Men's Basketball: Beilein Encouraged After Loss
November 26, 2006 10:51 PM | General
November 26, 2006
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| Alex Ruoff |
ORLANDO – West Virginia coach John Beilein saw enough from his young basketball team this weekend at the Old Spice Classic that he can’t wait to pop in the tape of Sunday night’s 71-64 championship game loss to Arkansas.
“I think it was a great experience for us to be in this,” said Beilein of his 5-1 Mountaineer team. “We were doing things you can’t duplicate in practice.
“I can’t wait to see this tape. Coaches when you lose they don’t want to watch the tape but this is going to be a great education for me as a coach to learn where we are and what we have to do and our players will see a few clips,” added Beilein.
Arkansas had the advantage in size and quickness, out-rebounding the Mountaineers 38-18 and leading by as many as 16 points with five minutes to go in the game, but West Virginia didn’t give in. WVU used a 15-2 run to cut the Razorbacks’ lead to four, 66-62, with 47 seconds left following a Da’Sean Butler 3-point basket.
“We battled the whole way right to the end,” Beilein said.
Sonny Weems and Charles Thomas were too tough for West Virginia to handle, scoring 19 and 13 points respectively, and Arkansas made 7 of 17 from 3-point distance to compliment a 52.3-percent shooting night.
“They played a little bit beyond November,” Beilein said.
West Virginia did, too.
Darris Nichols scored a team-high 15 points for the Mountaineers, hitting 5 of 9 from the floor including 3 of 6 from 3. Nichols was coming off a career-high 18-point effort in the win against Western Michigan Friday night.
“Having back-to-back double figure games … he’s never done that. He’s never shot the ball this much,” said Beilein.
Sophomore Joe Alexander overcame a cold first half to finish with 14 points. The forward was 6 of 15 from the floor.
“In the last two weeks a guy like Joe Alexander he’s as frosh as you can be and he’s a sophomore. He’s just never had to make these decisions: am I open, am I not open? Do I having a driving lane or do I not?
“Very few people can stay in front of him if they come out on him,” Beilein said. “He can really shoot it. Defensively he’s never had to do all the things we ask him to do so he’s learning that way, too.”
Sophomore Alex Ruoff scored 12 points and was once again a factor on the wing in the 1-3-1 zone.
“I was really impressed with Alex Ruoff in this tournament,” said Beilein. “Joe Alexander and Alex Ruoff have probably taken more shots in six games than they did all last year. They’ve certainly played more minutes. There is a process to this.”
Butler had 8 points and Wellington Smith knocked down a 3-pointer from the corner in the first half.
“I liked what I saw from Da’Sean. Wellington Smith came in and did a good job,” Beilein said.
Senior Frank Young contributed 10 points to finish the tournament with three straight double-figure games.
Overall, West Virginia was 22 of 57 from the field including 9 of 32 from 3 against a pretty long Razorback defense.
“We have to shoot the ball well and we were probably just a couple of 3s away from making that a very close game at the end and maybe having a chance to win it,” Beilein said.
Arkansas improves to 5-0 with the victory.
“They had a great plan for the zone, we adjusted, and they still made some really tough shots,” said Beilein. “You take away a couple of shot clock situations they had … my team was not stupid there. They thought I said foul when I was telling them to back off and that was a couple of points.”
West Virginia has 10 days to digest this one before facing 4-0 N.C. State on Wednesday, Dec. 6, in Charleston.
“We got better over this weekend and we’ve got a little time to sure some things up and we’ve got North Carolina State waiting for us in Charleston,” Beilein said. “I hope we have a great crowd that is excited to see this team play again because they are exciting to watch.”
Young and Nichols were named to the Old Spice Classic all-tournament team.
