Playing in the Rough Big East
January 23, 2009 02:24 PM | General
(2:24 pm)
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It’s nice to see a West Virginia basketball team push back when it gets shoved around. That was not always the case, especially when the Mountaineers used to play physical teams like Pitt, Syracuse and Georgetown.
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| Da'Sean Butler scored 27 points against Georgetown and is now averaging 20.2 points per game in Big East play.
AP photo |
If my fading memory serves me correctly, there was one game at Georgetown a few years ago when Patrick Ewing Jr. shoved a West Virginia player into the Mountaineer bench diving for a loose ball.
Former West Virginia coach John Beilein vehemently protested the rough play, getting into the face of Ewing. Though not quite as intimidating as his 6-foot-9-inch father, John Thompson III lumbered down from his end of the court to confront the coach who was confronting his player. Thompson glared at Beilein, quickly made his point and Beilein ended the discussion with a gentle pat on Thompson’s back.
Georgetown then went on to bury West Virginia 71-53.
Hit the fast-forward button to Thursday night. There was the rough stuff once again. In the first half Jessie Sapp was called for a foul battling Truck Bryant for a loose ball that resulted in both players crashing into the crowd. Later, Alex Ruoff got tangled up with a Georgetown player along the sideline.
But on Thursday night West Virginia held its ground. Ruoff even got the rare opportunity to dunk in somebody’s face late in the game when the Mountaineers were pulling away.
We all know this year’s basketball team has its flaws. One of them, however, is not its toughness. Bob Huggins simply won’t stand for that.
Thursday night's loss to West Virginia was JT3's worse home defeat since his first game at Georgetown in 2004. Years ago, West Virginia had a tough time beating George Washington in D.C., let alone blowing out Georgetown on its home court.
How about those freshmen? Two of the biggest baskets in the Georgetown game came in the second half by freshmen Devin Ebanks and Kevin Jones.
With the Mountaineers leading by four, Ebanks grabbed a John Flowers miss and scored with 8:58 left to put West Virginia up six. Four minutes later with the Hoyas making another run, Jones backed into his man and made a tough, turnaround jumper to give the Mountaineers a nine-point lead.
And Truck Bryant scored 13 points, with most of his damage coming in the first half. It was his best offensive performance in Big East play so far this year.
West Virginia’s freshmen are not there yet, but they’re coming.
Da’Sean Butler might now be one of the 10-best players in the Big East. The junior boosted his average to 20.2 points per game in conference play with his 27-point performance at Georgetown Thursday night. Butler is shooting 51.4 percent so far this year in conference action.
The Washington Post pointed out in its recap of Thursday’s Georgetown game that a Hoya team with three McDonald’s All-Americans, a 6-11 center and a 6-8 power forward were badly beaten on the glass by a West Virginia team with zero All-Americans and a 6-7 center.
It’s a shame Sunday’s Backyard Brawl is not being televised nationally. This one has the makings of a Steelers-Ravens type game. I have a feeling the electricity in the Coliseum on Sunday will approach some of those WVU-Pitt games in the early 1980s when Gale Catlett and Roy Chipman were patrolling the sidelines.
Pitt comes into the game No. 4 in the rankings and owners of the second-best RPI in the country according to RealTimeRPI.com. West Virginia’s RPI is 14 after Thursday night’s win at Georgetown but the Mountaineers are not nationally ranked.
SI’s Seth Davis lists his five best games for this weekend. He also picks his next five. One of them is George Mason at VCU. Another is a six-loss Utah team at UNLV. However, I didn’t see the Backyard Brawl among his top 10 games. Perhaps in the eyes of Davis and others, Sunday’s result is already a forgone conclusion.
Earlier this year Mr. Davis was critical of West Virginia’s loss to Davidson in New York City while failing to mention that the Mountaineers were without their starting backcourt of Alex Ruoff and Joe Mazzulla for the game.
Omissions like that used to really bug former WVU coach Gale Catlett.
The computers and the voters don’t always see eye-to-eye. Here is the list of Big East teams in this week’s AP top 25 and its RPI ratings, according to RealTimeRPI.com:
What has really set West Virginia apart this year - and will pay big dividends at the end of the season - is the Mountaineers’ performance on the road. West Virginia already owns road victories against Mississippi, Duquesne, Ohio State, Seton Hall and Georgetown and has a neutral court win against Iowa.
West Virginia has road games left against Louisville, Syracuse, Pitt, Rutgers, Cincinnati and South Florida while WVU has seven remaining home dates beginning with Sunday’s game against Pitt.
