Feb. 4-Feb. 10 Blog
February 03, 2008 08:42 PM | General
We’re changing things up a little bit. For the past four years Campus Connection has kind of been like a weekly blog full of tidbits, notes, commentary, quasi-opinion and weak stabs at humor that have sometimes hit the mark and at other times completely missed. Well, to keep up with the Jones', we’ve decided to turn Campus Connection into a daily blog. If we miss a day then you know we’re struggling.
Hope you enjoy it ...
Demons Exorcised in Pittsburgh
Posted By John Antonik: February 8, 2008 (4:31 pm)
The ghost of Jack Prettyman has finally been exorcised in Pittsburgh. Anyone approaching forty can recall with clarity Prettyman’s lane violation call on a Pitt free throw that aided West Virginia’s 48-45 victory over Pitt at Fitzgerald Field House on Jan. 29, 1982.
The image of Panther coach Roy Chipman chasing Prettyman all the way to the dressing room is still quite vivid in my memory.
Twenty six years later, the zebras finally cleansed the Oakland campus last night when they removed two Joe Alexander free throws from the record in a tight game the Mountaineers eventually lost on a last-second shot by Ronald Ramon.
Pitt assistant coaches noticed that the refs had sent the wrong player to the line in Alexander, and following a Huggins timeout requested that the officials look at the monitor to judge for themselves. The refs correctly determined that Cam Thoroughman should have been the player shooting the free throws.
When they finally had things sorted out, West Virginia’s poor redshirt freshman Thoroughman was completely iced. A three-foot putt at the local country club had turned into a 45-foot, six-breaker to win the Masters.
True to form, Thoroughman missed the front end of the one-and-one making it a four-point swing. Of course the irony in all of this is that the score at the time was 48-45 in Pitt’s favor. For those of you not paying attention, that was the final score of the 1982 Prettyman game in Pittsburgh.
Following the game the officials felt compelled to release this statement: “It was a correctable error situation and it was corrected within the parameters of what the officials are allowed to do.”
Huggins said afterward that in 26 years of coaching he had never witnessed points being taken off the scoreboard after a player had made two free throws, but he did concede that the right call was made.
However, unlike the late Chipman, Huggins managed to keep his cool.
And no, none of the refs were from Pittsburgh - as far as I know.
Lay it on the Line
Posted By John Antonik: February 7, 2008 (11:18 pm)
I admit it’s frustrating watching West Virginia lose winnable games to nationally ranked teams because of its inability to cash in at the free throw line. The Mountaineers were 12 of 23 at the line in a one-point loss to Georgetown on Jan. 26, and made just 7 of 17 in tonight’s one-point downer at Pitt.
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| Ronald Ramon's 3-point jumper with 0.1 seconds is moot if West Virginia could have cashed in on two of its 10 missed free throws.
AP photo |
The difficulties at the foul line became a glaring issue in the Marshall game when the Mountaineers were a putrid 11 of 28. Because of that, Marshall was only a possession away from either tying or winning this year’s Chesapeake Energy Capital Classic.
There have been other moments this season when a free throw here or a free throw there could have secured victories for West Virginia.
Regardless of whether or not you thought Da’Sean Butler was either fouled on his last-second drive to the basket or his lay up was goal tended by Patrick Ewing, the simple fact of the matter is that had WVU made two of its 11 missed free throws at any point in the game the Mountaineers beat Georgetown.
The same goes with Thursday night’s loss at Pitt. West Virginia had plenty of chances to put distance between themselves and Pitt aside from Alex Ruoff’s miss with 9.5 seconds left. Joe Alexander missed a pair with the game tied at 40. Da’Sean Butler clanked two following the 7-minute timeout with the game tied at 45.
Cam Thoroughman missed the front end of a one-and-one after Joe Alexander’s two free throws were wiped off the scoreboard by the officials.
Free throws also haunted WVU in its overtime loss to Oklahoma in Charleston. If you remember, West Virginia could have iced the game in the first overtime if not for four missed free throws.
In fact, shaky free throw shooting has actually preceded Bob Huggins at West Virginia. If you recall, the free throw line let West Virginia down in a close regular season loss to Texas in 2006. West Virginia was 2 for 7 at the line in a three-point loss at Notre Dame last year. You can go on and on.
Part of it is that West Virginia simply isn't used to going to the foul line as frequently as it is this year. John Beilein’s jump-shooting system only afforded the Mountaineers an average of 15.4 free throw tries per game last year.
The Mountaineers averaged just 13.3 free throw attempts per game in 2006, and 17.2 free throw tries in 2005.
This year West Virginia is going to the free throw line more often, an average of 21.3 times per game, and is really not that far off from last year’s free throw percentage – 67.2 percent this year compared to 71.3 percent last season. A slightly better percentage or West Virginia making more at the right time and the Mountaineers are looking at a 19-4 record instead of 16-7.
