MORGANTOWN - By all rights, West Virginia's basketball team probably should be treading water right now, its collective head barely above the surface.

That's just the way it's supposed to be when a team loses its go-to scorer to the NBA, its veteran point guard to graduation, its heir apparent at the point to a possible season-ending injury, has no legitimate post presence and depends upon three freshmen and two sophomores in an eight-man rotation.

Yet prior to Tuesday night's 61-55 loss to No. 5 Connecticut at the Coliseum, the Mountaineers had won 11 of 13 games and a day earlier became the ninth Big East team to join the nation's Top 25.

They've managed it, in part, because of the way Bob Huggins has coached this team, which is to make sure that almost everyone who steps on the floor is able to play almost any position.

That's why when point guard Joe Mazzulla goes down with an injured shoulder, shooting guard Alex Ruoff misses games with an injury or the Mountaineers get into inevitable foul trouble trying to guard bigger opponents inside, there is always someone ready to step into the void.

Da'Sean Butler as a point guard? No problem. John Flowers in the post? Why not? Devin Ebanks as a shooting guard? Go ahead.

True, it didn't work to perfection Tuesday against the Huskies, but that's also an opponent with perhaps the best inside game in college basketball. Against most other teams - even at the top level - that versatility is invaluable.

"The way we play the majority of the time, everybody has to do everything anyway,'' Huggins said. "Everybody's going to have to handle the ball. Everyone is going to have an opportunity to play in the post. So yeah, I think the style we've played the last couple of years lends itself to being a little multi-dimensional.''

Huggins hasn't always coached that way, but most people forget that for much of his career he did just that. During 16 years at Cincinnati, Huggins' teams were often just like this West Virginia group - lacking a dominant big man and rather thin. So in those days the Bearcats played just like these Mountaineers.

"We played just like this, only we pressed, until I got [Danny] Fortson,'' Huggins said. "And then he was so good inside that we changed.''

But it's not just the lack of a dominant inside presence that lends itself to the style. Huggins also wanted to emphasis versatility this season because of the presence of the three freshmen in key roles - Ebanks, Kevin Jones and Darryl "Truck'' Bryant. By forcing them to play multiple positions and be more versatile, he has forced them to accelerate their learning.

"When you run a bunch of sets, you get better at running sets. But you don't necessarily get better as a player,'' Huggins said. "With playing three freshmen I thought it was imperative that we got those guys as involved as we possibly could in all aspects of the game. It wasn't easy. It was kind of hard because of who we played. Our schedule was a whole lot harder than it was a year ago.''

The versatility that West Virginia has shown this season is part of a style that isn't necessarily unique in college basketball, but neither is it terribly mainstream. That's one of the things that has made the Mountaineers so successful in the early going. Just as former coach John Beilein employed rather oddball offenses and defenses that gave opponents fits, the ability of the players on this team to move around and create mismatches causes problems in preparing for WVU.

MORGANTOWN - By all rights, West Virginia's basketball team probably should be treading water right now, its collective head barely above the surface.

That's just the way it's supposed to be when a team loses its go-to scorer to the NBA, its veteran point guard to graduation, its heir apparent at the point to a possible season-ending injury, has no legitimate post presence and depends upon three freshmen and two sophomores in an eight-man rotation.

Yet prior to Tuesday night's 61-55 loss to No. 5 Connecticut at the Coliseum, the Mountaineers had won 11 of 13 games and a day earlier became the ninth Big East team to join the nation's Top 25.

They've managed it, in part, because of the way Bob Huggins has coached this team, which is to make sure that almost everyone who steps on the floor is able to play almost any position.

That's why when point guard Joe Mazzulla goes down with an injured shoulder, shooting guard Alex Ruoff misses games with an injury or the Mountaineers get into inevitable foul trouble trying to guard bigger opponents inside, there is always someone ready to step into the void.

Da'Sean Butler as a point guard? No problem. John Flowers in the post? Why not? Devin Ebanks as a shooting guard? Go ahead.

True, it didn't work to perfection Tuesday against the Huskies, but that's also an opponent with perhaps the best inside game in college basketball. Against most other teams - even at the top level - that versatility is invaluable.

"The way we play the majority of the time, everybody has to do everything anyway,'' Huggins said. "Everybody's going to have to handle the ball. Everyone is going to have an opportunity to play in the post. So yeah, I think the style we've played the last couple of years lends itself to being a little multi-dimensional.''

Huggins hasn't always coached that way, but most people forget that for much of his career he did just that. During 16 years at Cincinnati, Huggins' teams were often just like this West Virginia group - lacking a dominant big man and rather thin. So in those days the Bearcats played just like these Mountaineers.

"We played just like this, only we pressed, until I got [Danny] Fortson,'' Huggins said. "And then he was so good inside that we changed.''

But it's not just the lack of a dominant inside presence that lends itself to the style. Huggins also wanted to emphasis versatility this season because of the presence of the three freshmen in key roles - Ebanks, Kevin Jones and Darryl "Truck'' Bryant. By forcing them to play multiple positions and be more versatile, he has forced them to accelerate their learning.

"When you run a bunch of sets, you get better at running sets. But you don't necessarily get better as a player,'' Huggins said. "With playing three freshmen I thought it was imperative that we got those guys as involved as we possibly could in all aspects of the game. It wasn't easy. It was kind of hard because of who we played. Our schedule was a whole lot harder than it was a year ago.''

The versatility that West Virginia has shown this season is part of a style that isn't necessarily unique in college basketball, but neither is it terribly mainstream. That's one of the things that has made the Mountaineers so successful in the early going. Just as former coach John Beilein employed rather oddball offenses and defenses that gave opponents fits, the ability of the players on this team to move around and create mismatches causes problems in preparing for WVU.

Huggins admits that if he had it all to do over again, this is likely the style he would have stuck with his entire career.

"I think that's why, historically, this league's had a lot of success in the postseason,'' Huggins said. "What John [Beilein] did here, you don't see it every day. What John Thompson does [at Georgetown] you don't see every day. You don't see the way Louisville plays every day. And I think that's a tremendous advantage.

"We probably screwed up when I was at Cincinnati because we changed. We did press and we played a lot of matchup and we did some different things. And then we went to where we were just a grind-it-out, man-to-man team. In hindsight maybe we shouldn't have done that.''

Briefly

"But the reality of the deal is that when Da'Sean and Alex [WVU's two best scorers] are a combined 9, we're not going to win,'' Huggins said.

"It's easy in hindsight to say go and score [the layup],'' Huggins said. "But if Alex makes the shot and we're up one it's a great play.''

Huggins also pointed out that going to the basket may have very well resulted in a foul, which would have sent someone to the line. That happened anyway when Thoroughman was fouled.

"Probably in hindsight he did the right thing because we got an open shot at a 3-pointer and the foul,'' Huggins said.

Reach Dave Hickman at 348-1734 or dphickm...@aol.com.