Lots of people are doing a lot of projecting about WVU basketball, which, in May, is a pretty good sign many are awaiting the next time the orange thing bounces off the parquet thing.

So let’s indulge.

Having Kevin Jones around is certainly worth more people in the stands and wins in that particular column. He’s going to make his teammates better between now and the first game and, oh, by the way, he’s also going to be one of the better players in the league.

As strange as it may seem, he might be first-team all-Big East in the preseason. I mean that. Of the 20 players on the 2011 first, second, third and honorable mention teams, only first-teamer Ashton Gibbs, second-teamer Darius Johnson-Odom, third-teamer Kris Joseph and HMers Peyton Siva, Scoop Jardine and Jones are back for the upcoming season.

It’s unlikely that’s the preseason first team, especially when you add in Jeremy Lamb, Cleveland Melvin and Sean Kilpatrick from the rookie team. Still, Jones is surely one of the better players in the league. That helps in perception and performance and maybe it gets WVU on TV a little more, which then helps recruiting and revenue, so on and so forth.

He also gives WVU 13 players and the overlooked and undervalued ability to practice good on good. Seriously, Truck can go at Jabarie Hinds and Gary Browne in practice. Dalton Pepper can get after Aaron Brown. Deniz Kilicli and Kevin Noreen and Pat Forsythe have to benefit from Aaric Murray.

And for all of that, vice versa.

Then just think of what can happen when you mix Jones with Tommie McCune, Keaton Miles and Dominique Rutledge.

WVU just didn’t have that luxury last season and it was a factor. Practices were useful only to a certain extent.

Jones is also a lock to start … and there may be only three of those. Truck and Deniz Kilicli would be on my list, too, but Deniz wasn’t comfortable starting last season. It’s here’s where things get interesting.

Is Jabarie Hinds your other starting guard and do you then ask Truck, who became a well above average defender, to take the other team’s two guard? Or do you start Truck and Dalton Pepper and hope Pepper can guard SGs, even though he admitted he’s one of the team’s weaker defenders … and that was after his stealfest at the end of the Clemson game?

You’d do that because you have to start two guards and two forwards and a center, right? So it’s Truck/Pepper or Hinds/Truck and then Jones, Kevin Noreen and Kilicli with a wave of SF/PFs ready to roll in Keaton Miles, Tommie McCune and Dominique Rutledge and Forsythe as a backup center.  

Basic basketball.

And dated basketball.

You no longer need the 2-2-1 lineup. Can you start Hinds, Truck and Pepper and fold in Gary Browne and Aaron Brown in the backcourt and then Jones and Kilicli in the frontcourt with Noreen, McCune, Miles, Rutledge and Pat Forsythe?

That seems particularly appealing, especially if you liked how much better the offense looked last season with Truck and Joe Mazzulla together. With three PGs, it’s less of a risk, as long as Truck avoide regular foul trouble, which hasn’t been a problem inhis career.

This team has the potential — ie, bodies + reputations — to be faster and longer and more able on the floor. It can be an up-and-down team that still has some size and reach to rebound and guard. Or it can be a team that goes in another direction and plays more like it has the past few seasons and grinds and guards and tries to simplify the game and maximize possessions. Either way, the more passsers you have the better teh ball moves and the cleaner the offense runs. There is merit to that lineup.

At the least, there are a plethora of possibilities and things to think about in May … and we haven’t even mentioned the possibility of redshirts to break up the classes.