Kobe Johnson making most of early opportunities

His performance to date has been the best of his career and he owes that to some natural gifts he has, to a tireless work ethic and to an assistant coach who is but a year or two older than him and who may be the best thing that ever happened to him.

That assistant coach is the former WVU and UNLV point guard Jordan McCabe.

“Kobe has relied on him in a lot of ways,” head coach Josh Eilert said on Friday as he finished up work before next week’s Fort Myers, Fla., Classic where he meets SMU and then either Wisconsin or Virginia.

“Kobe is — I don’t want to say secret weapon — but once he starts getting that confidence and aggression, he’s a different player and we’ve been waiting for Kobe to take that role and get more aggressive and take that approach to the game. He’s got a big, athletic body and people have a hard time stopping him.”

Well, if Kobe is the Mountaineers’ secret weapon, and his career high in points, assists and rebounds in the latest victory over Jacksonville State doesn’t prove that then nothing will.

And McCabe, who coaches the point guards, is Kobe’s secret weapon.

McCabe played backup point guard mostly under Bob Huggins here but did not just waste his time thinking of the game as a player. He was always looking at it as a coach before he left to finish his career at UNLV, where he felt he would get to play a more important role on the floor.

When his playing time ended, he decided he wanted to coach and contacted Huggins, among others, setting his return into motion, although it would be not a normal return as an assistant coach.

“It’s been something I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I started to think about coaching as a player. I have an obsession and passion for the game of basketball and I knew I never wanted to do anything outside this game,” he said in a recent interview session.

And so it was he struck a deal with Huggins. It was a handshake deal without a written contract.

Then, Huggins lost his job.

Here was McCabe, having moved to Morgantown over the off-season, having moved with his fiance into a house he bought, then all of a sudden he was unemployed without even a piece of paper to show he was an assistant coach.

“It was an eventful time for me. Nerve-wracking at times. Chaotic for sure, but I’ve always been somebody who thrives on chaos and finds an opportunity through that,” he said. “I was blessed the Coach Eilert gave me an opportunity to be an assistant here.”

Eilert had been named interim head coach and he picked up Da’Sean Butler, Alex Ruoff and McCabe to join DerMarr Johnson, a former Huggins player from Cincinnati who joined his staff last year, as Eilert’s assistants.

It would seem to be something of a gamble, McCabe being probably the youngest assistant in college basketball.

“He took a risk for sure in my position,” McCabe said. “He put his faith in me and I don’t take that for granted.”

Eilert knew had reasons why he wanted McCabe on his staff.

“I believe in him,” Eilert explained. “He’s always been a high character guy, he’s knowledgeable, he’s energetic. He’s got all the qualities to be an incredible assistant coach, not only on the floor each and every day in the mentor role and the coaching role, but on the road recruiting because he’s such a personable guy.”

Eilert understood what it was like when no one would take a chance on you. He says he often has had conversations with McCabe about it.

“I remember being right into the business in the early years and everybody kind of put me down, saying ‘You don’t have experience to be an assistant.’”

And he would think, ‘Well, how am I going to get experience? Believe in me.’” Eilert recalled. “I always got talk, ‘You don’t have time on the road recruiting.’ Well, until someone gives you that belief, you won’t get that opportunity. I look at it like I wish someone had given me the opportunity and put me in that role at that age.”

McCabe began paying dividends for Eilert as soon as he joined the staff, helping with the recruitment of Kriisa.

“One of the big reasons Kerr signed on the dotted line was because Jordan was inmolved. I put those two in touch with each other when we were recruiting Kerr. Those guys gravitate toward him in a lot of ways,” Eilert said. “It’s nice to have balance of young coaches. Even Jordan, just coming out of playing days in college, those guys will listen to him. He has their respect and is very knowledgeable about the game.”