Coming Through
February 10, 2005 02:54 PM | General
February 10, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – There are instances when sophomore Frank Young has made valuable contributions to the West Virginia University basketball team.
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| Frank Young looks for an open teammate during Wednesday's 67-65 victory over Providence. Young scored a career-high 11 points in the game.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
Last year Young hit a pair of big three-point baskets in West Virginia’s win on the road against Maryland, and he added five points in an NIT victory over Kent State. And earlier this year Young scored a then-career-high eight points against New Hampshire. But his performance during last night’s 67-65 win over Providence was easily the best effort of his career.
Young, a career 26.3 percent shooter coming into the Providence game, made four of five field-goal attempts including three of four from three-point range to score 11 points off the bench.
The 6-foot-5 sophomore forward also made two rebounds and handed out an assist that led to a Tyrone Sally reverse layup late in the second half. It was not just that Young scored 11 points, but it was also the times that he scored them.
Young’s three in the first half stopped a big Providence run and pulled West Virginia to within six at the 10-minute mark of the first half. A couple of minutes later, his second three cut Providence’s lead to three.
In the second half after grabbing a rebound on Donnie McGrath’s miss, Young came down the floor and sank his third three of the game to put West Virginia up four, 58-54, with 6:56 remaining in the game.
Later, Young made a pretty pass down along the baseline to Tyrone Sally that he was able to turn into a reverse layup to give West Virginia an eight-point lead. “He passed it back out to me and I saw him down low and I made the pass and I was happy that I could help the team keep the lead,” Young said.
At this point late in the game Young is normally watching from the bench.
“I usually haven’t made big contributions like this in critical minutes in the game,” he said. “I was in there in the second half and toward the end of the game when you can make a difference. I really felt good that coach had the confidence to have me in there at that time tonight.”
Circumstances forced Beilein to utilize Young more Wednesday night. D’or Fischer, Tyrone Sally, Mike Gansey and J.D. Collins were all suffering from colds that reduced their stamina. Beilein told Young before the game to be prepared to play more than his usual seven minutes per game.
As it turned out, Young doubled that amount because Sally got into early foul trouble.
“I just went out there and tried to help the team anyway I could,” Young said. “Once I got some sweat on my face and kept going I really felt comfortable out there. I didn’t feel nervous or anything like that.”
Nerves and confidence have played a big part in Young’s young career so far at WVU. At the beginning of the season he missed his first nine field-goal attempts and was coming close to being buried deep on the bench before having an eight-point effort in the New Hampshire win on Dec. 21. Young played his most minutes of the season in a mop-up roll against Notre Dame, scoring five points in 16 minutes of work.
The Tallahassee, Fla., native admits when he gets his first shot of the game to go down that usually relaxes him and leads to a good performance. Yet when he misses his first shot oftentimes all bets are off.
“When I hit my first shot I felt real comfortable,” he said. “I think when I was in there a little bit longer because Tyrone was in foul trouble I think that’s what really got me going and got me into a groove.”
Even when one of Young’s later shots went wide of the mark it didn’t affect his confidence. “I didn’t really worry too much about that one because I hit the two before that. I knew I could hit another one,” he said.
Beilein said he could see a good performance coming from Young after watching him continually do well in practice.
“I put him back on the scout team just to let him play a little bit and he has been lighting us up so it wasn’t much of a choice when I knew some guys had the sniffles,” the coach said. “I said, ‘You know what this is good because Frank needs to play.’ And he did a great job.”
For Beilein, one good performance in practice doesn’t necessarily translate into playing time in games. It must be done on a consistent basis.
“Our guys that don’t get to play a lot they occasionally have good days in practice,” Beilein said. “I’ve been stressing with Frank, with B.J. (Byerson) and with everybody, it’s not about having one good day in practice. You’ve got to continually play well in practice and somebody has got to be having a bad game to get you in there. (Frank) has been continually having good practices.”
Young believes his effort against Providence is the type of performance that he can build upon for the rest of his career.
“I feel real good about the way I played. I think I have arrived as a contributor to this team and I’m just going to try and keep helping the team everyday,” he said.
With tough road games on the horizon against athletic teams like Georgetown and St. John’s, Young’s new-found confidence could be a good thing for the Mountaineers.
