Big East Notebook
March 12, 2008 06:52 PM | General
March 12, 2008
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – ESPN’s Doug Gottlieb is accumulating fan mail by the carload after spending the last two weeks criticizing West Virginia’s non-conference schedule, it’s post-season resume and its general worthiness as an NCAA Tournament team.
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| West Virginia's Da'Sean Butler and Joe Alexander celebrate the Mountaineers' 58-53 victory over Providence in a Big East Tournament first-round game at Madison Square Garden.
AP photo |
Ask West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, who owns 613 more college basketball victories than Gottlieb, his opinion on the Mountaineers’ chances at making the Big Dance and he says it’s a no-brainer.
“I don’t know how any team that wins 11 games in this league is not an NCAA Tournament team,” Huggins said after West Virginia’s trifecta sweep of Providence Wednesday afternoon in the first round of the Big East Tournament.
Huggins has a unique perspective of the process having once coached on the mid-major level at Akron for five years.
“I know how hard those people work at it,” said Huggins. “But the reality is if it’s the 34 best teams, put them in our league and see how many they win.”
Huggins coached in the Big 12 last year at Kansas State and he believes the Big East is as tough - if not tougher - night in and night out than any conference in the country.
“This has got to be as hard a league as there is in the country,” he said. “What makes it even harder is having 16 teams. So you prepare for 15 different styles of play throughout the season.”
No offense to the Atlantic 10, Conference USA, Mountain West, Missouri Valley and to some extent even the ACC and Big Ten, but there are some games the top teams in those leagues can win without playing its best basketball. Try that in the Big East and you will get embarrassed. West Virginia found that out the hard way by losing 62-39 at home to 13-17 Cincinnati.
“There aren’t any days off in this league,” Huggins said. “I think that’s the difference. The difference is in a lot of those other leagues, you cannot come to play some days and because you’re a little bit better, you can win. It’s very, very difficult to do that in this league.”
Briefly:
“Well, looking from the outside in before, you knew that it was such a class tournament and a class operation,” he said. “And after last night’s festivities and then coming in today, a lot of conference tournaments when you’re playing at noon and 2 o’clock the first day there isn’t anybody there. This is the way things are supposed to be done. Mike (Tranghese) and his staff do an incredible job.”
“They’re great to coach. They were, I think, very eager to play more man-to-man,” Huggins said. “I think they were excited about having a little bit more – we run an open post deal that there is a lot of freedom in and I think they enjoyed that.
“I guess I’m one of those guys where it’s half empty instead of half full,” Huggins said. “I look back at the Pitt loss. I look back at the Oklahoma loss; I look back at the Georgetown loss. I look back at the Tennessee loss and I say what if? I mean all of the sudden now we’re 26 wins and we’re probably ranked in the Top 10.”
Huggins points out the youth of this year’s team.
“I think everybody sees Darris has been around forever and takes care of the ball and doesn’t throw it away,” Huggins said. “But the rest of these guys are young. Da’Sean is a veteran for us and he’s a sophomore.
“Joe didn’t play at all as a freshman, and you know, he played limited minutes as the end of last year. So I think we’re getting better and better because these guys are getting playing time and they’re getting experience,” Huggins said. “Our roster is full of freshmen and sophomores.”
“They did a really good job,” Huggins said. “We made some shots early. We had all kinds of opportunities early and couldn’t make a shot. That zone gets a whole lot better when you don’t make perimeter shots.
“You look back at the beginning - we had all kinds of opportunities,” Huggins said. “Alex (Ruoff) had shots that he normally makes. I think he was 0 for 6 to start the game.”
“It’s hard when your power forward plays point. But we’re fortunate because of this guy,” Huggins said, pointing to Joe Alexander. “You know, he can go out on the floor and guard. And Wellington (Smith) can go out on the floor and guard. And Da (Butler) had him some. I don’t know if it affects us as much as it would affect other people because we have guys very similar to what Geoff is.”
