Eagles Clipped
January 06, 2008 05:23 PM | General
January 6, 2008
BOX SCORE | PHOTO GALLERY
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – After watching a couple of hours worth of Marquette tape Bob Huggins decided to get on the phone and call a couple of his coaching buddies. He was concerned about his team being able to stop Marquette’s great athleticism and dribble drives to the basketball.
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| Joe Alexander scored 19 points and handed out five assists in West Virginia's 79-64 win over No. 10 Marquette Sunday at the WVU Coliseum.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
“I kept looking at the tape and looking at the tape and next to Memphis, or even as well as Memphis, these guys get the ball to the rim,” Huggins said. “They are terrific at driving the ball to the goal. They’ve got many guys that can do it and I said, ‘Man how are we going to guard these guys?’ I’m worried about fatigue and secondly, I was worried that we were going to foul out.”
A couple of conversations with USC coach Tim Floyd and Middle Tennessee State coach Kermit Davis convinced Huggins to start out the game in a triangle and two defense. The result was an inspiring 79-64 victory over the No. 10-rated Golden Eagles that stopped West Virginia’s two-game losing streak right in its tracks.
“Kermit gave me a drill and Tim gave me some insight on kind of what their philosophy was and we worked on it for two days,” Huggins said of the triangle and two. “When I talked to Tim Floyd the one thing he said was, forget your man principles. That sounded pretty good to me. We sometimes have a tendency of staring at the ball too much.”
Marquette started off shooting the ball well but ended the first half with only 28 points. The Golden Eagles had 11 turnovers and had committed 11 personal fouls by the break.
In the second half, Marquette regrouped and regained the lead with 15:33 remaining on a David Cubillan 3. A pair of Lazar Hayward free throws lifted Marquette’s advantage to three, 43-40.
West Virginia then scored seven straight, keyed by three points from John Flowers and a big Flowers rebound that led to a Joe Mazzulla lay up.
“John Flowers came in and gave us good minutes,” Huggins said.
A key stretch in the game came with West Virginia leading by five, 58-53. Alex Ruoff drilled a 3 and Mazzulla made both free throws to put the Mountaineers up by 10, 63-53.
West Virginia was 15 of 16 from the free throw line down the stretch.
“That is a heck of a basketball team and they’re extremely well coached,” Huggins said of Marquette. “We played the way we’re supposed to play today. We played the right way. We shared the ball. I thought defensively we got to the ball so much better. We were able to rebound the ball better.”
West Virginia took charge of the glass in the second half after being out-rebounded in the first half, 21-16. The Mountaineers held a 22-5 edge on the backboards in the second half to finish the game plus-12.
“I said to them at halftime if we want to win the game we’ve got to rebound the basketball. The majority of what they got was on second shots,” Huggins said.
Joe Alexander and Alex Ruoff each scored 19 points for West Virginia, now 11-3, 1-1. Ruoff was 5 of 7 from 3-point range and made all four free throws. Alexander finished 7 of 15 shooting and also handed out five assists.
Da’Sean Butler scored 13 points and grabbed five rebounds while Darris Nichols scored 12 and handed out five assists.
Wellington Smith and Mazzulla each had six rebounds coming off the bench to lead West Virginia.
Hayward and Wesley Matthews scored 13 points each to lead Marquette, now 11-2, 1-1. Dominic James had eight first-half points and finished the game scoring 10 – five below his season’s average. James was just 4 of 12 shooting.
“We wanted as best we could to take their better players out of the game,” Huggins said.
Big East coaches looking at the Marquette tape will now also have to prepare for the triangle and two defense Huggins put in just two days ago.
“We changed a bunch of stuff in a short period of time and for those guys to pick that up so quickly is terrific,” said Huggins, adding, “I’d rather win than lose.”
West Virginia is in the midst of a grueling stretch that includes a game Thursday night at Louisville and then a home game against Syracuse at the Coliseum on Sunday.
“I told them they have a day off because they’re banged up but the caveat was when we get back to practice on Tuesday you’re all healthy because we’ve got to be ready to go to play Louisville,” Huggins said.
Prior to the game, Huggins was recognized by the University for winning his 600th career basketball game against Canisius on Dec. 22.
