Defense, Defense, Defense
January 09, 2010 06:35 PM | General
6:38 pm)
West Virginia shot 31.9% from the floor, missed free throws at critical times, and committed 17 turnovers and still beat an excellent DePaul team in overtime Saturday at the Coliseum.
How?
“We had 25 turnovers and you can’t win a Big East game on the road with 25 turnovers,” said DePaul coach Doug Bruno. “The question is, did we turn them over on our own or did the pressure by West Virginia cause that?
“West Virginia is a great pressure defensive team. They are forcing their opponents to commit 22 turnovers so I’m sure they had a lot to do with it.”
West Virginia can really defend. Heading into today’s game the Mountaineers were fourth in the country in scoring defense giving up just 49.8 points per game and sixth in the nation in field goal percentage defense at 33.1%.
With six minutes to go DePaul was close to putting the game away with an eight-point lead. A couple of baskets would have sealed it for the Blue Demons.
But they couldn’t score.
Three missed shots and three turnovers caused the game to go into overtime. Then West Virginia held DePaul to 2 of 7 shooting, including 0 for 3 from 3-point range, in overtime. The result was a 64-57 Mountaineer victory.
“Whenever you don’t score the ball there are two kinds of coaches. One coach is going to come up here and say we got good looks but we missed. Another kind of coach is me – we are going to credit the other team,” said Bruno. “Whenever you get stuck-on it’s the other team that made us stuck-on. That’s West Virginia that stuck us on. That’s our job to be able to solve that.”
Today’s game reinforces what West Virginia coach Mike Carey has been preaching all nine years that he has been in Morgantown - you can win with defense. You can win when your 3-point shooters are clanking them off the back board as the Mountaineers did Saturday.
Sometimes you can even win when you are bricking free throws. Again, the Mountaineers proved that Saturday.
“If you look at our 3-point shooters they were 2 for 9, 2 for 9 and 2 for 9,” said Carey. “Liz (Repella) once again didn’t have any points at halftime but you can still play defense. You can still rebound and you can still win it. Again, getting on the offensive boards and rebounding … we had five people in double figures. This year we’ve got more people who can step up when somebody struggles. To me that’s the big difference also.”
Sarah Miles, who was 1 of 8 from the floor, said there was a sense of calm on the bench even when the team got behind in the second half and wasn’t hitting their shots.
“We had plenty of time,” Miles explained. “(Carey) said, ‘Don’t panic. All we need to do is get a couple of stops and scores. Stops and scores. Eight points is not going to come in one possession.’ That’s how we thought. All we need to do is get stops, stops, stops.”
Carey has sold this team on defense. More importantly, all of the parts seem to fit this year. All five starters have specific roles and they execute those roles brilliantly. The three players coming off the bench also understand their roles.
One is a shooter (Vanessa House), one is a ball handler (Akeema Richards) and one is a rebounder (Natalie Burton).
“Everybody knows their role and the girls are playing hard,” Carey said. “They have bought into defense and they know we can get some easy buckets off of turnovers.”
Miles said it wasn’t really that hard buying into Carey’s approach.
“We know you have to have the ball to run offense and you’ve got to play defense to get the ball,” Miles said. “The way he explained it to us is ‘defense wins games and offense sells tickets for the games.’”
Bruno is certainly impressed with the Mountaineers.
“I think they’ve got something special going on here in Morgantown this year,” Bruno said. “I’ve talked to Coach Carey and when you get a special team, you like to be able to clone them.”
“I think we’ve got to earn that with more than (16) games, but that being said I’ve said this back in the preseason,” Carey added. “These girls are going hard. They practice hard and they play hard. They all get along and the chemistry is terrific. I think that is what Doug is leading to.”
West Virginia, 15-1 for the first time in school history, is right back in the deep fryer on Tuesday night against 10-4 Villanova.
The Wildcats lost at third-ranked Notre Dame earlier today, but they have traditionally been a thorn in West Virginia’s side. Villanova won last year’s game in Philadelphia, 54-52, and has claimed six of the last eight.
“We’re going to turn around and guard another team that is hard to guard on Tuesday,” said Carey. “They are the same type of team (as DePaul). We’ve got to get right back at it.”
