'Sleeper' Team
November 05, 2004 11:44 AM | General
November 5, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – A couple of weeks ago at Big East media day Notre Dame coach Mike Brey blew West Virginia right out of the water by calling the Mountaineers his ‘sleeper team’ in the Big East this year.
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| West Virginia coach John Beilein is happy with his team's conditioning during preseason workouts.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
Coach John Beilein hopes he’s right.
“We know we’re a better team but we’re cognizant of the idea that the whole league is better,” Beilein said. “Last year we had six teams in the NCAA tournament and we won the national championship again. As they say, the ball is going to have to bounce our way a couple of times and we’re going to have to stay away from some key injuries. There are a few guys, who I would never mention, that if we lost them to injury would really hurt us.
“We don’t consider ourselves a sleeper but we don’t consider ourselves a favorite either.”
Beilein has all five starters returning this year, including the conference’s top returning shot swatter in 6-foot-11-inch senior D’or Fischer.
Fischer joins a front line that includes 6-foot-10 junior Kevin Pittsnogle and 6-foot-7 forward Tyrone Sally. Those three combined to average 31.2 points and 16.5 rebounds per game last year. Beilein is hopeful that his two starting guards J.D. Collins and Joe Herber and backups Patrick Beilein, Darris Nichols and Nick Patella can add a little more to the scoring column this year.
“I think we need more scoring out of our guards so if our forwards are having a bad night or our center is having a bad that we can get more points out of Joe, J.D. Darris, Pat and Nick Patella,” Beilein said. “I think it is important that we step up there because they are pretty good taking care of the ball but we just don’t want them to be passing stations. We want them to look to score and score when the have the opportunities.”
Beilein says a starting lineup hasn’t been etched in stone yet and that he is also considering using more players in his rotation this year.
“We certainly may start different people during the year depending on how that is going but right now it’s a battle of number six, seven and eight,” he said. “And do we go nine and 10 and how often?
“Right now there are 12 guys pushing to get into that top eight or nine.”
The coach has been pleased with the way his team has worked so far during the preseason and credits the team’s trip to Europe in August as an opportunity to give it a head start on the regular season.
“It is a very low maintenance team right now which you have to be very careful of from the standpoint of becoming complacent as a coach,” Beilein said. “I think they understand that we have to become more demanding and I think they have responded. I think we’ve been more demanding during this preseason than maybe last year when we had four or five new people that we were assimilating into our culture so to speak.”
One veteran player already assimilated is senior Tyrone Sally, whom Beilein is looking to for leadership and scoring this year. Sally averaged 10.2 points per game last year as a junior and scored 17 points each in NIT games against Kent State and Rhode Island. This fall Sally has been playing predominantly on the left wing.
“He’s really comfortable over there and a righthander is usually more comfortable on the left side of the floor because he’s got the whole open court to his right side,” Beilein said. “He’s need to be more assertive probably to be a guy who looks for his nooks and crannies during the game: not run any plays, just see that here is an opportunity where what I see is probably better than the option the team is running. We need him not to be selfish, but not to be robotic at times over there either.”
The general public will get its first opportunity to see this year’s team in person on Monday, Nov. 15, when the Mountaineers play University of Pan-Americana in an exhibition game that will get underway at 7 pm.
West Virginia’s regular season opener is Saturday, Nov. 20, against St. Peter’s at the WVU Coliseum. That game will get started at 7 pm.
The Mountaineer Ticket Office is still accepting season ticket orders and they can be purchased by calling the ticket office toll-free at 1-800-WVU GAME. Fans can also purchase single-game tickets online at WVUGAME.com
Briefly:
“That is a good trend where teams are playing schools that are Division II and Division III because they get a paycheck and you get to play against a college basketball philosophy,” he said.
“We would normally be playing an exhibition game right now if I didn’t choose to scrimmage. You are allowed two exhibition games or scrimmages and we do one of each.”
