Mid-Morning Hoops
November 14, 2011 12:04 PM | General
WEST VIRGINIA GAME NOTES | KENT STATE GAME NOTES
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Are you ready for a little mid-morning college basketball?
West Virginia faces Kent State Tuesday morning at the unique time of 10 a.m. as part of ESPN’s 24 hours of college basketball. Last week, the university released special parking information for the game.
Ten in the morning may be a little early, but at least it’s not 4 a.m.
“It gives you the rest of the day off,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “It’s TV. It’s 24 hours of basketball. We haven’t played on a ship yet either - that was the slot.”
West Virginia is coming off a hard-fought 78-71 victory over Oral Roberts in its season opener last Friday night at the Coliseum. Senior forward Kevin Jones led four double-figure scorers with 20 points. Senior Truck Bryant contributed 17 points in just 21 minutes of action, while junior Deniz Kilicli added 11 points and freshman Aaron Brown contributed 10 off the bench.
WVU shot 58.8 percent for the game but still struggled to put Oral Roberts away because the Mountaineers committed 21 turnovers and were outrebounded 37-24.
“We do not get outrebounded 37-24 by anybody,” said Huggins. “That is ridiculous. To have the size that we have and not rebound the ball is ridiculous, and they just beat us to the ball. They were more aggressive and we didn’t do a good job.”
Jones had a third of the team’s rebounds with eight; Aaron Brown was second with four boards.
Oral Roberts also bothered West Virginia’s inexperienced backcourt with full court pressure that nearly wiped out a 14 point second-half Mountaineer lead.
“We got very nonchalant and complacent,” said Huggins. “We didn’t come get the ball.”
The problems handling pressure are not conceptual, says Huggins.
“We have done the same things for 30 years, and it’s been pretty good,” he said. “You have to catch the ball and look up the floor. If you catch the ball and keep your back turned, then why wouldn’t everyone run up? Now they have more people than what you have. It’s a pretty simple concept, really.”
West Virginia is expecting even more pressure Tuesday morning from a Kent State team returning four starters from last year’s ballclub that won 25 games and reached the NIT quarterfinals.
The Golden Flashes have a new coach, Rob Senderoff, but they will be running the same system Geno Ford was using before he left to take the Bradley job last spring.
Senderoff is the latest up-and-coming coach Kent State is adding to a recent coaching tree that includes Ford, Jim Christian, Stan Heath and Gary Waters. And Senderoff has the benefit of having the top returning player in the Mid-American Conference in 6-foot-8, 225-pound senior forward Justin Greene, who showed averages of 15.4 points and 8.3 rebounds per game last year.
Greene was an honorable mention All-America pick last year who has scored 20 points or more 16 times during his career; Kent State is 14-2 in those games he scores 20.
Senior guards Carlton Guyton and Michael Porrini are veteran players who combined to average nearly 23 points and eight rebounds per game in 2011. Porrini is the returning MAC defensive player of the year while Guyton was picked as the league’s 6th-man of the year. Last year Guyton shot an impressive 41 percent from 3.
Justin Manns, a 6-foot-11-inch center, gives Kent State nice size in the middle and is coming off a strong postseason last year when he averaged 7.5 points and 5.8 rebounds during the MAC tournament and NIT.
Guard Randal Holt is the only junior in Kent’s starting lineup. The Cleveland resident averaged 10 points per game last year and played really well in the NIT, shooting 10 of 22 from 3 during the tournament.
The Golden Flashes have a couple of talented players available off the bench in 6-foot-7 junior college All-American forward Chris Evans and 6-foot-6 forward Patrick Jackson, a Rutgers transfer.
Huggins knows his young team is going to have to play with great effort Tuesday morning under unique circumstances if it wants to knock off the much more experienced Golden Flashes.
“The precedent has been set here that we are going to bust in you in the mouth. We are going to come out and play hard,” Huggins said. “We’re going to take things away from you. We are going to rebound the ball and if you don’t come and match our intensity level then you’re going to have a hard night. (This team) doesn’t have anything to do with that and they don’t understand that.
“They don’t understand that they are going to get everybody’s best shot because everybody knows how hard we’re supposed to play,” he said.
