MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Bob Huggins told a gathering of reporters this morning at T-Mobile Arena in Kansas City that he likes his 2022-23 West Virginia basketball team.
 
The Hall of Fame coach is certainly not deterred by the league's media poll that has his squad predicted to finish ninth out of 10 teams.
 
"We're going to be a lot better," he said. "We had a bad year. We made some mistakes that were hard to imagine that we could have made those kind of mistakes."
 
What Huggins is looking at is almost a completely new roster of players. The veteran coach hit the transfer portal hard, which greatly contributed to the nine newcomers on this year's roster.
 
South Carolina guard Erik Stevenson and Texas forward Tre Mitchell were two of the more coveted players in this year's portal, as was forward Emmitt Matthews Jr., who returns to WVU after spending one season at Washington.
 
Iowa point guard Joe Toussaint has been a solid addition, and these players will blend nicely with junior college imports Jimmy Bell Jr., who began his collegiate career at Saint Louis, Patrick Suemnick and Mohamed Wague.
 
The five holdovers from last year's team include returning starter Kedrian Johnson, so based off of what is returning from last year, it's pretty reasonable for outsiders not to expect much from a team that had a losing record last season.
 
"I like what's happened with the guys in the portal; I like their attitude," Huggins said. "Their work ethic has been really good, and it wasn't so much a year ago. I think we've gained by subtraction in some regards."
 
What confronts West Virginia is another extremely difficult schedule, perhaps one of the toughest in school history. Five Big 12 teams begin the season ranked in the Top 25, including Kansas and Baylor tied at No. 5. 
 
The national media is expecting Texas (No. 12) and TCU (No. 14) to be strong this year, as well as Texas Tech (No. 25).
 
"I think if you take a look at NBA draft picks over the years, (the Big 12) is incredible, the amount of No. 1 picks and first rounders," Huggins said. "There's great players in the league, for one, and there's been great coaching in the league. How do you get better coaches than the coaches we have in this league?
 
"There's no easy out," he continued. "We show it to recruits all the time, the number of people from this league that have gone on and not just played in the NBA, but starred. You don't do that unless you are a really good player. The players and coaches have made it a great league."
 
Outside of league play, West Virginia plays No. 15 Auburn in the Big 12/SEC Challenge and will face Xavier, one of the favorites to win the Big East, in the Big 12/Big East Battle.
 
WVU will play Purdue in Portland and could also meet either No. 2 Gonzaga or No. 7 Duke out there as well as part of the Phil Knight Legacy event.
 
Huggins was one of 10 coaches on the dais speaking to media. New Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark also took his turn behind the microphone.
 
The New Yorker is bullish on the Big 12, and he believes the conference is going to secure a lucrative TV deal despite losing stalwarts Texas and Oklahoma to the SEC after the 2024-25 season.
 
"I know the media has stated that with the loss of Texas and Oklahoma, our number would go backwards. Let me say it very clearly: we are not going backwards, and we're not staying flat. We're going up," he said.
 
"The question is how far up? So we grow revenue when you think of our multimedia rights deal. Beyond that, we need to diversify revenue. We need to have events and know how to monetize them. How do we provide premium experiences? Do we create a direct-to-consumer platform that helps us connect with our displaced fans?"
 
Yormark also touched on the topic of expansion, which continues to be on the minds of college sports fans since USC and UCLA announced last summer they plan to leave the Pac 12 for the Big Ten in the future.
 
"There's enormous opportunity for this conference, expansion, potentially," he said. "We'll see where that takes us. If it's additive, as I've said before, we'll pursue it. If not, I'm thrilled with where we are today and the composition of this conference, especially with the four new institutions coming in in July.
 
"There are lots of opportunities to take advantage of," Yormark said.
 
West Virginia will play Bowling Green in a charity exhibition game to benefit the Norma Mae Huggins Cancer Research Endowment Fund at WVU Medicine on Friday Oct. 28. That game will tip off at 7 p.m.
 
The season opener will take place on Monday, Nov. 7 against Mount St. Mary's at the WVU Coliseum. That contest will also get underway at 7 p.m.
 
Season tickets remain on sale and can be purchased through the Mountaineer Ticket Office by logging on to WVUGAME.com.