Basketball Notebook
October 23, 2005 11:18 AM | General
October 23, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia coach John Beilein has been quite pleased with the progress his basketball team has made heading into its second full week of practice. The Mountaineers start their season two weeks early playing Louisiana-Monroe in the opening round of the Guardians Classic in Morgantown, on Saturday, Nov. 12. A day later West Virginia will play either Wofford or Fairleigh-Dickinson.
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| West Virginia coach John Beilein gives instructions to his team before its first practice of the fall.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
“I’m very pleased with the veterans with as much as they recall as far as technique and detail from what we do,” Beilein said earlier this week, adding that most of them have been in the system for four years now.
What really has Beilein encouraged is the progress being made by freshmen forwards Joe Alexander and Alex Ruoff. Both appear to be picking things up pretty quickly.
“It’s probably been as good as anyone else we’ve had pick it up,” Beilein says.
Alexander and Ruoff are both well suited to run Beilein’s sophisticated system. They are in the 6-6 to 6-8 range and are versatile enough to play several positions. They also seem to be fitting in well with WVU’s five seniors.
Beilein admits the toughest thing for new players to do is recognize the difference between being patient and looking for opportunities within his system.
“We say take 50-50 shots but don’t make 50-50 plays. As a result they’re trying to understand what a 50-50 shot is,” he said. “In high school they make take a different 50-50 shot but now the close-out is much quicker and the guy guarding them is much taller.
“This play may used to work 80 percent of the time back in high school where I can throw that bounce pass through there. Now you’ve got Darris Nichols or J.D. Collins in the way and they’re going to get their hands on it,” Beilein said.
Because this team is so experienced, Beilein says both Alexander and Ruoff will benefit greatly from watching the older players prepare each day.
“There is a very veteran almost a professional type of approach by our upperclassmen and I hope they can keep that up,” he said.
“I think Joe Alexander was a bit dizzy from all the terms being thrown at him and he didn’t pay attention for maybe five seconds once and one of our seniors reminded him that I was still talking to him. That was good to hear,” said Beilein.
And while the younger players are showing daily improvement, Beilein says he’s been impressed with the progress made by some of the veteran players, too.
“Several of them have showed great improvement. The two I’d say that have showed the most improvement are J.D. and Patrick,” Beilein said. “Mike Gansey has been terrific, so has Joe and so has Kevin Pittsnogle. All of them have done very well. Frank (Young) is finally healthy so we haven’t been able to measure him as much.”
Young has been battling foot problems during the preseason and is one of the leading candidates to take over the small forward position occupied by Tyrone Sally last year.
Briefly:
“We have to be careful with that,” he said. “We are only 10 deep and how much can we run? We have to run a little bit but we can run ourselves right out of the season too. There are times when we’re going to want to play a game in the 80s and 90s and there might be times when we’re outmanned and we want to shorten the game.”
“It’s still different for me from the standpoint that I’ve been coaching for 31 years and there have only been four coaching him. You turn into a father at times during practice either being too hard or too light on him and you’re always measuring that,” Beilein said.
When he brought Patrick to WVU four years ago he was never really concerned that might be some charges of nepotism.
“You can’t control everything. I felt that I would never play him for any other reason than that our staff believed he could help us,” Beilein said. “In most situations as a freshman he would not have played at this level. But we had to have bodies that first year and he turned out to be a pretty good body once he worked through everything.”
This year, Beilein says his son has come into preseason camp a little lighter and a little quicker.
“I think his weight is at 201 where I’ve wanted him,” Beilein said. “He was up as high as 209 from weight lifting but he doesn’t do as many weights anymore. We just try and get him to be as quick as he can be.”
“What is amazing to me is how many different West Virginia people there are in different parts of the world who recognize that WV,” Beilein said. “They recognize the WV before they recognize me. I like that anonymity. I don’t wear my WV shirt when I’m traveling sometimes so that I can move quickly through airports. That WV does attract an awful lot of attention and that’s really neat with what has happened with our season.”
Consequently, Beilein knows his team is going to get A-games from everybody on its schedule this year.
“We will continue to work hard as a coaching staff to continue to be hunters and not let anybody think that we’re anything but a bunch of guys playing ball together,” Beilein said. “We still do not have the high-profile recruit on this team that has been ballyhooed since he was a ninth grader. We have good players and they’ve proven that they’re good players but I want them to still try and prove everyday that they’re better than people
