Bob Huggins was asked this week what he thought was affecting Deniz Kilicli five games into the season and Huggins matter-of-factly pointed out Kilicli is struggling with being the man in the middle.

Not in the middle of the offense, mind you, though that’s certainly an issue, but in the middle of the defensive game plan the other team assembles.

There is no Da’Sean Butler, Devin Ebanks, Kevin Jones, Truck Bryant, so on and so forth. And really, if you were prepping for WVU so far this season and you studied film and the roster, who would you aim to stop? That’ll change over time, but right now, you remove Kilicli, right?

Then Huggins went a scoop deeper into the explanation. Kilicli also hurries when he’s pressured, abandons what he knows he can do and instead does what he’s most comfortable doing — which is to say what the defense expects. This is worth watching tonight when WVU plays Marshall at the Civic Center.

“He’s the one everyone wants to stop, but quite frankly, Deniz doesn’t use everything that he has,” Huggins said. “I think, hopefully, that’s kind of sunk in with him now that he’s spent more time working on some other things that he’s pretty good at.”