GOING UP — West Virginia guard Javon Small goes up for a shot against Iona. - BlueGoldNews

MORGANTOWN — It is far too early to be turning cartwheels over West Virginia’s completely rebuilt men’s basketball 3-1 start in the new season, especially with a 24-point defeat at Pitt an ugly blotch upon its record, but you can see that coach Darian DeVries has assembled a cast of characters exuding potential in what will be a long and challenging season.

The caution flag went up in that Pitt game, which right now may best be written off as simply being wide-eyed and awe struck by venturing on the road for the first time and going into the snake pit that is the Pete for all of their first taste of the Backyard Brawl, perhaps the game most WVU fans want to win more than any other short of an NCAA Final.

Iona was hardly a quality opponent at 1-4, so the magnitude of the latest victory might be tempered somewhat, but what can’t be overlooked is that the Mountaineers displayed aspects of a winning product.

It started with defense, which still remains the most important single asset any team in any sport can have.

Perhaps the best to stress this is to note that in a basketball game WVU allowed fewer points (43) than their football brothers gave up (49) in last Saturday’s loss to Baylor.

They shut the Gaels down completely, allowing them to shoot just 23.7% from the field, blocking 11 shots, stealing the ball 11 times and forcing 21 turnovers.

“I felt good about the defense,” said Javon Small, who not only was the offensive hero with 23 points but has thrust himself alongside Tucker DeVries, the coach’s son, in claiming a leadership role on this team.

That is important because of the way this edition of the Mountaineers was constructed it needs strong leadership in its formative days.

“We were in the gaps, like we usually are. We talked on defense. We’ve still got to get better at rebounding. If we take away their second-chance points (of which there were 12 of the 43), then we hold them to an even lower shooting percentage.”

“It gives us great pride because we do take pride in our defense,” WVU forward Toby Okani added. “We know what we can do defensively when we’re all hooked up and in sync. It feels good, but we have to do it consistently.”

To play defense, you need to work and sweat and strain. The box score carries you offensive shooting statistics, but it doesn’t include your forced turnovers or the times you made successful switches or avoided a charge while staying with your man.

That’s thankless, yet vital.

Perhaps the best example of defense means came out of Cincinnati on the same night as Sean Miller, the Xavier coach, spent the first five minutes of his post-game press conference taking off on what he called a “stat sheet virus” on his team and warned “If you don’t play with all of your heart and soul for Xavier University on defense, you are not playing. You are not playing.”

DeVries has his team believing in its defense.

“It gives us great pride because we do take pride in our defense,” WVU forward Toby Okani said. “We know what we can do defensively when we’re all hooked ups and in sync. It feels good, but we have to do it consistently.”

But defense is only part of the reason there are positive vibes radiating off this team.

Small is a large part of that, for he was more impressed with the improvement he showed in this game than just the 23 points he scored.

“It wasn’t just me scoring, but I’ve been struggling with turnovers in the first few games,” Small said. “Five assists and one turnover is a pretty good stat.”

He is where the offense starts — and often ends — as point guard. He had not only five assists, but five rebounds and four steals.

“That’s the type of stat line he can have consistently,” Darian DeVries said. “There’s a lot of winning numbers on that stat sheet for him. Part of our focus the last couple days is we need him to be more assertive and kind of stuff that stat sheet if you will.”

The two spent a good deal of time after the Pitt game discussing his role and how he was the engine on the team.

“This week in practice, I was trying to be more aggressive,” he said. “I’ve been seeing the ball go through the hoops a lot more, which I know I’m capable of doing. I’m making the right reads, so this was definitely my best game so far.”

So have defense and you have the leadership of Small and DeVries, who figure to be the top scorers as well, but there is also the exuberance of youth in true freshmen Jonathan Powell and KJ Tenner.

Powell popped off the bench to score 11 points in the twinkling of the eye to break open the game and Tenner relieved Small at the point, as he has done through the year, hitting 3 of 3 shots for six points in seven minutes.

The two, for the first four games, are 30 for 56 from the floor, which is a gaudy 56.3% shooting.

Add to that the fact that the big men, Amari Hansberry and Eduardo Andre, have mixed it up well on the boards and played solid floor games and Sincere Harris has lived up to his praise as one of the nation’s best defenders and you have ingredients that offer more hope that this could be a good first step back up he basketball ladder.

Of course, there’s an ambush waiting ahead as the next time they take the floor it is in the Bahamas at 2:30 on Wednesday, Nov. 30, in a made-for-TV tournament with the opening foe being No. 3 Gonzaga before following that up against either No. 16 Indiana or Louisville on Thanksgiving Day and then either 17th-ranked Arizona, Davidson, Oklahoma or Providence on Friday.