Providence Preview
March 12, 2008 10:23 AM | General
March 12, 2008
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| Bob Huggins |
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – The Big East Tournament has given us an opportunity through the years to watch some of college basketball’s best coaches work on the biggest stage.
Georgetown’s John Thompson, Villanova’s Rollie Massimino, Lou Carnesecca of St. John’s, P. J. Carlisemo of Seton Hall and today’s crop of coaches including Syracuse’s Jim Boeheim, Connecticut’s Jim Calhoun and Louisville’s Rick Pitino have all worked their magic on the floor at Madison Square Garden.
You can add another big name to the list today when Bob Huggins takes his 22-9 West Virginia team onto the floor to face Providence in a Big East Tournament first-round game at 2 pm following the noon game between Syracuse and Villanova. This will be the first time Huggins has ever been to the Big East Tournament.
“I was always working except for the one year and I didn’t really feel like going,” said Huggins. “This will be my first experience.”
It’s not the first time Huggins has been to New York or to Madison Square Garden. Huggins has both coached and played at the Garden.
“I love New York. Who doesn’t love New York?” Huggins said. “When you see all of the people in gold show up, you will see that we love New York, too.”
Huggins compiled an impressive 31-10 record in conference tournament during his years at Akron, Cincinnati and Kansas State including winning nine league titles at three different schools. Huggins’ Cincinnati teams collected five Great Midwest Conference and three Conference USA titles from 1992-2004.
“We’re fortunate to play great teams in all those leagues and the Big East isn’t any different although there are more great teams in the Big East,” Huggins said. “When you look at our pairings and who we have to play it’s a little scary looking at trying to win four games against people who are as good as what the people we are going to play certainly are.”
First things first: West Virginia has to try and perform the rare feat of beating the same team three times in one season when it meets the Friars today in the 5-12 game. West Virginia knocked off the Friars 77-65 in Providence on Feb. 2 and then beat Providence 80-53 in Morgantown on Feb. 23.
Ironically, the last time the Mountaineers beat a team three times in the same season was Providence in 2005.
“I’d much rather go in having won two than lost two,” said Huggins of trying to beat a team three times in the same year. “They’re a good team and Tim (Welsh) has done a great job of kind of getting them back and playing real as evidenced by them beating Connecticut twice.”
Huggins believes the key to beat Providence is guarding its 3-point shooters. The Friars were 7 of 18 from the 3-point line in Providence and it made just 6 of 19 in Morgantown in a 27-point loss.
Randall Hanke led Providence with 18 points the first time the two teams met in Providence and Jeff Xavier scored a team-high 15 points in the loss in Morgantown.
“We’ve played Providence twice and we’ve been very fortunate. They haven’t shot the ball on the perimeter as well against us as they have against some other people,” Huggins said. “We’re going to have to do a great job again.”
Xavier leads Providence (15-15) in scoring averaging 12.5 points per game. Xavier leads the team with 74 3-point field goals and is ranked second in the conference in steals averaging 2.23 per game.
Hanke is second the conference in field goal percentage behind Syracuse’s Arinze Onuaku shooting 63.8 percent from the floor. Hanke is averaging 8.8 points per game.
Six-five guard Weyinmi Efejuku (11.6 ppg.), 6-4 guard Brian McKenzie (11.0 ppg.) and 6-8 forward Geoff McDermott (10.4 ppg.) are all averaging double figures.
“They’ve got so many weapons and so many weapons on the perimeter and they can break games open pretty quickly because of how well they shoot the ball,” Huggins said.
The Mountaineers head into post-season play having won six of their last nine games including a pair of victories last week against Pitt and St. John’s. Forward Joe Alexander has scored 32, 32 and 29 points in his last three games to boost his season scoring average to 16.2 points per game.
“Joe is certainly playing his best basketball,” Huggins said. “We haven’t shot it as well as we’d like to. Darris playing on a bad ankle certainly didn’t help us any (at St. John’s). Hopefully he will be back to full strength.”
Nichols sprained his ankle during the Friday practice before the St. John’s game and was limited to just 21 minutes of action. His replacement Joe Mazzulla wound up tying the game at the buzzer on a driving lay up and finishing with six points.
Nichols is expected to be in the lineup for today’s game.
West Virginia appears to be in good shape for an NCAA Tournament berth with an RPI of 33 heading into today’s action, according to Real Time RPI.com. Another victory today against Providence would remove any doubt.
Today’s game will be televised by ESPN (Sean McDonough, Jay Bilas and Bill Raftery). MSN’s pre-game coverage begins at 1:45 with a tip off expected sometime after 2 pm ET.
