West Virginia opens the 2026-27 season Monday night with a fresh roster, a familiar name on the opposing bench and a long gap in the series history when Niagara visits Morgantown for the first time.
The matchup also marks only the seventh meeting between the programs, with the rivalry stretching back to 1918 and not resurfacing since Jan. 5, 1952. West Virginia won that last one 74-71 at Buffalo’s Memorial Auditorium.
Niagara comes in under Greg Paulus, the former Duke standout who is now in his eighth season leading the Purple Eagles. Paulus guided Niagara to back-to-back 16-win seasons in 2024-25 before last year dropped to eight victories, which led to a complete roster overhaul.
That reset brought in 11 new players, and one of the first to make noise was Wright State transfer Logan Woods. The 6-foot-5 guard led Niagara with 12 points in a recent 71-58 exhibition loss to Syracuse in Buffalo.
Cole Farrell, a transfer from Long Beach State, added 10. Syracuse was without Temple transfer Aiden Tobiason, and Niagara trimmed a 17-point second-half deficit to four before the Orange closed it out.
The Purple Eagles hit 7 of 18 from 3-point range and had nine players score. Paulus started Woods, 6-foot-2 Fresno State transfer Bastien Rieber, 6-foot-2 sophomore guard Samuele Miccoli, 6-foot-9 forward Fidel Rotta and 6-foot-4 freshman guard Ruey Ruey.
West Virginia is in a similar spot, turning over most of its roster after last season’s 21-14 team that beat Oklahoma in overtime to win the College Crown in Las Vegas. The Mountaineers return only two significant contributors, though a recent court order extended 6-foot-9 forward Brenen Lorient’s college career by another season. Guard Amir Jenkins is back for his sophomore year, but he remains out indefinitely while recovering from offseason shoulder surgery.
Freshman point guard Miles Sadler, the highest-rated recruit to sign with West Virginia, headlines a backcourt that also includes Butler transfer Finley Bizjack and Utah transfer Seydou Traore. Bizjack, an All-Big East Third Team selection in 2026, earned the start in last Wednesday’s exhibition win over Division II Wheeling, along with Lorient and 6-foot-10 Georgia Tech transfer Mouhamed Sylla. Sadler and Bizjack were the top two scorers in preseason games against Maryland, Glenville State and Wheeling, with Bizjack posting a team-high 25 in a 90-81 overtime loss at Maryland.
The bench gives coach Darian DeVries plenty to sort through early. St.
John’s transfer Joson Sanon arrived as a five-star prep prospect after originally signing with Arizona State. Martin Somerville, a 6-foot-3 guard, spent last season at Florida State after beginning at UMass-Lowell.
Other guard options include 6-foot-3 freshman Keonte Greybear, ranked as the nation’s 24th-best point guard prospect out of Frisco, Texas, and 6-foot-3 Jelani McKoy, who was teammates with Sadler and 6-foot-10 forward Aliou Dioum at Belle Vista Prep in Arizona.
Boise State transfer Javan Buchanan also joins the mix after benefiting from the same court decision as Lorient to gain an extra year of eligibility. Buchanan is coming off an All-Mountain West honorable mention season in 2026. West Virginia’s frontcourt depth gets even bigger with 7-foot-1 freshman center Amadou Seini, who set the FIBA U19 World Cup rebounding record, and four-star ESPN.com prospect Dioum.
"Starting is probably one of the least important things to me, personally, but I know it's super-important to people," Hodge said following Wednesday night's 43-point exhibition victory over the Cardinals. "We easily could have nine or 10 starters in their own way."
He added, "You're looking at more combinations of people that are playing, and when they play, because they're not all going to be able to play at the same time," Hodge mentioned. "Martin has been tremendous; Joson was great to start (the Wheeling game), and Javan, so you have a lot of capable players in a lot of different ways you can play - depending on who you're playing against, and it'll be somebody different each night with this group."
Redshirt freshman guard MJ Feenane and Wheeling Central freshman forward Max Olejasz complete the roster.
Monday begins the 118th season of Mountaineer men’s basketball, a program that has piled up 1,895 all-time wins, good for 20th among Division I schools. West Virginia is chasing its 32nd NCAA Tournament berth and its first since 2023, Bob Huggins’ final season at the helm.
Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. The game will stream on ESPN+ with Nick Farrell and Nate Adrian on the call. Tony Caridi, Brad Howe and David Kahn will begin coverage at 6 p.m. on stations across West Virginia, online at WVUsports.com and through the Varsity Network and WVU Gameday apps.
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West Virginia Will Relive Its Roster Chaos In A Painful Way
West Virginias mens basketball program has spent the past four years living through roster churn, and much of it traces back to the instability at head coach. The result is a familiar one for the Mountaineers: former players moving on, new faces arriving, and a lineup that has rarely stayed intact long enough to settle in. Now, some of those departures are coming back around in a way that will feel especially personal for the program.
Amani Hansberry, Miles Powell and Thomas are among the former Mountaineers who transferred elsewhere and are set to face West Virginia in upcoming games. For a team that has already had to absorb so much change, those matchups will serve as a reminder of how quickly the roster has been reshaped and how often the program has had to move on from players who once looked like part of its future. [Read more 🡒]
WVU Faces A Nonconference Test That Could Define Its March Hopes
West Virginias early schedule leaves little room to ease into the season, and that is exactly what makes the next few weeks so important. The Mountaineers are headed to the Player Era Tournament in Las Vegas and will also see North Carolina, Pitt and Wake Forest on neutral floors, with Virginia Tech coming to Morgantown before Big 12 play begins. It is the kind of slate that can sharpen a team quickly, but it also asks for consistency against several opponents that should offer real NCAA Tournament-level resistance.
For a program trying to build a March rsum, the margin for error is already thin. A strong run through nonconference play would give WVU a chance to stack meaningful wins before the league grind begins, while a rough stretch could leave the Mountaineers chasing quality victories for the rest of the winter. If they can come out of this opening stretch with only a few losses, the path to the tournament picture gets a lot cleaner. [Read more 🡒]
West Virginias New-Look Roster Is Drawing Serious Big 12 Buzz
Ross Hodge is about to find out quickly what his new-look roster can do, with West Virginia opening the season against Niagara and carrying a very different feel into the year. The Mountaineers have leaned on transfers and freshmen to reshape the group, and the early buzz around the program has centered on added depth and athleticism after a roster overhaul that left the staff with plenty to sort out in real time.
Jon Rothstein has already put the Mountaineers on the radar as a team with NCAA Tournament potential, which is a notable vote of confidence for a roster still trying to establish its identity. The question for West Virginia is whether that optimism matches the reality of a team with so many new faces and so few returning pieces, and the first few weeks should go a long way toward revealing how high this ceiling really is. [Read more 🡒]