NCAA Basketball: Top 25 early winners from 2023 offseason moves
By Joey Loose
2. West Virginia
Bob Huggins is one of the living legends of college basketball and is one of the last members of the gold guard. He rebuilt the Mountaineers using the Transfer Portal effectively last season and got West Virginia back to the NCAA Tournament again, bowing out in a close first-round matchup against Maryland. A potent team in a difficult Big 12, Huggins’ squad is an offseason winner again because of another sprint through the Portal.
West Virginia has effectively upgraded their roster with transfers, highlighted by point guard Kerr Kriisa who starred at Arizona, and Jesse Edwards, a talented big man from Syracuse. They’ll also add forward Raequan Battle, who averaged nearly 18 points a game at Montana State and will get to see former Manhattan transfers Jose Perez on the court next season. West Virginia has a talented and experienced lineup that also gets Tre Mitchell and Joe Toussaint back for another season.
You could easily argue that Kriisa and Edwards were two of the top names in the entire Portal, meaning that Huggins’ roster reload is even more impressive than it seems on initial glance. West Virginia will have the talent to compete in next season’s Big 12 and should be back in the NCAA Tournament again. How these pieces work together will be something to watch, but no team in the country has more effectively used the Portal than Huggins and these Mountaineers.