CBB Rank 2025: No. 62, West Virginia Basketball

West Virginia basketball starts fresh. New coach, new roster, and hopefully, a tournament appearance in their future.

The tradition continues! It’s another year of our countdown of the top 100 preseason teams in college basketball until the start of the season. Each day, we will reveal the next team until we reach the team slotted at number one. Up next: West Virginia basketball.

After the whole Bob Huggins fiasco, West Virginia basketball turned to former Drake head coach Darian DeVries to lead this program. What they got was a great season, and one that should have resulted in a tournament appearance (won’t get into that). After a year, DeVries decided to bolt to Indiana, and now West Virginia turns to Ross Hodge to lead this program for hopefully more than a year.

Hodge brings with him two starters from a North Texas team that went 27-9 last season. They also add in a plethora of high-level scorers, most notably Honor Huff and Treysen Eaglestaff, who both averaged over 15 PPG last season. It will be an uphill battle at the start, but this team has the talent to compete in the Big 12 and not skip a beat.

Head coach: Ross Hodge (1st season at West Virginia, 3rd season overall)

2024-25 record: 19-13 (10-10)

2025 postseason finish: No tournament

Notable departures: 

• Javon Small (18.6 PPG, 5.6 APG, 4.1 RPG)
• Tucker DeVries (14.9 PPG, 4.9 RPG, 2.8 APG)
• Amani Hansberry (9.8 PPG, 6.5 RPG, 1.4 APG)
• Jonathan Powell (8.3 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 0.7 APG)
• Toby Okani (8.2 PPG, 4.1 RPG, 1.4 APG)
• Everyone else on the team

Notable non-conference games: 

• vs. Pitt (Nov. 13)
• vs. Clemson (Nov. 21) – Charleston Classic
• vs. Georgia OR Xavier (Nov 23) – Charleston Classic
• vs. Wake Forest (Dec. 6)
• vs. Ohio State (Dec. 13) – Cleveland

Projected Rotation

PG: Jasper Floyd (6-3, 190, Sr.)

2024-25 stats: 9.0 PPG, 3.9 APG, 3.0 RPG, 1.3 SPG, 42.2 FG%, 34.3 3P%, 76.6 FT% (North Texas)

SG: Honor Huff (5-10, 168, Sr.)

2024-25 stats: 15.2 PPG, 2.3 APG, 1.8 RPG, 0.9 SPG, 42.4 FG%, 41.6 3P%, 82.0 FT% (Chattanooga)

SF: Treysen Eaglestaff (6-6, 190, Sr.)

2024-25 stats: 18.9 PPG, 2.8 RPG, 2.4 APG, 1.1 SPG, 41.6 FG%, 35.9 3P%, 79.4 FT% (North Dakota)

PF: Brenen Lorient (6-9, 215, Sr.)

2024-25 stats: 11.7 PPG, 4.9 RPG, 1.4 APG, 1.1 BPG, 0.9 SPG, 56.9 FG%, 72.1 FT% (North Texas)

C: Harlan Obioha (7-0, 280, Sr.)

2024-25 stats: 9.2 PPG, 6.0 RPG, 0.9 APG, 1.2 BPG, 0.5 SPG, 63.9 FG% (UNC Wilmington)

6: Chance Moore (6-6, 210, Gr.-Sr.)

2024-25 stats: 13.0 PPG, 6.5 RPG, 1.1 APG, 1.3 SPG, 0.8 BPG, 46.3 FG% (St. Bonaventure)

7: Jackson Fields (6-8, 210, Sr.)

2024-25 stats: 7.9 PPG, 4.8 RPG, 0.7 APG, 0.8 BPG, 0.6 SPG, 48.7 FG%, 72.1 FT% (Troy)

8: Jayden Forsythe (6-5, 190. Fr.)

247Sports Composite #198 ranked recruit

9: Amir Jenkins (6-2, 170, Fr.)

247Sports Composite #87 ranked recruit

10: Morris Ugusuk (6-4, 170, Jr.)

2024-25 stats: 5.9 PPG, 1.4 RPG, 0.9 APG, 0.5 SPG, 40.7 3P%, 76.9 FT% (South Carolina)

West Virginia Basketball team MVP: Honor Huff

Honor Huff is an extremely gifted scorer. He averaged 15 a game last year, and on pretty good shooting splits at that. He’s started nearly 100 games in his career and is a winner, carrying his team to the NIT championship last season. There’s always the question as to whether the scoring will transfer moving up to a power conference,  and it should. Maybe he doesn’t score 15 a game, but he should still average double figures comfortably.

He’s no Javon Small, but he fits the mold of an undersized guard who is an elite shooter and overall scorer. Don’t be surprised if he has a game or two where he scores 25+ and takes over a game. Defensively, he struggles due to his height, but backcourt mate Jasper Floyd more than makes up for that, making them a great duo.

West Virginia Basketball make-or-break player: Treysen Eaglestaff

Eaglestaff is the definition of a scorer and had two of the best performances of the entire season. Eaglestaff gained the attention of the college basketball world when he scored 40 points against Alabama, nearly beating him on his own and hitting 8 threes. Later in the season, in the quarterfinal of the Summitt Tournament, he scored 51 points, shooting 15-28 from the field. When he’s hot, there are few players who can score at his level.

Can he do this at a consistent level in one of the toughest conferences in college basketball? We’ll see. At North Dakota, everything ran through him, and that won’t be the case in this program. Can he accept not being the focal point of the offense? If he can, and still be an elite-level contributor, he and Huff could be one of the best duos in college basketball.

Key analytic: Tempo

If West Virginia fans were upset with the tempo last year, where they finished 331st in the country under DeVries, they shouldn’t expect anything better under Hodge. North Texas finished 362nd in the country, third slowest in tempo last year. North Texas finished in the bottom three both years under Hodge, and while they have some guys on the team that can change that, he’ll still stick to his roots of limiting possessions and winning in the half-court.

North Texas had the second-fewest possessions per game last year, and it worked. Bringing Jasper Floyd with him to lead the offense will be extremely important, especially early on while the team is still meshing. Hodge has a formula that wins, and slow and steady wins the race.