Preseason Views
October 27, 2004 10:39 AM | General
After watching about four or five pre-season practices I’m convinced that West Virginia is going to have a pretty good basketball team. It is not a team made up of marquee, Sporting News-type players and we all know that.
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| Jay believes Coach John Beilein already has his team in great shape in the preseason.
(All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks) |
But there are three promising things that I’ve seen early. One, they have five starters coming back and their top eight is going to be very experienced. Second, the European trip has helped them get into very, very good shape. And third, they are a very organized basketball team.
Those are the three things that jumped out at me right off the bat.
Because the Mountaineers don’t have the star power that some of the other teams in the league have West Virginia is going to be picked somewhere in the middle of the pack later today when the Big East preseason coaches poll is released. Along those same lines, I asked some guys over in Scotland that are big Mountaineer basketball fans what are the things that bring you out of your seat at a basketball game.
What they came up with was a D’or Fischer block, maybe a Tyrone Sally breakaway dunk and a Pat Beilein three. I think John Beilein wants to push the ball more but it comes down to one thing: rebounding. You can’t start any fast break without rebounding and I think that there is where the key is with this club.
Now where does that come from? It’s going to have to come within their system. You look at your starting lineup or the guys that play the most with Fischer, Pittsnogle and Sally up front and then you go J.D. Collins and Joe Herber in the back.
Then when Mike Gansey comes off the bench he can play a couple of different positions because he’s versatile. When he comes in for Pittsnogle, which I think he will a lot, you’re going to replace a 6-foot-11 guy with a 6-foot-4 guy but at the same time you are going to be bigger. You are going to be bigger because Gansey plays way above his size and Pittsnogle plays way below his size.
Right now I think the Big East is the second best basketball league in the country and in another 12 months it will be the number one conference. If you go down the line in the Big East this year I think, number one, Syracuse might have the best team they’ve ever had. Two, I think Notre Dame will finish right behind Syracuse. Connecticut, with the losses they sustained after last year’s national championship, will be fourth behind Pitt.
BC will be good. Providence scares me a little bit because they have Ryan Gomes, but they lost their big guy in the middle, and they lost Rob Sanders and Sheiku Kabba. I haven’t even mentioned Villanova or the fact that the best player in the league may be at Rutgers in sophomore guard Quincy Douby.
I’ve been around to a lot of different places and I’ve talked to a lot of different people and one of the biggest impressions I’m getting is that teams don’t like to play West Virginia because they have to spend so much time preparing for John Beilein’s system. Beilein might be the best coach in the Big East from a learning and teaching aspect. If I had a kid and I wanted him to be in a position to learn how to play the game properly I would send him to John Beilein.
Also, we’re now making our home base pretty tough and when you come to our place you know you are going to have a game on your hands.
Another observation I have about John Beilein’s basketball team this year is that they practice good habits. It’s so important in this game to have good habits. He also believes so much in his offense and the offensive end of the game and he’s very good at teaching it.
I don’t want to put a lot of hype on freshman Darris Nichols, but he’s a lefthanded kid and he’ll fit right into this system. John will use him perfectly because he can swing him between the one and the two. Early, I look for him to come off the bench and have the ball less. He’s athletic, he’s quick, and he’s going to help the team immensely by giving them 10 to 15 minutes a game. If he doesn’t make a lot of mistakes I think he earns even more playing time.
The other day I was talking to Mike Gansey and he made a pretty good point about Beilein’s system. He said he practiced as hard as he could to keep himself in shape and learn the offense while sitting out last year. Even though he paid close attention last year he is still unfamiliar with the way the offense runs and what he’s supposed to do. To the other guys like Beilein, Herber and Sally it is becoming natural to them.
And just like Gansey, I think the same applies to Nichols.
In the meantime, I’ve had a chance to watch a few women’s practices and with Meg Bulger on the sidelines for a couple of weeks they are going to have to find that leader that Kate Bulger was last year. Though she’s quiet, it could come from senior Yolanda Paige or maybe from Sherell Sowho. At the same time, this team is much, much more athletic. The new players in the program are very, very athletic and talented.
Because he is a defensive coach first, I think what Mike Carey is trying to do is to develop his team on the defensive end because he believes he can start his offense off his defense.
He has been dying to put a team on the floor that can extend its defense to full court but he won’t do that until they can master it in the half court.
They will miss Kate because of her leadership, but I really believe Mike Carey has that program off and running.
