Basketball Beat
December 11, 2007 11:10 AM | General
December 11, 2007
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - After watching a handful of games this year I am extremely impressed with what Bob Huggins has done with this basketball team since the middle of October. Huggins is pretty neat to follow because he is such an intelligent coach. We’re back to this thing where during timeouts he can get anything he wants. He’s got a lot of wins and these players have really made the adjustment on the defensive end of the court.
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| The Preacher John Flowers throws down two against Duquesne last Saturday night in Morgantown.
Allison Toffle photo |
This is a very dangerous team when they are shooting the ball well because they have improved so much defensively in such a short time under Huggins.
I really like where this team is at right now flying under the radar a little bit so to speak. Now I think that is going to change in the coming weeks.
It’s not about ego for Bob Huggins and it’s not about pushing his will on the players that are here. That’s why Huggins is running some of the same offensive sets John Beilein used when he was at West Virginia. Huggins has added his own twist of giving these players a little more freedom to do things and you can really see how the team has responded by averaging a Big East-best 86.8 points per game.
Huggs knew that they could shoot the basketball and he wasn’t going to take them away from that. I think it’s remarkable what he’s done already with Joe Alexander and I think it’s remarkable what he’s done with Alex Ruoff.
These two guys have flourished in Huggins’ offense. There are still some things that he has to work out defensively – we are still grabbing and fouling a little bit too much – but we are in people’s faces.
What we do on defense is we are only giving teams half of the half court to play with because we are good right now of not letting the ball get reversed to the other side. Bob Huggins’ philosophy has always been to teach defense first because when your offense is not there you can still stay in games with good defense.
As long as we have Darris Nichols in the game and we’re defending – we’re not going to win every game – but we’re going to be in a lot of games this year against excellent teams because of that.
The biggest mistake with Joe Alexander was John Beilein using Joe for only 36 minutes as a freshman in 2006 and not redshirting him. That’s water over the dam and it’s gone but to me, Joe should just be a flourishing sophomore under Bob Huggins right now. He’s such a baby in this game and he’s not played a lot of basketball at this level like a Da’Sean Butler has. Joe has worked hard and he has taken heed to what Huggins is teaching him.
I thought a prime example of how far Joe Alexander has come came in the game the other night against Duquesne. Joe made an early mistake on our press offense and Huggs brought him out and really chewed him good before sitting him down. About three or four minutes later Huggs brought him back up with his arm around him and put him back in the game.
In the past Alexander would have been forgotten and his mindset would have been down. But Huggs built him back up, put him back out on the floor and he goes for a career-high 26.
We don’t want to get too carried away with West Virginia’s strong start because I was thinking the other day: How are we going to size-up against teams like Georgetown, Pitt, Connecticut and Syracuse?
Joe Alexander has jumping ability but he’s undersized guarding 7-footers like Roy Hibbert and Hasheem Thabeet. Wellington Smith has been really good at blocking shots and those guys are going to have to carry the load because you saw last night that really the most effective team on the floor right now is with Wellington, Joe and Da’Sean out there with Alex Ruoff and Darris Nichols.
Huggins hasn’t given up on 7-footer Jamie Smalligan and hopes that the senior will continue to come along and give him valuable minutes being asked to do things he was not asked to do in the past. Jacob Green also has size.
We’re not a real deep basketball team and consequently we can’t do some of the things Huggins would like to do like extending the defense to three-quarter court with some pressing things. We have to play some zone because of foul trouble and the way we’re playing. The thing about Huggs is there are so many things that he can go with.
John Flowers is the preacher. If you notice, in the huddles before games he’s the guy in the middle and the team has really responded to him. The thing John did that has really helped him is that he came to school in the summer and stayed. He was working hard on his game and he was around Butler, Smith and the rest of the guys and they took to him.
This team is not egocentric and really gets along well together. I am interested to find out from Huggs if this is one of the best shooting teams he’s ever coached as a group. This group can really shoot it.
Of course he may not tell me.
How about the job Alex Ruoff is doing so far this year? I will be the first to admit I thought Alex would struggle with the things Huggins asks his players to do and to my surprise, Alex is really thriving. He has become very tough, he gets to the rim and he has learned not to force the game upon himself.
The first RPI report came out this week and according to CollegeRPI.com, West Virginia is 41st with a 6-1 record. The Mountaineers’ season-opener against Arkansas-Monticello does not count in the RPI ratings. St. Mary’s, Miami, Florida, Xavier, Vanderbilt and Texas are 1 through 5 this week.
Providence, with a 6-3 record, has the top RPI in the Big East at 12, followed by No. 13 Marquette, No. 36 Syracuse and No. 39 Louisville.
Undefeated Pitt is ranked 45th.
I hope to see you at the Coliseum on Saturday for UMBC. Remember, the WVU women play Presbyterian beforehand at 1:30 so you can catch two games for the price of one.