Huggs has done a remarkable job of cleaning up some of West Virginia’s defensive deficiencies and the difficulties the Mountaineers have had on the glass left over from the Beilein era. Unfortunately, the free throw shooting has been a little more problematic.
And it could wind up being the difference between an NCAA tournament bid or a defense of its 2007 NIT title.
Flip a Coin
Posted By John Antonik: February 4, 2008 (9:06 pm)
For those of you hopped up on football recruiting, Christmas arrives Wednesday morning when prospects begin signing binding letters-of-intent. For those of you planning on using Rivals.com or Scout.com to formulate your opinions on how well Bill Stewart and his assistants fare this year keep this sobering fact in mind: statistically these guys are about half right and half wrong.
Flip a coin.
According to Sunday’s Charleston Post, Larry Williams and Travis Haney in their article Grading the Graders examined the recruiting rankings of the nation’s Top 25 teams the last two years. What they found was that Rivals.com had just 11 of last year’s Top 25 football teams averaging a recruiting class of 25th or better from 2003 to 2007.
Scout.com also missed on 14 of the Top 25. That’s a combined success rate of 47 percent.
Usual top teams like USC, LSU, Georgia, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Texas, Florida and Auburn fared well in the recruiting rankings.
Others like No. 4 Missouri, whose recruiting classes ranked in the high 30s by Rivals and the low 40s according to Scout, and No. 6 West Virginia, also in the high 30s by Rivals and low 40s by Scout, are crashing the party.
Mountaineer fans out there can take pride in knowing that West Virginia joins USC, Ohio State and LSU as the only four schools to have finished ranked in the Top 10 in each of the last three seasons (can you guess which of the four teams is considered the anomaly?).
Williams and Haney go on to cite other examples of schools doing well on the football field despite faring poorly in the recruiting rankings.
This brings me back to my favorite quote about high school recruiting made by former Michigan recruiting coordinator Fritz Seyforth in the 1986 Sports Illustrated story Call Them the Cub Scouts.
Said Seyforth, “We don’t know what we got. How can these guys know?”
Flip a coin.
By the way, here were the 10 most coveted high school seniors in 1986:
1. Leonard (Eight Ball) Russell, RB, Long Beach, Calif.
2. Emmitt Smith, RB, Pensacola, Fla.
3. Darren Lewis, RB, Dallas
4. Charles Collins, DT, Chicago
5. William Henry, FB, Frederick, Md.
6. David Rocker, DT, Atlanta
7. Greg Skrepenak, OT, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
8. Matt Darby, LB, Virginia Beach, Va.
9. Jeff Ellis, TE, Louisville, Ky.
10. Gus Palma, WR, Bellport, N.Y.
How many of them did you recognize? My guess is you probably recognized about half.
Signing Day $$$
Posted By John Antonik: February 3, 2008 (8:43 pm)
Several schools are now viewing football signing day as a means of making a few extra bucks for the program. According to Washington Post’s Josh Barr, the University of Maryland will charge $20 bucks for fans to listen to Terrapin coach Ralph Friedgen talk about his football recruits.
The $20 gets Maryland fans that aren’t part of the booster club admission to the Riggs Alumni Center where Freidgen and his assistant coaches will be available for discussion.
Minnesota is charging $10 for the ‘Sota Social which includes refreshments and a silent auction. Georgia Tech is charging $27 for its signing day event that includes a buffet and cash bar.
West Virginia isn’t planning any paid social signing day events, but CSTV All-Access subscribers will have the opportunity to watch football coach Bill Stewart announce the newest Mountaineers at 3 pm Wednesday night.
Fans can access the live press conference by using this link: http://all-access.cstv.com/cstv/player/player.html?code=wvir&sport=m-footbl&category=Signing%20Day%20%28MediaType%29&media=58046.
Women Poised For Top 10 Ranking
Posted By John Antonik: February 3, 2008 (9:01 pm)
The West Virginia women’s basketball team is closing in on its first ever appearance in the nation’s Top 10, but the Mountaineers may have to wait another week despite knocking off No. 4 Rutgers on Tuesday night at the WVU Coliseum.
West Virginia boosted its record to 18-3 with a 28-point road win at Seton Hall on Sunday. However, there was not much movement above the Mountaineers in the Top 10 this week. Besides Rutgers losing in Morgantown, the only other team in the top 10 to lose was No. 9 Duke to No. 2 Tennessee last Monday night.
Regardless, the Mountaineers have having one of their best seasons in school history. They have already exceeded the 1992 team that went 26-4 and advanced to the NCAA Tournament “Sweet 16” in one category: weeks spent in the national rankings.
WVU’s 1992 team didn’t crack the rankings until the final week of January and spent a total of eight weeks in the polls, rising to as high as 11th at the beginning of March.
This year’s team has been ranked the entire season (13 weeks) before Monday afternoon’s rankings are released.
West Virginia has just one game this week at Providence on Saturday afternoon before its Feb. 13 showdown with No. 14 Pitt at the WVU Coliseum.
