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MORGANTOWN - At the going rate, WVU men's basketball coach Ross Hodge is going to run out of ways to describe Miles Sadler pretty early.
The freshman point guard put on a show Friday night. Hope Coliseum was his concert hall and Stetson was his victim.
By the time the Mountaineers had put the finishing touches on their 91-53 victory over the Hatters, Sadler had already lived up to the hype with 25 points and six assists over 24 minutes of action.
"I just feel like, overall, it's been preached to me to be patient on the ball screens. I feel like I was able to do that tonight," Sadler said. "I feel like I'm seeing the game slow down and I'm able to find my teammates, because I feel like we have some of the best shooters in the country."
Hatters defenders fell to the ground simply trying to keep up with Sadler, who also spent about a 10-minute period - over the final seven minutes of the first half and the first three of the second - becoming nearly a one-man 21-9 run.
In that time, Sadler either scored or dished out an assist on nine buckets that led to 19 of those 21 points for WVU (2-0) and a 56-33 lead.
"He's confident when he's on a basketball floor," WVU head coach Ross Hodge said. "I don't coach him like he's a freshman. He does some freshman things, but we hold him to a high standard and he holds himself to a high standard."
Sadler, who has 41 points and 15 assists over his first two college games, began from the outside before eventually working his way inside. He started with one of his three 3-pointers on the night before taking advantage of his speed and going straight at the rim.
Then came the assists. One was lob pass from about 30-feet away to Seydou Traore, who finished it off with a dunk at the other end.
"I had seen him running down and I know he can jump really high," Sadler said of the play. "I know a lot of my teammates would have caught that, too. Seydou is one of those guys that you can throw it anywhere around the rim and he's going to go get it."
Another came on a drive to the paint that saw Sadler kick it out to Finley Bizjack in the corner for a 3-pointer. To finish it off, Sadler caught Amadou Seini - the two were teammates at Bella Vista (Ariz.) last season - for another lob dunk.
At some point, Stetson guard Thiago Sucatzky - the young man from Argentina had the unfortunate assignment of guarding Sadler - raised a hand to his bigger teammates looking for a little help.
As it turned out, Stetson (0-3) had little help to give.
"I thought he was really aggressive to start," Hodge said. "I thought his decision making, when he gets into the paint, has gotten better. He can get to the paint, not whenever he wants, but a lot. Then, it's just about his willingness to make the right play. Sometimes the right play is for him to shoot and sometimes it's for him to pass. I feel like he's balanced that well."
WVU, meanwhile, had plenty of help. Before Sadler turned his game up to its top gear, Joson Sanon had already come off the bench to provide an ultimate heat check. He connected on four consecutive 3-pointers - WVU now has 26 of those over the first two games of the season - to give the Mountaineers an early 31-16 advantage.
Sanon finished with 18 points and was 6 for 8 from 3-point range.
"It was a great feeling," said Sanon, who became the first WVU player since Kerr Kriisa in 2024 to connect on 75% of his 3-point attempts in a game with at least seven attempts. "I was just shooting them. I was wide open, so shoot it."
WVU, which hosts Mercer next Thursday, shot 50% (31 of 62) as a team and Bizjack added 13 points and Mohamed Sylla finished with 11. Amadou Seini came off the bench to lead the Mountaineers with 10 rebounds.
"This is going to be a strength-in-numbers type of team," Hodge said. "It can be a different guy on a lot of different nights."