February 7 Notebook
February 07, 2005 05:11 PM | General
February 7, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- Veteran sports reporter Mickey Furfari got me thinking earlier today: He was curious to know how long it took past Mountaineer basketball coaches to record at least five victories against nationally ranked teams.
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| Twenty three percent of John Beilein's games at WVU during his first three seasons have been against nationally ranked teams.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
Well, if you count WVU’s win against Maryland last year in the BB&T Classic in Washington, D.C. (the Terps were No. 25 in the ESPN/USA Today Coaches Poll and were 26th in the AP poll), then John Beilein has done it quicker than any other coach in school history, including Fred Schaus.
Beilein managed to produce his fifth win over a nationally ranked team last Saturday against No. 15 Pitt in just his 80th career game at West Virginia. That’s 16 games faster than Schaus did it when his fourth Mountaineer team downed No. 19-rated Richmond early in the 1957-58 season.
It took George King 143 games to register his fifth win against a ranked team when the Mountaineers upset No. 6-rated Davidson, 74-72 in the semifinals of the 1965 Southern Conference Tournament.
And it took the school’s winningest coach Gale Catlett eight and a half years and 272 games to get his fifth triumph against a rated team when WVU downed No. 5-ranked Temple on Feb. 24, 1987.
Those are the only three coaches in school history with at least five wins against nationally ranked teams. Here are the chronological records of WVU coaches against AP ranked teams since 1950:
Here is another way to look at this: Beilein has by far faced the most difficult schedule of any coach in WVU history. The third-year mentor has already played 18 nationally ranked teams in 80 games. That comes out to an average of 23 percent of his games (22.5 percent rounded up). Seven of those 18 ranked opponents were in the top 10.
The next closest on the list are both Fred Schaus and George King at 11 percent. Schaus faced 21 nationally ranked teams in 183 career games (11.4 percent) while King played 16 ranked teams in 145 career games (11.0 percent).
Gale Catlett played the most nationally ranked teams, 75, but he did it over a span of 715 career games. That averages out to 10.5 percent.
Sonny Moran (nine percent), Joedy Gardner (seven percent), Red Brown and Bucky Waters (six percent) played less than 10 percent of their games against nationally ranked teams.
Lee Patton faced two nationally ranked teams during his final season in 1950 – the year the AP first began ranking teams – so he doesn’t figure into the equation.
Catlett faced 29 top 10 opponents during his career, King played against 16, Schaus nine, and Waters 7.
Since West Virginia joined the Big East in 1995, the Mountaineers have played 56 nationally ranked teams. The school has played 166 total games against nationally ranked competition. That means nearly 35 percent of the games against the very best teams in the country since 1950 have come during the last 10 seasons.
In fairness to King and Waters, they coached during a period from 1963-68 when the AP only rated the nation's top 10 teams. The AP poll was expanded from 20 to 25 teams in 1990, but of the ranked teams Beilein has faced to date, only one (No. 24 Syracuse in 2004) rated lower than 20th.
Beilein has also played the eventual national champion twice already in three seasons (Syracuse in 2003 and Connecticut in 2004). Catlett faced the eventual national champion three times, Schaus twice and Patton and Waters once each.
Virginia Tech is fourth in the ACC standings behind North Carolina, Duke and Wake Forest with victories over Clemson, N.C. State, Georgia Tech, Virginia and Miami. The Hurricanes are .500 with ACC wins over N.C. State, Virginia, Florida State, Clemson and Maryland.
To give you an idea of how the two leagues stack up, just examine the RPIs of two similar teams record-wise: Virginia Tech and West Virginia.
West Virginia is 13-7 through 20 games and has an RPI of 63. The Hokies, meanwhile, are one game off the Mountaineers at 12-8 and they own an RPI of 133.
The ACC has also not fared well head to head against the Big East going just 1-5. In a recent battle of the two bottom teams, Providence beat Virginia by 19 at the Dunkin’ Donuts Center five days ago.
Waters is unable to work the contest due to a prior commitment.
Don’t forget, the Providence game tips off at the retro time of 8 pm instead of the normal 7-pm start.
She has since dropped me from her recruiting board.
According to the Star, Purdue coaches spent a total of $78,000 during two months worth of traveling last year. During that same period, Indiana spent $61,177 on the use of private airplanes for coaches’ recruiting travel.
Congratulations Kevin!
Arena teams are playing a 17-week schedule that runs through the end of May. Arena Bowl XIX will be played on Sunday, June 12, in Las Vegas. Arena2 league plays starts in April.
Harris isn’t listed among Mel Kiper’s top five running backs for the NFL draft as of Jan. 31, but junior Adam Pac-Man Jones is Kiper’s No. 1-rated cornerback.
By the way, Kevin’s 27 points scored against Pitt were the most by a Mountaineer player in their last 37 conference games. Pittsnogle’s 27 points were also one shy of Gordon Malone’s 28 scored against BC in 1997. Those 28 points by Malone represent the most ever scored by a West Virginia player standing 6-feet-10-inches or taller.
That is a tall feat indeed.
Have a great week!
