Hi gang. Checking in courtside from the Sprint Center in Kansas City. If you’re paying attention, and I know you are, you know Oklahoma State and TCU are playing tonight’s first game before WVU tangles with Oklahoma later this evening in the first round of the Big 12 tournament.

The Mountaineers did their session with the media here yesterday while I was en route to Kansas City, and it was mostly the basic, day before a tournament stuff — the Mountaineers are going to play hard and aren’t scared of anybody and think nobody wants to play them right now etc. etc.

What was a little bit odd, at least this season, was the sight of Sagaba Konate participating in WVU’s shootaround. It got people talking, that’s for sure.

All indications are Konate will not play tonight against Oklahoma after sitting out since West Virginia’s Dec. 8 win at home against rival Pitt. Still, his presence at the Sprint Center on Tuesday got members of the media and some players to look ahead to what could be next season for the Mountaineers.

Freshman forward Derek Culver has emerged as one of the league’s premier post players this season with Konate on the bench. Oscar Tshiebwe, perhaps the crown jewel of recruiting at WVU under Bob Huggins, is one of the premier high school post players in the country. Add Konate to that and, well, it could set up for an outhouse to the penthouse situation for the Mountaineers next season.

Of course, that depends on Konate’s next move. It was pretty much expected this would be Konate’s last season with WVU prior to his injury, but as the season has progressed the feeling among people I talk to is Konate’s best path to the NBA might be to play another season in Morgantown. Nobody knows for sure what his next move will be, but that hasn’t stopped many — including Culver — from speculating about a possible powerhouse front court for next season’s Mountaineers.

“I was thinking about that on the plane on the way here,” Culver said. ” was just thinking, “Imagine if Sags was actually healthy. Sags is 265 pounds and can jump out of the gym. I’m 260 and run like a deer. We’d be like Yin and Yang, honestly. It would be the best of both worlds.

We haven’t really got to put the product on the floor how we wanted, but you can tell everyone has the feeling of, ‘Wow, imagine if these two really got to gel’. Nobody could stop us.”

The line “I’m 260 and run like a deer” is awesome, mostly because it’s true.

TCU and Okie State are at the half, so count on WVU’s start time being a little later than 9 p.m. Until then, think happy thoughts about a 2019-2020 WVU front court that could give the Monstars a run for their money.