Basketball Notebook
March 21, 2005 05:15 PM | General
March 21, 2005
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Even though West Virginia University’s John Beilein has never coached in a game against Texas Tech’s Bobby Knight, Beilein says he’s made a career out of emulating Knight’s coaching philosophies.
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| West Virginia coach John Beilein recalled Monday going to basketball coaching clinics where Texas Tech coach Bobby Knight was the featured speaker.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
“As a student-athlete who wanted to become a coach I’ve been following Bob Knight’s career since he was at Army,” said Beilein Monday afternoon. “The first clinics I went to I’d sleep four in a room with some other coaches and Bob Knight would be there or John Wooden would be there. Those were my first opportunities to really learn the game from a coaching standpoint.”
Beilein says what he learned most from Knight’s lectures was the importance of teaching fundamentals.
“I learned a lot about how important fundamentals are as opposed to new schemes and new plays,” he said. “It was more about fundamentals: pivoting, passing and catching rather than all the other things.”
Beilein says his only encounter with Knight came during the 1998 NCAA basketball tournament when his Richmond team upset South Carolina in the first round at the MCI Center in Washington, D.C. Indiana was scheduled to play that evening and Knight was walking into the arena with his team as Beilein and his team was leaving.
“We had finished the 3 o’clock game and he certainly wouldn’t remember this, but he was walking in and I was walking out and he said, ‘Nice game coach.’ I was feeling good after that because I figured he must have watched it on TV. That was the only time we crossed paths in any way shape or form.”
They may not have crossed paths on the basketball court, but the two basketball teams that they will be putting on the floor this Thursday have a lot in common. Both are well-schooled and rely on team work and unselfishness. Both have also overcome obstacles and endured rough stretches this year to advance deep into post-season play.
Beilein believes Texas Tech is really a composite of a lot of different teams West Virginia has faced this season.
“I think their quickness and defense is similar to Villanova,” Beilein said. “They are both terrific man-to-man defensive teams. Texas Tech’s team work and efficiency are probably like Creighton. I think Notre Dame when we played them earlier in January when they just tore us apart … (Texas Tech) is very efficient like Notre Dame in how they play offensively.
“They really know their roles on that team which I think is very much like our team right now,” he added.
At this point in the season, the Mountaineers will be in the unusual position of carrying the Big East banner. Only West Virginia and Villanova are left in the NCAA tournament for the round of 16. Beilein is somewhat surprised and then again he isn’t.
“I’m not surprised by anything with March Madness. I don’t know where Villanova was picked to finish in the league, probably fifth or sixth, and we were picked 10th,” he said. “To have that happen -- that’s a surprise. But you can have one bad game and your season is over. I think that is the beauty of college basketball to expect the unexpected.”
Because his team has played six games in a span of 10 days, Beilein let them rest Sunday and will they will go through a light workout today before beginning heavy work for Texas Tech on Tuesday and Wednesday.
“We’re going to do very little today,” Beilein noted. “We did nothing yesterday except to sign a few autographs and watch some film of the game. Today some of our guys like Frank Young, B.J. Byerson and Luke Bonner we’ll work out hard. Our other guys will basically rest again and we’ll walk through some things today, watch more tape and lift weights.
“We’re certainly not as tired as we were last week at this time,” Beilein added. “Thank goodness we didn’t have to travel across the country or have four games in four days. It has been a bit of a vacation playing two games in three days.”
The Mountaineers spent Monday catching up on class work and will leave for Albuquerque, N.M., Tuesday afternoon at 1 pm.
Thursday’s game is schedule to tip off at 9:40 pm ET.
Briefly:
“When I first went to Paul Baker at Wheeling I knew almost nothing about help defense and pressure on the ball. I had never heard those terms before,” Beilein said. “I still remember Paul Baker yelling, ‘Ball, you – man.’ It was just the principle of the triangle. You see the ball and you see your man. When I started looking at the geometry of the game as Paul was teaching it to me it was like it had almost become a hobby at that point. It’s not just about dribbling and passing and things like that. There are some angles involved with it as well.”
“The game we won at Providence helped us believe we could win again and the one we won against them at Madison Square Garden again really helped us get to this point,” he said. “Coaches that have coached a long time know that some years it’s not about having better players or better coaches or anything like that. The ball just bounces your way and you keep going with it.”
“Through the storm we went through three summers ago the people in the Big East office have been just tremendous to West Virginia and I’ve grown closer and closer to them the longer I’ve been into this,” he said. “I owe a lot of gratitude to Mike Tranghese and he’s one of the reasons I’m here as well. He helped me with this job opportunity and I’m thrilled with what we’ve been able to do and I hope we can extend it even longer.”
“I’ve been taking some medicine including some steroids and that’s what I blame my technical on. Those steroids or whatever I’m taking made me angry. I apologize to the refs. It wasn’t me -- it was a chemical balance,” he joked.
“I was with my Richmond team in 1998 watching Jerry win with a former player of his Greg Stevenson who had transferred from Penn State,” Beilein said. “Watching Jerry walking off the court pumping his fists into the air and he was a seventh seed and they beat a 10. Then they beat North Carolina. It’s amazing how similar the situation is and we have talked about it.”
“If you play your defense one way they will deceive you into believing you’re playing it the right way and then they will do the other,” Beilein explained. “They show you one thing and do the other. Individually they will do one thing and then the rest of the team will read off what that player does.
“If you’re playing a man on the high side they will take you one step higher and then go low. If you play them on the low side they will take you one step lower and go high,” he said.
