More adversity for WVU as it visits Oklahoma tonight
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MORGANTOWN -- Bad enough that the snow was swirling and the thermometer had dipped into the mid-teens, hardly the kind of weather you're looking for when you have to fly to Oklahoma.
But that was what greeted West Virginia basketball coach Josh Eilert as he climbed out of bed on Tuesday morning.
Then a text message came over his phone, and he would rather have gotten a spam text from a telemarketer than what he was about to read.
Patrick Suemnick, who had suddenly become West Virginia's go-to guy as they turned things around, providing scoring, rebounding and energy, had come down with something overnight.
Diagnosis? Too early to tell.
"He'll be checked by the doctors." Eilert said during his morning Zoom call. "We'll isolate him as much as we can on the flight to Oklahoma. It's that time of year and you never know when you get the call that someone has come down with something and Pat was that guy today."
Suemnick has scored 39 points in the last four games while grabbing off 20 rebounds, filling much of the void left by Jesse Edwards' absence due to a broken wrist.
One more bump in the road.
Here he was, things just starting to turn right for his team as they knocked off No. 25 Texas for their first Big 12 victory, and now Suemnick was ailing. Between transfers and suspensions, rebuilding the roster and putting in a new offense and defense, they had to change it as center Edwards broke a wrist and as three players -- RaeQuan Battle, Noah Farrakhan and Kerr Kriisa -- gained NCAA eligibility, it has been that going into a duel with a butter knife.
Travel, of course, is never what you are looking for in basketball, where the home court may be your best friend, but toss in the weather complications and, well, let Eilert explain.
"Some of staff members have four-wheel drive trucks. Assume we're having issues right now and that they are out gathering them up as we speak. I don't know of any issues at this point but I wouldn't be surprised if we were late getting out of here," Eilert began.
"Travel is a beast in this league, it's as hard from here as anywhere. It's nothing you can control. We'll jump on the bus, drive north to Pittsburgh, fly to Oklahoma City, make that drive from Oklahoma City to Norman. I'm sure it will be a long travel day."
While a lot of people are looking at the addition of Central Florida and Cincinnati to the Big 12 being helpful to the Mountaineer's travel schedule -- and it should be -- it's still a league stretching to Arizona and Colorado next year.
Anyway you put it, it's going to be a hassle.
Those long trips will make winning on the road even harder.
"[Road victories are tough because of] a combination of things," Eilert said. "One of the first things I look with our schedule is days of rest prior to the game. For instance, Kansas plays tonight, we play tomorrow, so they will have an extra day of rest prior to playing us,
"Those things are huge in this league. Any time you have to spend more time traveling, it's definitely a detriment to your program, but there's nothing you can do about it. Every team has a different scenario and situation. We know our travel challenges. We just have to deal with it and do the best we can."
Oklahoma will be a team foaming at the mouth when WVU gets there. The Sooners were ranked as high as No. 9 last week when they got into conference play, and now they are trying to work their way out of a two-game losing streak.
They lost first to TCU, then to No. 3 Kansas.
And, as you might guess, both were on the road.
Still, their record remains at 13-3, and they are unbeaten in 10 games at home. WVU is 6-10.
The Sooners are led by Javian McCollom, who averages 15.0 points a game, and Otegg Oheh, who checks in at 14.2.