St. John's Preview
March 07, 2008 11:36 PM | General
March 7, 2008
GAME NOTES
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia is playing for an opportunity to get to the NCAA Tournament while St. John’s simply wants to extend its season by an extra game when the two teams meet Saturday afternoon at Madison Square Garden.
St. John’s lost 68-55 at Notre Dame on Wednesday night and desperately needs a victory on Saturday to stay alive for the final Big East Tournament spot. The Red Storm (11-18, 5-12) are a game in the win column behind both Providence and DePaul. Should either DePaul or Providence win this weekend the outcome of the WVU game would be a moot point for St. John’s.
“I think they’ll play really hard," said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “They’ve got 100 years of St. John’s basketball going on and I think they are expecting a big crowd. Walter Berry and Louis (Carnesecca) will be there.
“From everything I can gather it’s going to be a festive atmosphere at the Garden,” Huggins said. “With all those former guys back they are going to be excited to play.”
West Virginia, meanwhile, gave its NCAA tournament resume a big boost on Monday with a 76-62 victory over Pitt. The Mountaineers are 21-9, 10-7 under first-year coach Bob Huggins and they could finish as high as fifth if they can beat St. John’s and Marquette loses at Syracuse. West Virginia could also fall to eighth if it loses and Pitt beats DePaul.
“Certainly you want to finish strong and for us it’s the difference between finishing fifth and maybe seventh so we’ve got a lot at stake,” Huggins said.
The last time these two teams met in Morgantown on Jan. 17 West Virginia had a tough time with St. John’s in a physical game the Mountaineers won by nine, 73-64.
Da’Sean Butler led West Virginia with 19 points while Joe Alexander had 15. Larry Wright came off the bench to score 15 and Anthony Mason, Jr. added 14 for St. John’s. The scored was tied at 29 at halftime.
“I thought they were really physical with us here and they rebound the ball,” Huggins said. “They have a lot more big body guys than we do so we’re going to have to do a good job of rebounding the ball.”
St. John’s had a 39-30 advantage on the glass against West Virginia in the first game. Huggins was also impressed with the Red Storm’s ball skills.
“They are really good with the ball,” Huggins said. “(Eugene) Lawrence penetrates with it, Mason penetrates with it and D.J. Kennedy is good with the ball.”
West Virginia’s Joe Alexander is coming off of back-to-back 32-point games to boost his average to 15.7 points per game. Alexander is 24 of 40 and 16 of 20 from the line in his last two games.
“Joe is shooting the ball really well right now,” Huggins said.
Huggins says others, like Alex Ruoff, Da’Sean Butler and Darris Nichols, can shoot better than they have been in recent games.
“If we can all start to make shots it will help us,” Huggins said. “Defensively we’ve been pretty consistent and we’re starting to be more consistent with our rebounding.”
Most experts believe a win against St. John’s will be enough to get the Mountaineers into the NCAA Tournament regardless of what it does in next week’s Big East Tournament. Huggins believes West Virginia has probably already done enough to get in.
“This game is important for RPI and for a lot of reasons but if you sat down you couldn’t find 65 teams and not have us in,” Huggins said. “There just aren’t any out there. If you look at resumes there aren’t any out there.”
Tip off is set for noon. The game will be televised by ESPN Plus and will air locally on WCHS (Charleston), WVFX (Clarksburg), WTAP (Parkersburg), WTOV (Steubenville, Ohio), Ohio News Network, WPCW (Pittsburgh), MASN (Capital Region) and WJAL (Chambersburg, Pa.).
MSN’s radio coverage begins with The Mountaineers Today at 11:30. Sirius Satellite Radio users can get the broadcast at channel 143. CSTV subscribers can use their All-Access pass to listen to the game on the Internet.
