I never looked at (the video board)," he admitted. "I didn't even know until they told me afterward. It kind of felt weird."
 
To get on one of those rolls, Sherman said it's going to be a matter of making the easy shots, not the hard ones.

"I tend to make the hard ones, but I've got to make the ones when I'm open," he explained. "That's what is really going to propel me into tournament play and all of that."
 
Huggins has seen his share of 40-point games through the years. His players have had them at Akron, Cincinnati and West Virginia. He's also seen his teammates do it a time or two.
 
So, can Sherman do it this year? Only nine different West Virginia players have done it at total of 26 times ever. Hundley and Robinson did it six times each, Workman and West four times, forward David Reaser twice in 1966-67 and four others (Thorn, Butler, Moore and Stan Boskovich) once.
 
"We may need more than that from him," Huggins admitted. "If you hadn't noticed, our other guys really aren't ringing the bell a lot right now."
 
Sherman will take another crack at it on Tuesday night against 2-5 Bellarmine at the WVU Coliseum. The Knights have played one of the most difficult early season schedules in college basketball with games already in the books at No. 2 Purdue, at No. 3 Gonzaga and at No. 5 UCLA.
 
Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. The game will be televised locally on Big 12 Now on ESPN+. Tickets are still available and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.