MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The orange Naismith Hall of Fame blazer is back in the closet and now it's time for Bob Huggins to put on those floppy, gray sweatpants and that ubiquitous Little General Stores West Virginia pullover he always wears and get back to work.
 
Preseason practice began earlier today with a three-hour workout inside the Basketball Practice Facility.
 
The team Huggins has this year is full of new faces, although not unfamiliar ones.
 
West Virginia fans got a little taste of South Carolina guard Erik Stevenson when he was a freshman at Wichita State. Stevenson poured in a game-high 22 points when WVU defeated the Shockers down at the Hard Rock Hotel in Riviera Maya, Mexico three years ago.
 
Last year, Stevenson averaged 11.6 points and shot 33.3% from 3-point distance for former South Carolina coach Frank Martin in the SEC.
 
You should be familiar with Texas transfer Tre Mitchell as well. The Pittsburgh native was a big-time scorer at UMass before taking his talents to Austin, Texas last year. The 6-foot-9 forward averaged 8.7 points and 4.0 rebounds in 24 games for the Longhorns last year.
 
Those two were near the top on everyone's transfer portal lists.
 
"They both shoot it, and they're both competitive," Huggins said. "They both played at the highest level. They're guys that are going to be a lot more comfortable. They've played for good coaches, and they've played in very competitive leagues."
 
Point guard Joe Toussaint played 98 games at Iowa, averaging 17.6 minutes, 4.3 points and 3.2 assists per game playing Big Ten basketball over the last three years. Toussaint had a big-time reputation coming out of Cardinal Hayes High in the Bronx where he averaged 22.5 points per game and finished as a finalist for New York's Mr. Basketball.
 
He possesses that tough, New York City basketball heritage similar to former WVU standouts Truck Bryant and Tarik Phillip that Huggins loves so much.

 

Then there is Washington transfer Emmitt Matthews Jr., the same Emmitt Matthews Jr. who played three seasons for West Virginia and helped the Mountaineers to an NCAA Tournament appearance in 2021 and what should have been another postseason trip in 2020 before COVID-19 shut things down.
 
Matthews averaged 11.7 points, 4.7 rebounds and shot 33.6% from 3 during his one season playing for the 17-15 Huskies. Emmitt is back at WVU, becoming a rare transfer-out, transfer-back player.
 
Levi Phillips is believed to be the only Mountaineer player to do that, the late guard transferring from WVU to Oklahoma State and then back to WVU for his senior season in 1974.
 
"He's a much better offensive player than he was when he left, and he was a very good defender before," Huggins said of Matthews. "We actually played him at four because we had to, but I'm sure we can play him at three, which will help us rebound at both ends."
 
All four should be upgrades for West Virginia at their respective positions. 
 
Huggins also hit the juco ranks hard, bringing in a trio of physical bigs in 6-foot-10, 285-pound Jimmy Bell Jr. (Moberly Area CC), 6-foot-8, 230-pound Patrick Suemnick (Triton College) and 6-foot-10, 225-pound Mohamed Wague (Harcum College).
 
Although Huggins would prefer that Bell slim down a bit to about 260, he is a load to move around the basket and has been the team's most consistent rebounder during open gym. The athletic and bouncy Wague is the team's best rim-protector, according to the veteran coach.
 
"We've got size we haven't had in quite a while," Huggins admitted. "If we can get those guys where they can score it close, that takes a lot of pressure off the guys on the perimeter."
 
Two high school players, Canton, Ohio's Josiah Harris, a 6-foot-7 wing player from Richmond Heights, Ohio, and Josiah Davis, a 6-foot-3 guard from Kitchener, Ontario, who played last year at Teays Valley Christian School near Charleston, West Virginia, give the Mountaineers some long-term potential.
 
The remainder of the roster consists of guys who suited up for WVU last year, most of whom are backcourt players.
 
There is returning starting point guard Kedrian Johnson, who made the decision after the season to return to WVU for a fifth season of college eligibility. Johnson had a tremendous game versus UAB in Birmingham and scored a season-high 18 points in a road loss at Arkansas in the Big 12/SEC Challenge.
 
He is by far West Virginia's most experienced returning player.
 
Ohio prep standouts Kobe Johnson and Seth Wilson also return. Johnson made a pair of starts last year as a true freshman after being named Ohio's Division I Player of the Year at Canton McKinley High, while Wilson got more minutes toward the end of the season and scored a season-high seven points in West Virginia's 79-63 win over Iowa State.
 
Both are tough, physical performers.
 
Rounding out the roster are a pair of forwards, 6-foot-7, 215-pound sophomore Jamel King and super-promising 6-foot-8, 240-pound James Okonkwo from Maidenhead, England.
 
Huggins says Okonkwo is the only player on the roster capable of keeping Bell off the glass and will be a factor this year in some form.
 
"We needed competitive people," Huggins said of his roster additions. "We just weren't competitive enough last year. You take Gabe (Osabuohein) out of the deal, and we were really soft. We needed to get tougher, and we've added some tougher guys.
 
"This is the most depth we've had in a long time," he added.
 
What is confronting Huggins' 16^th Mountaineer basketball team is possibly the most difficult schedule in school history. WVU will meet Purdue in the opening game of the Phil Knight Legacy Tournament in Portland, Oregon on Nov. 24, and then will turn around a day later to face either Gonzaga or Portland State the next day before concluding the tournament with a game against either Duke, Florida, Oregon State or Xavier.
 
If it happens to be the Musketeers, it will end up being back-to-back games because West Virginia is schedule to play Xavier in Cincinnati six days later. Coach Sean Miller has returned to the school he once coached, and some are predicting Xavier to win the Big East this season.
 
West Virginia's other challenge foe this year is Auburn in the annual SEC/Big 12 Challenge game to be played at the Coliseum on Saturday, Jan. 28. Auburn is one of the preseason favorites to win the SEC.
 
"We're going to find out if we're any good," Huggins said. "If we're as good as we hope to be, it's not a big deal."
 
WVU's home slate includes appealing nonconference games against Mount St. Mary's, Morehead State, Penn, Navy, UAB, Buffalo and Stony Brook – all mid-major programs who should boast impressive RPIs.
 
Also, the Backyard Brawl resumes in Pittsburgh with a meeting against Pitt at the Petersen Events Center on Friday, Nov. 11 and, of course, a full 18-game, round-robin slate of Big 12 games in the No. 1-rated basketball conference in America.
 
It's a huge challenge, which the 69-year-old Huggins is certainly up to facing.
 
"I'm excited," he noted. "We weren't very good and at times, we were bad. The gratifying thing is you looked around the Coliseum last year and there were 14,000 people in there. Just think what's going to happen when we're really good.
 
"I can't sit here and tell you somebody who hasn't played well. Now, they don't play well every day, but they've all had their moments and that's not easy because it has been very competitive," Huggins concluded.
 
Season tickets are currently on sale and can be purchased by logging on to WVUGAME.com.