MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Jordan McCabe remembers his first day on the West Virginia campus and what he first requested.
No, it wasn’t to learn which downtown bar was the best place to meet coeds and it wasn’t to find out which professors offered the easiest courses. He lived for only one thing — basketball
“I’m a point guard and I want to be as pure a point guard as I can possibly be,” he said recently, having been inserted into West Virginia’s starting lineup since the defection of Oscar Tshiebwe. His presence has been a big part of making the changes Bob Huggins was forced to make in the offense work.
So, what was his first request?
“From the moment I stepped on campus I needed two things,” he said. “I needed the laminated play sheet Huggs has with him during the game and a disc I could pop into my TV at home or at the dorm so I could see all the plays and learn the offense as well as I could and be an extension of Huggs.”
This is a kid with an obsession for basketball, a driven kid who has had as many ups and downs on the court since leaving Wisconsin as its Mr. Basketball to play at WVU as he has dribbles during games.
He’s started, probably before he was ready to, and he’s come off the bench and even, as late as a couple of weeks ago, seen his playing time cut down to almost nothing, playing 11 or fewer minutes in the first 13 games 0f the 2020-21 season.
That wasn’t easy for him but he accepted it without a complaint, without sulking, without jumping into the transfer portal.
“I was trying to fill a role at the beginning of the year, whether I liked it or not. I was trying to do what I needed to do to help the team win; what Huggs needed me to do,” he said. “It’s not easy to come off the bench, especially when you’ve put in time. You feel like you want to be out there, all the players want to be out there. But my Pops just told me stay ready, so that’s what I’ve done.”
And then quite unexpectedly, Oscar Tshiebwe, a high school McDonald’s All-America and one of the top recruits ever to sign at WVU, put his name into the transfer portal and was gobbled up by Kentucky.
All of a sudden, the WVU team wasn’t the same. Huggins saw it immediately and realized that this could be a plus, not a minus, that Tschiebwe wasn’t playing at his optimum level and that with he and Derek Culver in games as two big men, the game was slowing down.
He saw a chance to get Deuce McBride, who had to play point guard, off the ball so he could create shots for himself rather than others, to play Jalen Bridges, who is young but too talented to ignore, and use the hottest hand between Taz Sherman and Sean McNeil in the game.
McCabe’s playing time jumped to 23 and 24 minutes in the first two games and even 15 against Florida in a game where he didn’t fit as well as in the others.
“I thought Jordan would give us a lot more stability,” Huggins said. He’s shot the ball really well. It’s hard for him because he has to have an open shot and we haven’t done a great job of getting him open shots. I was not as pleased with aggression the last game as he need to be but I’m sure he will respond the next game. He wants to play.”
In that last three games McCabe has scored 19 points, one fewer than he had he had scored all season, and he has 10 assists, six fewer than in the previous 13 games combined.
“Our whole dynamic has changed,” McCabe noted. “Obviously, there’s a difference in terms of my minutes. Just coming off the bench it’s a little more difficult to get into your rhythm.”
The result has been that WVU’s offense in the past two games produced 88 and 80 points, the 88 being a season high against a really good Texas Tech team that was ranked 10th in the nation at the time and is noted for its defensive prowess.
Without Tshiebwe, things were working out better in the new offense.
“Don’t get me wrong, Oscar is a helluva player,” McCabe said. “He’s a McDonald’s All-American for a reason. I wish nothing but the best for him, but with him stepping away it makes us different.”
McCabe understood when he was sitting the dilemma Huggins was facing.
“I don’t think there’s a coach in the country that would see Derek and Oscar on the same team and not play both of them together,” he said. “What do you do? You either tell an All-American with Derek that he’s going to come off the bench or you are going to tell a McDonald’s All-American who has a chance to be an All-American in college that he has to come off the bench.
“We got off to slower starts. We weren’t as fluid. If you put two 7-footers, 6-10 or 6-8 out there on the floor in the lane it takes up a lot of space so you have a slower, grind-it-out pace. Now you have Derek alone down there and he works really well. He sees the floor really well.
“There is more space. The driving lanes are open. The floor is more spread. I’d venture to guess that’s why we’re scoring more.”
Spacing is one of the most overlooked aspects of basketball.
“Spacing is incredibly important in the game of basketball. I mean, you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. You want spacing, but who are you going to take out of the starting lineup between Oscar and Derek? I don’t blame Huggs for not doing it. I don’t think any coach at any time would do it,” McCabe said.
But at the same time Huggins didn’t hesitate when the opportunity to change presented itself. He didn’t experiment. He knew his personnel, knew what he wanted to do.
McCabe was needed because he knows the offense better than anyone else, admitting that that every day he watches film with former WVU guard and now graduate assistant Juwan Staten.
And he’s seen a lot, including his problems.
McCabe has always been a flashy ball handler and that leads him into some wild and needless turnovers, some of it brought on because of his knowledge and familiarity with his own offense.
“Sometimes I have a tendency to squeeze a pass in there that may not be there. Or I see something other people might not see. That’s the way I’ve always been,” he explained. “I don’t think Huggs wants to completely change who I am as a player. He’s never tried to do that with me, but he has tried to shore up some of those unforced turnovers.
“With me knowing the offense, I know who comes open at what time and who should get the ball at what place, but that’s not my issue as much as trying to make something happen when it doesn’t need to happen.”
The thing is the offense is now wide open and flowing, 3-point shots replacing point-blank shots from a foot from the basket that were missed as often as they were made.
“I’ll be completely up front and honest about it,” McCabe said. “I do enjoy our offensive scheme and style right now Not only do I enjoy it but seems as though the entire team does. There’s more flow. There’s more tempo. It’s probably, I would imagine more fun to watch sitting at home. I’m not sure about that and it could be a biased answer, but it is nice playing this way.”
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