Europe Bound
August 03, 2004 02:15 PM | General
August 3, 2004
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. –The West Virginia University men's basketball team has been working out in preparation for a six-game, 12-day tour of Europe. The Mountaineers began practicing Sunday night and will continue drills until the team departs next Monday, Aug. 9, for Europe.
 |
||
| John Beilein talks to reporters Monday afternoon. (WVU Sports Communications photo) |
WVU’s first game is Thursday against the Dutch National Team.
The Mountaineers will play the Dutch twice and also play two games against the Czech National team and two games against a club team from Germany before returning to Morgantown on Saturday, Aug. 21.
WVU coach John Beilein says there are several benefits to taking a team overseas.
“The obvious thing is the team chemistry you end up developing,” he said. “We’ll stay pretty consistent with our roommates but some places we’ll have three guys to a room because of the makeup of the hotel.
“We’ll go to some restaurants together but sometimes we’ll give them meal money and say, ‘Go find someplace in the city where you can eat’ and they’re going to learn something about the culture there,” he added. “We hope they will set their sights on history and some sightseeing when they have time. Those things they will talk about forever.”
Also on the menu is plenty of basketball. Beilein says he plans on doing some tinkering with his regular rotation of eight players while also working in St. Bonaventure transfer Mike Gansey, now eligible after sitting out last season.
“We’re going to try and teach Mike one position and then let everyone else play multiple positions rather than trying to teach a new guy several positions,” said Beilein. “I think at small forward we will try and get him as much time as we can and move Tyrone (Sally) around to both forwards, work Frank (Young) in at both forwards along with Kevin (Pittsnogle).”
In two workouts the 6-foot-4 Gansey has already caught Beilein’s eye. “Mike did a couple of things last night that made us all smile,” he said.
Beilein is also interested in seeing what some of the younger players can do in game situations. During the next to last game of the trip Beilein plans to exclusively use the younger players.
“We’re going to play those rising sophomores that did not play a lot last year: B.J. (Byerson), Frank, Nick (Patella), Juice (Duriel Price) and probably Mike,” said Beilein. The guys playing major minutes will not play in that game: it’s going to be like a scrimmage.”
Beilein is also taking graduated senior Jon Curran on the trip for depth. Curran will see a lot of action in the game set aside for the younger players.
“Jon has hopes that he can latch on with a lower division team in Europe and he’d like to extend his career,” Beilein said. “This will give him an opportunity to see what it’s all about and see if he thinks he can do that over there.”
Redshirt freshman forward B.J. Byerson was excused from the first practice on Sunday to attend a family reunion in South Carolina and junior guard Joe Herber will join the team when it arrives in Europe next Tuesday.
”He’s involved with the final tryouts for the German National Team. That’s in preparation for next year’s European Championships,” said Beilein. “He’s practicing every day and he probably knows our offenses and defenses better than the coaches. I thought it was just best that he stay there instead of bringing him back across the pond three times in a month.”
Other basketball news and notes:
“You should have most of your recruits by that time,” he said. “Your system is implemented a little bit more. Also, people get tired of, ‘Hey, we’re a young team.’ You have to make those strides and I understand that. You guys (point to the media) know how I feel about how you’re supposed to be judged: you’re supposed to win. Year three is important but so is year four and year five and so on.”
“The league is probably stronger without Miami and Virginia Tech than it was with them,” he said. “Even though Virginia Tech beat us twice last year, I also know that’s a game we can win or lose. There are some games that we play twice that are still going to be really hard for us to win – the Syracuses and the Connecticuts – but let’s see what we can do this year.”
