Healed and Ready to Go
October 03, 2010 10:30 PM | General
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – A much leaner and much more muscular Joe Mazzulla looks like the Joe Mazzulla of old with the start of basketball practice lurking right around the corner. Mazzulla, down to a svelte 196 pounds, has a simple explanation for his rediscovered physique.
“Last year I was hurt and I wasn’t able to lift with my upper body so I kind of had some excess stuff hanging around,” he shrugged, this time using both shoulders. “Once I got healthy, I was able to get back into the lifting routine and was able to work out more and get into really good shape.”
The difficulty Mazzulla has had with his left shoulder is well documented, the damaged appendage nearly costing him the entire 2009 season (in fact some in the know were so concerned with Mazzulla’s injury that they were uncertain if he would ever play again).
Of course anyone who knows Joe understood that hanging up his sneakers was never an option he once considered. But even when he did return to the court in 2010 you could tell right away that he had lost a lot of his mojo – his bum shoulder making him reluctant to make those daring drives to the rim that kept defenses from packing it in on the Mountaineers (reference the St. John’s game in 2008 when as a sophomore it was his drive to the basket that won the game for WVU).
Mazzulla says it wasn’t so much his aching shoulder that was messing with his head as much as it was all of those pads that he was required to wear each game in order to protect it.
“Toward the end of last year, what really started to help me was when I stopped wearing the extra padding underneath my jersey,” he explained. “It was a decision I made to where I had to get over this sooner or later because it’s difficult having in your head that you’re not any type of scoring threat compared to what I used to be. I think it kind of helped me get back to that mentality and personality that I have on the floor.”
Mountaineer basketball fans certainly saw the Joe Mazzulla of old against Kentucky – the same old Joe who once drew high praise from Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski for the way he seemingly came up with every loose ball and rebound during West Virginia’s 2008 NCAA tournament upset victory over the Blue Devils. Against Kentucky in the east regional finals last spring, Mazzulla stung the Wildcats for a career-high 17 points, including 14 in the second half that mostly came on Evel Kneivel-like drives to the basket.
Now, Mazzulla wants to reintroduce the outside shot to his scoring repertoire.
“I’ve had a whole off-season to work on that and hopefully I can be just as effective as I was my sophomore year,” he said. “Maybe if they see that I’m healthy they won’t (back off), but it’s on me to keep that confidence and once I make one or two they will realize that it’s not last year.”
Or 2008, which Mazzulla admits was the most miserable year of his life.
“I don’t ever complain when I’m too tired or sore because I’d rather be 100 percent and sore than watching from the sidelines,” he reasoned. “That was the worse year.”
Joe will also readily admit that he sometimes was his own worst enemy by not listening to the doctors and refraining from doing the things that he shouldn’t have been doing in the first place.
“I was real anxious when I first came back and I was bench pressing and doing shoulder work and extra stuff when I wasn’t supposed to and now I’ve just got a smarter approach toward this,” he said.
If that means taking only 50 jump shots a day instead of 100 he is only going to take 50 jump shots. If that means only doing 10 reps instead of 15 he is going to only do the 10 reps. Mazzulla has finally realized that working smarter is just as important as working harder.
“The big thing we do is on a last set we try and get as many reps as we can where I still have to go 10 or 11,” he explained. “I may push it for an extra one or two, but I can’t go that extra four or five that some of the other players do.”
Mazzulla also says the strength and training staffs have worked in unison to modify his workouts to aid his rehabilitation process.
“Some of the secondary things that came from the surgery, tendonitis and things like that, it can flare up at any time,” Mazzulla said. “I think the key thing we did this year is we incorporated the rehab into my strength and conditioning to where we basically do my rehab but with heavier weight.”
Speaking of heavier weight, Mazzulla fully expects to carry a little more weight on his shoulders this season with the departure of key players Da’Sean Butler, Devin Ebanks and Wellington Smith from last year’s Final Four team. Mazzulla hinted that this year’s lineup might be altered at times to take advantage of West Virginia’s depth at the guard position.
