Early word — and, man, do I mean early — is Bob Huggins’ fifth basketball team is going to score more this year than the past two years. Those WVU teams were offensively challenged, to say the least, and while it was admirable to see a team commit so sincerely to defense and rebounding to make up for the shooting and scoring shortcomings, it wasn’t very exciting basketball.

All this talk about branding the football program and giving it an offensive identity has thus far escaped basketball, where, really, the talk shouldn’t be much different. True, Huggins won — a whole lot — but one wonders how long anyone thought he could keep that style going with so many new and young players. Henceh the recruiting emphasis on points and wings, right?

Well, this team that’s about to head to Europe two weeks from today is rumored to be a little more capable. Now, I didn’t seen any great shooters added to the class and it’s probably unfair to expect Kevin Noreen to make up that gap or for Kevin Jones and Truck Bryant to play well above their acceptable averages. Still, the word is more points because of more easy baskets.

These Mountaineers will be ath-a-let-ic and if you’ve only heard that, believe it when it comes from someone who’s seen it.

“We will be more athletic,” Huggins promised. “We were running transition drills and we had two or three guys trying to dunk over other guys. That’s something we haven’t had. Before, we had guys going underneath of them.”