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MORGANTOWN -- Perhaps the most poignant comment Bob Huggins made in his Saturday night post-game interview came when someone brought up something that had happened last year.
"I don't ever want to talk about last year again," he snapped.
He has good reason to forget last year. The only March madness he had was that which was brewing inside him after a 16-17 season had kept his West Virginia Mountaineers out of the NCAA Tournament.
It had been a dreadful showing through the whole second half of the year with a team that often was hurt or played with hurt feelings or that just didn't seem to give a darn.
Oh, they won some early, but once league play started they lost seven in a row and the turnover Huggins faced in personnel was so extreme he had to have thought of putting a revolving door into the basketball facility.
Now, though, WVU has reached its finals break in the season, not playing again until Tuesday, and maybe it's good to take a peek back, just to see how far this WVU 8-2 team has separated itself from last season's team.
Here's a comparison of the two teams after 10 games:
Last year: Points per game (69), FG% (42.3), 3-point% (31.4), FT% (62.6), rebounds per game (33.2), assists (116) and turnovers (119).
This year: Points per game (80.5), FG% (49.7), 3-point% (37.4), FT% (73.9), rebounds per game (34.09), assists (150) and turnovers (124).
Observations?
Despite having highly touted sharpshooters Taz Sherman and Sean McNeil, this is a far more prolific scoring team, far more accurate.
That is due because the big men, especially Jimmy Bell Jr., are capable of scoring near the basket, and there has been marked improvement in shooting 3-point goals from deep, thank you to an influx of wings like Emmitt Matthews Jr. and Tre Mitchell who bury shots from all over.
But there is more to the scoring than just the shot making. Indeed, Keedy Johnson, Joe Toussaint and Erik Stevenson give the Mountaineers not only an outside presence that actually surpasses Sherman and McNeil, but that are far superior defensively.
Johnson may not be Jevon Carter, but he's faster than almost everyone he guards and has hands as quick as Carter did, so teams offensively have to work to score against this team … and with Bell and Mo Wague there is an inside presence to protect the rim.
But there is an intangible about this team that few other teams in the country have, perhaps an incidental advantage that comes from pulling players from jucos and through the portal.
They are in Morgantown, not necessary to pad a professional resume.
"Probably the truth of the matter is that the guy who has been the most vocal leader hardly played today," Huggins said, speaking of Stevenson. He played only 16 minutes and made only one basket while missing all of his four 3-point shots.
But the competitor in him wouldn't let that affect him. He was on the floor as much as the players who were playing, jumping up and down from the bench, shouting and pushing his teammates forward.
"He's on the bench cheering," Huggins noted.
Sometimes you could mistake him for coach as he barks out directions or encouragement.