MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Taz Sherman is one of the rare players who gets to walk twice on Senior Day.
 
He did it last year when West Virginia played Oklahoma State inside the WVU Coliseum last March, and he is doing it again Saturday afternoon when the Mountaineers wrap up the regular season against TCU. This time, Taz knows for sure this is his last one.
 
"Last year, during the whole senior year, I wasn't really thinking about coming back or not because I wasn't sure when the COVID (rule) got enacted, so I wasn't really focused on a decision to come back," he admitted. "I was treating my senior night like it was going to be my last one. When I decided to come back, I realized I was going to have another one."
 
Which means his future mancave is going to have a couple of nice framed West Virginia basketball jerseys on his wall.
 
"Yeah, I get an extra jersey," he laughed. "I've still got to get my picture. It's up in coach (Larry) Harrison's office. I haven't taken it home yet, and it's a big picture, so I will have two of those, hopefully."
 
That's the least he can get for a senior season that hasn't gone the way anyone planned. At one point this year, the Mountaineers were cruising along at 13-2 and fans were complaining about West Virginia not getting enough Top 25 votes.
 
Then came that second half at Kansas and since then, West Virginia has been a completely different basketball team. The Mountaineers have lost 14 of their last 15 games and a season that once seemed so promising 40-some days ago is now on life support.
 
Sherman, who was threatening to become West Virginia's first 20-points-per-game scorer since Drew Schifinio did it in 2003, is having one of the better statistical seasons a Mountaineer player has enjoyed since West Virginia joined the big leagues in the Big East for the 1995-96 season.
 
We're talking about guys such as Damian Owens (16.5 ppg in 1998), Calvin Bowman (17.6 ppg in 2001), Schifino (20.1 ppg in 2003), Kevin Pittsnogle (19.3 ppg in 2006), Joe Alexander (16.9 ppg in 2008), Da'Sean Butler (17.2 ppg in 2010), Kevin Jones (19.9 ppg in 2012), Juwan Staten (18.1 ppg in 2014), Jevon Carter (17.3 ppg in 2018) and Deuce McBride (15.9 ppg in 2021).
 
You can add Sherman's name to this list of big-time Mountaineer scorers playing a big-time college basketball schedule. This year, in Sherman's case, it's against the third-strongest basketball slate in the country and all of those schools' No. 1 objective has been to take away Taz Sherman by any means possible.
 
In certain situations, such as the Baylor game, it's also resulted in him getting knocked completely out of the game. His no-call concussion against the Bears not only cost him the remainder of the Baylor loss, but also West Virginia's next defeat against Texas Tech.
 
"It's been a rollercoaster," Sherman admitted. "Obviously, this has not been the year we thought we were going to have. We're way better than our record shows, but injuries come with the game. You kind of know every athlete battles through some type of injury pretty much every day. The COVID really slowed me down early on and it took a while for me to come back."
 
Despite scoring 23 in recent games against Kansas State and TCU, he's not been the same Taz Sherman we saw at the beginning of January when he was getting 20 a night. Sitting on the dais talking to reporters Friday morning, his eyes looked tired, and he was sitting slumped in his chair with a t-shirt dangling from his thin arms.
 
He had the look of a guy who has been beaten up 28 times this year – something he said he was fully prepared for when the season began.
 
"I knew teams were going to look at our team and say, 'Who are their guys?'" Sherman admitted. "They look at the two secondary perimeter scorers from last year being me and Sean (McNeil) and they said 'those two people might be the guys so let's focus on them a little bit.' 
 
"I kind of prepared for it because in junior college I faced this same type of thing," he added. "I was the leading scorer on my junior college team, averaging 14-15 points, but people weren't really super-focused to how they are this year. So I compare my sophomore year in junior college to this year now. I have a lot of attention on me."
 
Yes he does.
 
He's also had some really tough breaks, according to his coach, Bob Huggins.
 
"I think Taz started out the season and then he sprained his ankle. He's had like one thing after another," Huggins said. "It's sad to see a guy who has put the time and effort in that he has and hasn't been able to play to his fullest. He fought the concussion. We had to be like, 'Relax, slow down.' Things happen like that and it's unfortunate."
 
Still, Sherman has already done enough to put his mark on Mountaineer basketball. He played on an NCAA Tournament team last year and should have been on an NCAA Tournament team in 2020 when the season was canceled because of COVID-19.
 
He scored 1,000 points in less than 90 career WVU games and is currently 48^th on the school's all-time scoring list heading into the regular season finale against TCU.
 
He's the second-leading scorer in the Big 12 playing on a team that doesn't have a reliable supporting scorer close to the basket such as Kansas' David McCormack has been for the Big 12's top point-getter Ochai Agbaji. When Taz puts the ball on the floor, he's automatically dealing with at least two defenders and 10 different eyeballs so from that perspective, the respect is there.
 
Keep that in mind when Sherman's name is called Saturday afternoon by public address announcer Bill Nevin one final time before he walks out on the carpet with his mother and younger brother. Also, don't forget that he scored all those points against one of the toughest schedules in school history!
 
For his part, Sherman said he will be thinking about all of the great friendships he's made during the last three years living in Morgantown, a mere 20-hour drive from his home in Missouri City, Texas.
 
"The teammates I've been around, the diversity and the different types of people I've met since I've been here is the most important thing to me," he said. "I feel relationships and friendships are way more important than basketball. 
 
"To be able have conversations 20 years from now with your former teammates and how much fun we had … to all my guys since I've been here from Jermaine Haley, Chase Harler, Brandon Knapper, Derek Culver, Deuce McBride to the guys this year. We have relationships and bonds that will last a lifetime."
 
Joining Taz for their final carpet walks will be Dimon Carrigan, Malik Curry, Kedrian Johnson, Sean McNeil, Gabe Osabuohien and Pauly Paulicap.
 
Tip off for Saturday's game is 2 p.m. and it will air on Big 12 Now on ESPN+ (Mark Neely and Lance Blanks). Mountaineer Sports Network radio coverage with Tony Caridi and Jay Jacobs starts at 1 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app WVU Gameday.
 
Fans listening on satellite radio can get the MSN broadcast on XM channel 381 and channel 971 on the Sirius/XM app.