Sneak Preview
November 09, 2007 10:49 AM | General
November 9, 2007
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| Bob Huggins |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia coach Bob Huggins sees many benefits to Saturday’s exhibition game against NAIA Mountain State University at the WVU Coliseum.
“We probably need to play a game,” said Huggins, beginning his first season at West Virginia. “We don’t have close to everything in but I think we need to play somebody else.”
Huggins says Mountain State will do some things Saturday night that his team needs to work on before opening the regular season on Saturday, Nov. 16, against Arkansas-Monticello in the Legends Classic.
“We haven’t defended ball screens much and (Mountain State) is going to ball screen a lot,” Huggins said. “They’re a very good transition team and we’ve spent time on transition defense but probably not enough time on it. That is something that is really going to be tested.
“We’ve got to continue to rebound the ball better and I think they will be a challenge for us that way,” Huggins said.
The veteran coach admits his team’s rebounding continues to be erratic in practice. Huggins is searching for more consistency from his frontline players going to the glass.
“We go rebound it - we just don’t go rebound it all the time,” Huggins said. “We block out – we just don’t block out all of the time. It’s just a matter of them being more consistent and from our standpoint emphasizing it on a more consistent basis.
“We get our hands on balls but we don’t contain balls,” Huggins said. “We have to work harder at securing balls.”
For most of the preseason, Huggins has elected to divide up his top seven into two different teams to maintain a competitive balance in practices. He is anxious to see how his top rotation fares against another team.
“We haven’t played basically our seven best guys together because it becomes very lopsided when I do that,” Huggins said. “At some point in time you’ve got to play those seven guys together because those are the guys that are going to play the games together.”
The major objective from now until next Saturday and beyond is to try to develop a bench that can go 10 deep.
“We need to find some guys … eight, nine and 10,” Huggins said. “We need guys to fill those spots. The biggest problem is they’re so young.
“The two freshmen are struggling because we’ve got a lot of things that we’ve got to get in and get ready for. Then you’ve got a bunch of guys that are redshirt freshmen and probably stood on the side and watched a whole bunch because they weren’t going to get into the game and that’s natural.”
One redshirt freshman Huggins is counting on this year is 6-foot-9-inch Jacob Green. He’s one of just two players standing 6-9 or taller on the Mountaineer roster.
“Jake’s going to have to play,” Huggins said. “If Jamie gets into foul trouble we’re awful small. And it kind of depends upon who we play. I think there are going to be a lot of instances where we could play Joe (Alexander), Wellington (Smith) and Da’Sean (Butler) together on the front line but Jake is going to have to play.”
The configuration of Huggins’ bench will probably be an on-going thing this year, says the coach.
“I’d like to go 13 (deep) if I could,” he said. “I’d like to have at least 10. If you kind of have one for each position I think that would be terrific. It helps so much in practice, things are more competitive and I think you get better. It’s a long season: guys get hurt, sick, so it’s nice to have someone who knows what they’re doing to come in.”
All tickets are general admission and are priced at $10. They can be purchased ahead of time at the Mountaineer Ticket Office or on game day at the gate. No tickets will be sold over the phone.
Fans can also watch a webcast of the exhibition by signing up for CSTV’s All-Access monthly and yearly subscription packages. Gates will open at 5:30 pm and the game will tip off at 7 pm.