“We have two big guys down low (Danny Jennings and Deniz Kilicli) that hopefully we can get 15-20 minutes out of each,” Mazzulla explained. “Then we’ve got four or five guards where we can even play three or four of them at a time. We can almost kind of play the way Villanova does by creating mismatches on the offensive end. There are a couple of ways we can go and we’ll figure that out in the first month of the season.”
According to Mazzulla, what makes things so interesting is that veteran coach Bob Huggins has been so adaptable during his career.
“He did a good job of that his first year,” Mazzulla said. “He didn’t have any of his type of players and he adapted to that and we worked well. He’s very good at that and finding a style that works best for the team.”
A key component to this year’s team will be its outside shooting with senior Casey Mitchell, junior Truck Bryant, sophomore Dalton Pepper and 6-foot-8 high-scoring forward Kevin Jones. Even freshman Noah Cottrill could come in and provide a big boost with his on-court quickness and 3-point shooting ability.
“Casey and Pep are great shooters and if Truck and I are out there at the same time that takes pressure off of Truck to where maybe he can knock some shots down,” Mazzulla said. “And hopefully I can step back and knock down a shot or two. Noah is obviously a good shooter, so I think we’re in pretty good shape with that. It’s just a matter of us gaining some confidence in knocking them down.”
Mazzulla is also looking for a big year out of 6-foot-7 senior forward John Flowers, who Mazzulla says has as much athletic ability as anybody in the Big East.
“John has really matured,” Mazzulla admitted. “Two or three years ago John would want to shoot and want to score and do all those things and now he kind of realizes he’s more effective by doing the things Huggs asks him to do and what his strengths are, which is dunking and blocking shots.”
As Mazzulla begins preparing for his last year in a Mountaineer uniform, he says he often reminds himself of the valuable lessons he learned watching Butler and Smith in practice every day last winter.
“You want to leave a mark and I think Da’Sean and Wellington did a great job of leaving their mark with leadership and hard work to me, John and Cam Thoroughman,” Mazzulla said. “We just want to work as hard as we can to not only have a successful year, but also to leave Truck and KJ with a mark that they can follow up on for their senior years as well.”
Antonik is the author of the book Roll Out the Carpet: 101 Seasons of West Virginia University Basketball now available in bookstores.
“Last year I was hurt and I wasn’t able to lift with my upper body so I kind of had some excess stuff hanging around,” he shrugged, this time using both shoulders. “Once I got healthy, I was able to get back into the lifting routine and was able to work out more and get into really good shape.”
The difficulty Mazzulla has had with his left shoulder is well documented, the damaged appendage nearly costing him the entire 2009 season (in fact some in the know were so concerned with Mazzulla’s injury that they were uncertain if he would ever play again).
Of course anyone who knows Joe understood that hanging up his sneakers was never an option he once considered. But even when he did return to the court in 2010 you could tell right away that he had lost a lot of his mojo – his bum shoulder making him reluctant to make those daring drives to the rim that kept defenses from packing it in on the Mountaineers (reference the St. John’s game in 2008 when as a sophomore it was his drive to the basket that won the game for WVU).
Mazzulla says it wasn’t so much his aching shoulder that was messing with his head as much as it was all of those pads that he was required to wear each game in order to protect it.
“Toward the end of last year, what really started to help me was when I stopped wearing the extra padding underneath my jersey,” he explained. “It was a decision I made to where I had to get over this sooner or later because it’s difficult having in your head that you’re not any type of scoring threat compared to what I used to be. I think it kind of helped me get back to that mentality and personality that I have on the floor.”
Mountaineer basketball fans certainly saw the Joe Mazzulla of old against Kentucky – the same old Joe who once drew high praise from Duke’s Mike Krzyzewski for the way he seemingly came up with every loose ball and rebound during West Virginia’s 2008 NCAA tournament upset victory over the Blue Devils. Against Kentucky in the east regional finals last spring, Mazzulla stung the Wildcats for a career-high 17 points, including 14 in the second half that mostly came on Evel Kneivel-like drives to the basket.
Now, Mazzulla wants to reintroduce the outside shot to his scoring repertoire.
