MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Following a disappointing 2023 season that saw Oklahoma dip under .500 at 15-17, third-year coach Porter Moser hit the transfer portal hard.
 
This year's top scorer, 6-foot-2 junior guard Javian McCollum, comes from Sienna. Oklahoma's best offensive rebounder, 6-foot-10 senior forward Sam Godwin, comes from Wofford.
 
Starting guard Milos Uzan comes from Houston Christian and glass-crashing forward Jalon Moore comes from Georgia Tech.
 
OU's top big coming off the bench, 6-foot-10, 270-pound center John Hugley IV, transferred from Pitt. Le'Tre Darthard, a 6-foot-4 senior guard, is a Utah Valley State transfer who comes in to provide 6.8 points per game while Rivaldo Soares, a 6-foot-6 senior transfer from Oregon, is averaging 5.9 points per contest.
 
Oklahoma's top eight includes holdover guard Otega Oweh, a 6-foot-5, 215-pound sophomore from Blair Academy in Newark, New Jersey, who ranks second on the team in scoring with an average of 14.2 points per game.
 
West Virginia coach Josh Eilert said McCollum is like Texas guard Max Abmas in his ability to get on a roll from behind the 3-point arc. McCollum has scored at least 15 points in 10 games so far this year, including a season-high 23 against Central Arkansas.
 
"He's probably one of the best guards in our league, when it comes down to it," Eilert said.
 
McCollum has hit multiple 3s in 11 games and is averaging a team-best 15 points per contest. The Fort Myers, Florida, resident is connecting on 38.8% of his 3-point tries and is shooting 45.8% overall from the floor.
 
Oweh is even more efficient, the sophomore connecting on 58.3% of his field goal attempts, including an impressive 65.2% (15 of 23) from 3-point distance.
 
The Sooners (13-3, 1-2) are outrebounding their opponents by an average of 7.2 per game, despite not having anyone averaging more than 5.7 rebounds per game. Five different players average between 4.1 and 5.7 rebounds per contest and Godwin leads the way with 54 offensive rebounds - 28 more than the next closest guy.
 
Uzan leads the Sooners with 71 assists while McCollum has contributed 63. Overall, Oklahoma has assisted on more than half of its 459 made field goals so far this season.
 
"Top to bottom, they're really athletic," Eilert said. "They've got a lot of pieces from a lot of different places and a lot of transfers in there. They only play about eight guys, nine at most, but their rotations are really solid.
 
"They've got a lot of pieces that work really well together, and they really compliment each other," Eilert added.
 
After starting the season 10-0 with victories over Iowa, USC, Providence and Arkansas, the Sooners have dropped three of their last five games, including a pair of conference road games at TCU and at Kansas.
 
The TCU game was decided off turnovers where the Horned Frogs turned OU's 14 miscues into 25 points. Kansas beat Oklahoma by outscoring the Sooners 48 to 28 in the paint.
 
"They're coming off a couple of losses and I'm sure they're hungry," Eilert said. "Our mindset is we're not content by any means. The standard in our program moving forward is we can beat anybody on any given night if we play well together and we lock in on a game plan."
 
Wednesday night's game against the 15^th-ranked Sooners is one of four ranked teams for West Virginia over a five-game stretch.
 
WVU lost at third-ranked Houston 89-55 on Jan. 6, upset 25^th-ranked Texas 76-73 last Saturday in Morgantown and will face third-ranked Kansas Saturday at the Coliseum.
 
West Virginia (6-10, 1-2) got a career-high 16 points from forward Patrick Suemnick and some clutch play from Kerr Kriisa, RaeQuan Battle and Quinn Slazinski down the stretch to knock off the Longhorns last Saturday at the Coliseum.
 
Texas committed 22 turnovers and 28 fouls to send the Mountaineers to the free throw line 41 times.
 
Battle is averaging a team-best 20.2 points in the six games he's played so far this year but is averaging just 13 points in Big 12 play.
 
Slazinski snapped a two-game, double-figure scoring drought with 13 points against the Longhorns, while Kriisa's 14 points against Texas including four 3-pointers.
 
WVU played its sixth game without 6-foot-11 center Jesse Edwards, who continues to recuperate from a fractured wrist suffered in the Massachusetts loss on Dec. 16. The initial timetable for Edwards' return was four weeks, although Eilert has indicated that might have been a little too optimistic.
 
With today's snowstorm blanketing the Northeast, Eilert said the team will bus to Pittsburgh for its charter flight to Oklahoma City instead of flying out of nearby Clarksburg. He said the team's practice schedule will be adjusted when the Mountaineers eventually arrive in Norman.
 
"It's going to make it a little bit of a longer travel day and we plan to practice when we get there this evening," Eilert said.
 
Eilert indicated this morning that Suemnick has been a little bit under the weather since Saturday and is being treated by the WVU athletic training staff.
 
"We will try and isolate him as much as we can as we travel today," Eilert said. "It's that time of the year when you get the call that somebody comes down with something and Pat is that guy today."
 
Wednesday night's game at Lloyd Noble Center will tip off at 8 p.m. and will be televised on ESPN+ (Ted Emrich and Tim Welsh).
 
Mountaineer Sports Network radio coverage with Tony Caridi on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the Varsity Network and WVU Gameday apps will tip things off at 7 p.m.