INDIANAPOLIS — Reality landed on the West Virginia men’s basketball team like each of Syracuse’s Buddy Boeheim’s 3-pointers as soon as Sunday’s 75-72 victory for the Orange was complete.
The win, which came in a second-round game in the NCAA Tournament, sent 11th-seeded Syracuse into the Sweet 16, where the Orange will face second-seeded Houston this weekend.
That loss sent the Mountaineers home for good, ending a season of ups, downs, COVID-19 stoppages and mad scheduling scrambles. Perhaps all the team overcame just to be in the position it was in — fighting for a berth in the Sweet 16 — made Sunday’s defeat all the more bitter.
“It’s definitely tough to go out like we did,” WVU junior guard Sean McNeil admitted.
McNeil, after scoring 23 points in Sunday’s loss, was the designated face of the team in postgame interviews, certainly a tough position to be in while trying to choke down the emotion of the Mountaineers’ ninth loss by five points or less.
McNeil pointed toward the future and what next season could hold for a team that could get all of its players back and should get the bulk of them to return at the very least. Guard Taz Sherman and forward Gabe Osabuohien are the team’s only seniors, and both will have an option to return with the NCAA extending an extra year of eligibility to all winter sports athletes.
Osabuohien, a transfer from Arkansas, was the only Mountaineer with NCAA Tournament experience heading into this week. That will change next season should the Mountaineers make it back to the Big Dance.
McNeil believes that while Sunday was a painful blow, it could serve the team well next season.
“We didn’t go as far as we wanted to, we didn’t accomplish things that we had set out to do, but I think this tournament plays into a big role of experienced guys that have been here and know what to expect and stuff,” McNeil said. “So, as we go forward, obviously I think this will be good for us. After a loss it’s tough, but you’ve just got to try and figure out positives and things you can take away, so that’s what we’re going to do. Go back tomorrow, have a team meeting, figure some things out, what we’re going to do in the offseason.”
Leading the Mountaineers will be coach Bob Huggins, now with exactly 900 wins under his belt. For how much longer, at age 67, time will tell.
In many ways, the West Virginia roster as currently constructed is as prototypical a Huggins team as possible, full of misfits, transfers, prep school products and junior college transfers. Yet somehow Huggins built a team that reached as high as No. 6 in the polls and hovered in the top 15 all season.
McNeil is certainly a part of that story, having attended Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio as a freshman.
As notoriously tough as Huggins is on his players, it’s a group that endeared itself to the coach, and vice versa.
“He’s given me an opportunity I’ll never know how to repay him for,” McNeil said. “Yeah, he’s a tough guy to play for. He gets on me more than anyone I’ve ever had in my life, but I know there’s a good purpose behind it. It sucks, because more than anybody, I think we all just wanted to go win it for him. He goes past 900 … I don’t know, I’m forever thankful.”
For Huggins, the 2020-2021 Mountaineers didn’t give him a conference title or another Sweet 16 berth to add to his resume. But, aside from being the group that finally earned him his 900th win, their lasting legacy is likely to come from the human side of things more so than wins or losses, failures and successes on the court.
“They’re good people,” Huggins said. “That’s what I just told them in the locker room, they’re as good a people as I’ve had the privilege of being around in all of my years of coaching. They’re really good guys. They care about each other, they really are a team. I think I’ll remember just how good of people that they were and will continue to be I’m sure.”
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