WVU’s Jayden Stone, pictured during a game last season at Detroit Mercy, will suit up for WVU next season as one of the two top-10 returning collegiate scorers on the Mountaineers’ roster along with Tucker DeVries.
MORGANTOWN– This may surprise you … and, at the same time, please you.
West Virginia possesses two of top 10 returning scorers in college basketball this season.
Let me repeat that:
West Virginia possesses two of the top 10 returning scorers in college basketball this season.
Considering that Bob Huggins’ was a defense-first coach, this is welcome news for those who like scoring as it says a lot about the style of basketball that his successor, Darian DeVries, likes to play.
This is not to say that Huggins’ teams didn’t score a lot. They did, but the idea was to use the defense to generate the offense.
This season, it figures to be more bombs away under DeVries, whose recruiting brought in both his son, Tucker, who ranks third among returning scorers after averaging 21.1 points a game while hitting 50.8% of his field-goal attempts at Drake last year in the same offense while canning 43.6% of his 3-point shots.
Jayden Stone was not far behind at Detroit Mercy, where he averaged 20.8 points a game while hitting 42.2% from the field while hitting 31.2% from 3-point range, to rank 8th among returning scorers, according to 247 Sports.
This would seem to set things up — if they can figure out a way to share the ball — for WVU to possibly accomplish something that hasn’t been accomplished since the John Beilein days at WVU.
The last Mountaineer to average 20 points a game was Drew Schifino, who averaged 20.3 points a game in 2003, more than two decades ago.
You might want to give Kevin Jones an asterisk on that, as he averaged 19.9 points a game under Huggins in 2012.
The only other player to average 19 points a game since Schifino was Kevin Pittsnogle, who averaged 19.3 points a game in 2006.
The top 10 returning scorers are: Tyler Acuff, Rutgers, G, 21.7 ppg at Eastern Michigan; Jordan Sears, LSU, G, 21.6 at Tennessee (Martin); Jalen Blackmon, Miami, G, 21.3 at Stetson; Tucker DeVries, WVU, G, 21.2 at Drake; Mark Sears, Alabama, G, 21.2; RJ Davis, North Carolina, G, 21.2; BJ Freeman, Arizona State, G, 21.1 at Milwaukee; Jayden Stone, WVU, G. 20. 8 at Detroit Mercy; Marcus Hill, NCState, G, NC State, 20.5 at Bowling Green; and Frankie Fidler, Michigan, F, 20.1 at Omaha.
A look at that list is a strong indicator as to just how guard oriented NCAA basketball has become and how the roles of big men have changed over the years.
Eight of the players on that list are guards, one is listed as a guard/forward, and only one, Michigan’s transfer Frankie Fidler, is listed as a forward.
Now it must also be noted that eight of those players are transfers, none from Power Four teams, which leads one to wonder how their scoring prowess will translate into power leagues like the Big Ten, SEC, ACC and Big 12.
It looks from this that WVU will have the makings of a “Dynamic Duo”, so to speak, and while they have had such in the past, it is not the usual situation.
Last season, WVU had two players average 15 or more points in RaeQuan Battle at 16.1 points a game and Jesse Edwards at 15.0 per game.
Obviously, since WVU, under interim coach Josh Eilert, won only nine games and lost the most games that any team in school history had lost, having two go-to scorers is not definitely a recipe for success.
The work done by Battle and Edwards marked the the first time in a decade that the Mountaineers had two players surpass 15 points a game in a season since 2014 when Juwan Staten averaged 18.2 per game and Eron Harris averaged 17.2.
In fact, since Beilein’s 2006 team when Pittsnogle averaged 19.3 points and Mike Gansey 16.8 points, two players have averaged 15 or more points a game only three more times — last year, in 2006 and in 2012 when Kevin Jones averaged 19.9 and Eron Harris 17.7.
Beilein’s 2007 team had the unique offensive balance to have five players average in double figures, headed by Frank Young, who averaged 15.3 points per game.