“I’ve had a whole off-season to work on that and hopefully I can be just as effective as I was my sophomore year,” he said. “Maybe if they see that I’m healthy they won’t (back off), but it’s on me to keep that confidence and once I make one or two they will realize that it’s not last year.”
Or 2008, which Mazzulla admits was the most miserable year of his life.
“I don’t ever complain when I’m too tired or sore because I’d rather be 100 percent and sore than watching from the sidelines,” he reasoned. “That was the worse year.”
Joe will also readily admit that he sometimes was his own worst enemy by not listening to the doctors and refraining from doing the things that he shouldn’t have been doing in the first place.
“I was real anxious when I first came back and I was bench pressing and doing shoulder work and extra stuff when I wasn’t supposed to and now I’ve just got a smarter approach toward this,” he said.
If that means taking only 50 jump shots a day instead of 100 he is only going to take 50 jump shots. If that means only doing 10 reps instead of 15 he is going to only do the 10 reps. Mazzulla has finally realized that working smarter is just as important as working harder.
“The big thing we do is on a last set we try and get as many reps as we can where I still have to go 10 or 11,” he explained. “I may push it for an extra one or two, but I can’t go that extra four or five that some of the other players do.”
Mazzulla also says the strength and training staffs have worked in unison to modify his workouts to aid his rehabilitation process.
“Some of the secondary things that came from the surgery, tendonitis and things like that, it can flare up at any time,” Mazzulla said. “I think the key thing we did this year is we incorporated the rehab into my strength and conditioning to where we basically do my rehab but with heavier weight.”
Speaking of heavier weight, Mazzulla fully expects to carry a little more weight on his shoulders this season with the departure of key players Da’Sean Butler, Devin Ebanks and Wellington Smith from last year’s Final Four team. Mazzulla hinted that this year’s lineup might be altered at times to take advantage of West Virginia’s depth at the guard position.
“We have two big guys down low (Danny Jennings and Deniz Kilicli) that hopefully we can get 15-20 minutes out of each,” Mazzulla explained. “Then we’ve got four or five guards where we can even play three or four of them at a time. We can almost kind of play the way Villanova does by creating mismatches on the offensive end. There are a couple of ways we can go and we’ll figure that out in the first month of the season.”
According to Mazzulla, what makes things so interesting is that veteran coach Bob Huggins has been so adaptable during his career.
“He did a good job of that his first year,” Mazzulla said. “He didn’t have any of his type of players and he adapted to that and we worked well. He’s very good at that and finding a style that works best for the team.”
A key component to this year’s team will be its outside shooting with senior Casey Mitchell, junior Truck Bryant, sophomore Dalton Pepper and 6-foot-8 high-scoring forward Kevin Jones. Even freshman Noah Cottrill could come in and provide a big boost with his on-court quickness and 3-point shooting ability.
“Casey and Pep are great shooters and if Truck and I are out there at the same time that takes pressure off of Truck to where maybe he can knock some shots down,” Mazzulla said. “And hopefully I can step back and knock down a shot or two. Noah is obviously a good shooter, so I think we’re in pretty good shape with that. It’s just a matter of us gaining some confidence in knocking them down.”
Mazzulla is also looking for a big year out of 6-foot-7 senior forward John Flowers, who Mazzulla says has as much athletic ability as anybody in the Big East.
“John has really matured,” Mazzulla admitted. “Two or three years ago John would want to shoot and want to score and do all those things and now he kind of realizes he’s more effective by doing the things Huggs asks him to do and what his strengths are, which is dunking and blocking shots.”
As Mazzulla begins preparing for his last year in a Mountaineer uniform, he says he often reminds himself of the valuable lessons he learned watching Butler and Smith in practice every day last winter.
“You want to leave a mark and I think Da’Sean and Wellington did a great job of leaving their mark with leadership and hard work to me, John and Cam Thoroughman,” Mazzulla said. “We just want to work as hard as we can to not only have a successful year, but also to leave Truck and KJ with a mark that they can follow up on for their senior years as well.”
Antonik is the author of the book Roll Out the Carpet: 101 Seasons of West Virginia University Basketball now available in bookstores.
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