When the West Virginia Mountaineers take the floor on Monday night for the season opener against Niagara, Ross Hodge will likely trot out a starting lineup that consists of Miles Sadler, Finley Bizjack, Joson Sanon, Brenen Lorient, and Mouhamed Sylla.

The second unit, however, is full of guys who are capable of starting, and that's not just because they've played well against inferior competition in two of the team's three exhibitions.

Seydou Traore started at Utah, Javan Buchanan started at Boise State and could have started at just about any Power Four school this year, Martin Somerville started double-digit games at Florida State, and freshman big man Amadou Seini is an extremely talented rebounder and rim protector who could end up leading the team in rebounds.

It's one thing to have depth; it's another to have depth that can play at the same level as the starting unit, if not pretty close to it.

"Starting, to me, is probably one of the least important things to me personally, but I know it's super important to people. We easily could have nine starters or 10 starters, in their own way," Hodge said following the win over Wheeling. "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. (Junior guard) Martin (Somerville) has been tremendous. (Junior guard) Joson (Sanon) was great to start the game. (Fifth-year forward) Javan (Buchanan). 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."

A year ago, if Honor Huff couldn't get hot for a stretch at some point in the game, it was going to be difficult for West Virginia to win. As good as the defense was, you have to be able to run an efficient offense and have multiple guys who can score it in a variety of ways. This team has that.

It remains to be seen how deep this team truly is and if it comes anywhere close to the Press Virginia years, where 10-11 guys were giving solid minutes. On paper, though, and what we've seen through three exhibitions, it's much better than what we've seen in Morgantown in years.