Tournament Time
March 16, 2008 09:34 PM | General
March 16, 2008
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MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia will face Arizona in an NCAA Tournament first-round game at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, March 20. The Mountaineers are making their 21st NCAA Tournament appearance and their third in the last four years.
This is the first time West Virginia is dancing with Coach Bob Huggins, who is tied with Lee Patton for the most victories (24) in a first season coaching the Mountaineers. Huggins is making his 16th NCAA Tournament trip at his third different school.
“Ever since I’ve been at Cincinnati there wasn’t a time when I didn’t expect to get in,” Huggins said. “It was where are we going to go, who are we going to play and what is our seed? If we’re going to be a national program - which we all want to be - then sitting in here is a formality, which it was today.
“We knew we were in. It was a matter of where we got seeded and who we were going to play. That has to happen every year,” Huggins said. “You don’t do it once every four years or once every three years and be a national program.”
No. 10-seeded Arizona obviously fits that profile. The Wildcats extended their streak of NCAA Tournament appearances to 24 straight years – the longest of any program in the country.
Arizona is back in the tournament this season without the services of longtime coach Lute Olson who has taken a year’s leave of absence. Coaching the Wildcats has been first-year assistant coach Kevin O’Neill, a 30-year coaching veteran who spent the previous seven seasons in the NBA before joining the Arizona staff last May.
O’Neill coached five seasons at Marquette from 1989-94 where his Golden Eagle teams frequently played Bob Huggins’ Cincinnati teams.
“I’ve known Kevin for a long time,” Huggins said. “I coached in the same league with him and they’re a very talented team.”
Arizona (19-14) was knocked out of the Pac 10 Tournament by Stanford, 75-64. Arizona is just 3-6 over its last nine games after an impressive stretch in Pac 10 play earlier this year beating Cal, Washington State, Washington and USC in succession.
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| Jamie Smalligan reacts to West Virginia being a seven-seed in this year's NCAA Tournament.
All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks |
Six-three guard Jerryd Bayless is one of the top freshmen in the country averaging 20 points and 4.1 assists per game. Bayless averaged 21 points per game in Pac 10 play with a season-high 39 points in a home loss to Arizona State on Feb. 10.
Six-seven forward Chase Budinger is averaging 17 points and 5.4 rebounds per game while 6-10 sophomore forward Jordan Hill shows averages of 13.2 points and 7.8 rebounds per game.
Bayless scored 18 and Hill added 16 in Arizona’s 75-64 loss to Stanford in the Pac 10 Tournament on March 13. The Wildcats making the cross-country trek to Washington, D.C., for an NCAA Tournament first-round game is not an issue, according to Huggins.
“It’s a non-factor. We’ve played everywhere,” Huggins said. “There are very few places we haven’t played. I don’t think it matters.”
Seven-seeded West Virginia (24-10) reached the Big East Tournament semifinals where it lost to Georgetown, 72-55. The Mountaineers are a young team with only two seniors on their roster in guard Darris Nichols and center Jamie Smalligan. Huggins says using the NCAA Tournament as means for getting future experience is not how he is approaching this year’s tournament.
“We’re worried about winning now,” Huggins said. “The first time we went to the NCAA Tournament at Cincinnati in 1992 everybody said that was great because we had some guys coming back and this would be a great experience for them. We went to the Final Four. We’re not going into this thing to get experience. We’re going in to win.”
Junior forward Joe Alexander is one of the hottest players in the country having scored 161 points in his last six games. Alexander leads the Mountaineers with an average of 16.8 points per game. Sophomore forward Da’Sean Butler is coming off a strong Big East Tournament and is averaging 12.8 points and 6.1 rebounds per game.
“I expect to see more from everybody at this time. We’ve played 34 games,” Huggins said. “After 34 games you don’t expect John Flowers to be a freshman anymore. Wellington Smith who didn’t play that much as a freshman … he’s played a lot of minutes now.”
Through many years of experience Huggins has adopted the philosophy of breaking the NCAA Tournament down into two-game pairings.
“It’s a two-game tournament,” he said. “I think that’s how people that are successful approach it. You have to go win two games.”
West Virginia is one of eight Big East teams to make the field of 65. Villanova was the last conference team to get into the tournament, giving the Big East the most teams in the field.
“I think it’s the best in the country when you go from top to bottom when you look at the teams, the coaches and the players. The scary thing is it’s such a young league,” Huggins said. “We had that banquet and they didn’t pass out many senior awards. That means a whole bunch of those people are coming back.”
West Virginia and Arizona have met four previous times with the last coming in 1993 when the Wildcats defeated the Mountaineers 75-74 in Tucson.
Tournament tip off times will be announced later tonight.
