Aside from Brenen Lorient, Amir Jenkins, and "walk-on" MJ Feenane, everyone on the West Virginia men's basketball roster in 2026-27 is new. It seems like that has been the case for the Mountaineers for several years now, and that has more to do with the coaching changes than it does with just being the transfer portal era.
Hodge and his staff assembled a talented group, which we got to see put on display for the first time last weekend in an exhibition against Maryland that went to overtime. It may have resulted in a loss, but they got exactly what they wanted out of that and played really good basketball for long stretches. If anything, that performance confirmed that this team is going to be pretty darn tough to beat, especially once they get settled in and have played a dozen or so games together.
During Big 12 Media Day, Hodge was asked point-blank in an interview with CBS Sports' Gary Parrish if he believes he has the pieces needed to make it to the tournament this season.
“We definitely have the components of an NCAA Tournament team," Hodge responded. "Got to put it all together, like most of us. Got to be more consistent with our habits. But I love the blend of youthful talent that we have with experienced players. Now we’ve got to get a collective experience together. We’ve got quality depth, good size, good guard play, which, you know, in college basketball is a separator. Just got to continue to learn and grow together and stay the course through a challenging non-conference schedule and the gauntlet of the Big 12, but certainly feel like we have the ingredients to do the things that we want to do.”
There are more answers offensively for this WVU team
Hodge's teams will always hang their hat on playing championship-level defense, but the thing that really ailed them a year ago was not having a true three-level bucket getter. Honor Huff could shoot the lights out from three, and Chance Moore could pressure the rim, but they lived and died by those strengths.
This year, WVU has three guys in its backcourt: Miles Sadler, Joson Sanon, and Finley Bizjack, who can all score it and do so from anywhere on the floor. Not to mention, backup guard Martin Somerville can find the bottom of the net as well.
In the frontcourt, they have more depth, athleticism, and have some bigs that are comfortable taking three-point shots which is something they very clearly did not have last season.
If they can win some key games in the non-league and float around .500 in Big 12 play, West Virginia should absolutely make its return to the NCAA Tournament this spring.
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