Butler, Ruoff Key Run
November 16, 2008 02:44 PM | General
November 16, 2008
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, unhappy with his team’s 11-point halftime lead Saturday against Elon, re-introduced the younger players to Alex Ruoff and Da’Sean Butler in the locker room.
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| Da'Sean Butler scored 19 points and grabbed six rebounds in West Virginia's 92-47 victory over Elon Saturday night at the WVU Coliseum.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
“I didn’t know if some of our guys knew who they were,” Huggins said. “We had a bunch of other guys have as many shots as they did and that’s not a recipe for success.”
When Ruoff and Butler finally did start shooting the Mountaineers had little trouble with the Phoenix. Butler and Ruoff combined to score 21 second-half points and in a span of seven minutes turned a nine-point lead into a 30-point blowout.
“I’m really happy with the second half,” Huggins said. “I wasn’t very happy at halftime obviously. I thought it was more our offense than it was our defense even though they shot 55 percent. They turned it over 15 times and we really should have generated more offense.”
It is apparent that Huggins has supplemented the West Virginia roster nicely with the additions of Devin Ebanks, Kevin Jones, Truck Bryant and Dee Proby. All four got significant minutes and made key contributions.
“They’re competing for minutes and I think it’s a healthy thing,” Huggins said.
Bryant scored 12 points on 4 of 5 shooting coming off the bench and handed out a team-high six assists. Ebanks and Jones combined for 18 points and seven rebounds while Proby played 16 minutes, scored five points, pulled down three rebounds and handed out two assists.
Nine players played 15 minutes or more and six scored at least nine points.
“I think we’re going to have that,” Huggins said. “Da’Sean or Alex may have a big game but we’re going to have pretty good balance. You look at the minutes and the two guys played over 30 minutes and there were only two other guys who played 20 minutes. We’re trying to get those guys some minutes and get them better and kind of throw them in the fire a little bit because we’re going to need them.”
Da’Sean Butler scored a team-high 19 points on 8 of 13 shooting, including 3 of 3 from 3-point range. Butler grabbed six rebounds and had six of West Virginia’s 13 steals. Huggins believes the 6-foot-7-inch Butler’s skills have improved so much that he is considering playing him at the two-guard in certain situations this year.
“A year ago we basically played with three guards and I think Da’Sean can play out there which will give us a whole lot more size,” Huggins explained. “Da is to the point now where he can guard guards. We’ve got some different ways now that we can go to try and attack people.”
Briefly:
“The student section was outstanding,” Huggins said. “I thank the students for coming out. That’s absolutely terrific.
“We’re going to keep getting better. I want to make this at least one of the premiere basketball programs in the country and you do that by the tremendous support that these people have.”
“Just because we’re open doesn’t mean it’s a good shot,” he said. “We didn’t rebound the ball very well offensively because we didn’t have very good ball movement.”
“They’re a difficult team to play because they basically take away and force you to get out of your offense and then, who you get out of your offense, you need to be able to make plays individually and that’s tough when the athleticism is on the other side,” Nestor said. “My concern coming into the game wasn’t defense, it was offense. When you don’t score your defense loses its energy and you can’t stay in college basketball games today with just defense.”