Until 3 p.m. today fans can log on to WVUGAME.com, click on the promotions tab and enter the promo code UNITED to purchase a $10 ticket for the game, courtesy of United Bank.
ESPN (Sean McDonough and Bill Raftery) will televise the game nationally.
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Are you ready for a little mid-morning college basketball?
West Virginia faces Kent State Tuesday morning at the unique time of 10 a.m. as part of ESPN’s 24 hours of college basketball. Last week, the university released special parking information for the game.
Ten in the morning may be a little early, but at least it’s not 4 a.m.
“It gives you the rest of the day off,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “It’s TV. It’s 24 hours of basketball. We haven’t played on a ship yet either - that was the slot.”
West Virginia is coming off a hard-fought 78-71 victory over Oral Roberts in its season opener last Friday night at the Coliseum. Senior forward Kevin Jones led four double-figure scorers with 20 points. Senior Truck Bryant contributed 17 points in just 21 minutes of action, while junior Deniz Kilicli added 11 points and freshman Aaron Brown contributed 10 off the bench.
WVU shot 58.8 percent for the game but still struggled to put Oral Roberts away because the Mountaineers committed 21 turnovers and were outrebounded 37-24.
“We do not get outrebounded 37-24 by anybody,” said Huggins. “That is ridiculous. To have the size that we have and not rebound the ball is ridiculous, and they just beat us to the ball. They were more aggressive and we didn’t do a good job.”
Jones had a third of the team’s rebounds with eight; Aaron Brown was second with four boards.
Oral Roberts also bothered West Virginia’s inexperienced backcourt with full court pressure that nearly wiped out a 14 point second-half Mountaineer lead.
“We got very nonchalant and complacent,” said Huggins. “We didn’t come get the ball.”
The problems handling pressure are not conceptual, says Huggins.
“We have done the same things for 30 years, and it’s been pretty good,” he said. “You have to catch the ball and look up the floor. If you catch the ball and keep your back turned, then why wouldn’t everyone run up? Now they have more people than what you have. It’s a pretty simple concept, really.”
West Virginia is expecting even more pressure Tuesday morning from a Kent State team returning four starters from last year’s ballclub that won 25 games and reached the NIT quarterfinals.
The Golden Flashes have a new coach, Rob Senderoff, but they will be running the same system Geno Ford was using before he left to take the Bradley job last spring.
Senderoff is the latest up-and-coming coach Kent State is adding to a recent coaching tree that includes Ford, Jim Christian, Stan Heath and Gary Waters. And Senderoff has the benefit of having the top returning player in the Mid-American Conference in 6-foot-8, 225-pound senior forward Justin Greene, who showed averages of 15.4 points and 8.3 rebounds per game last year.
Greene was an honorable mention All-America pick last year who has scored 20 points or more 16 times during his career; Kent State is 14-2 in those games he scores 20.
Senior guards Carlton Guyton and Michael Porrini are veteran players who combined to average nearly 23 points and eight rebounds per game in 2011. Porrini is the returning MAC defensive player of the year while Guyton was picked as the league’s 6th-man of the year. Last year Guyton shot an impressive 41 percent from 3.
Justin Manns, a 6-foot-11-inch center, gives Kent State nice size in the middle and is coming off a strong postseason last year when he averaged 7.5 points and 5.8 rebounds during the MAC tournament and NIT.
Guard Randal Holt is the only junior in Kent’s starting lineup. The Cleveland resident averaged 10 points per game last year and played really well in the NIT, shooting 10 of 22 from 3 during the tournament.
The Golden Flashes have a couple of talented players available off the bench in 6-foot-7 junior college All-American forward Chris Evans and 6-foot-6 forward Patrick Jackson, a Rutgers transfer.
Huggins knows his young team is going to have to play with great effort Tuesday morning under unique circumstances if it wants to knock off the much more experienced Golden Flashes.
“The precedent has been set here that we are going to bust in you in the mouth. We are going to come out and play hard,” Huggins said. “We’re going to take things away from you. We are going to rebound the ball and if you don’t come and match our intensity level then you’re going to have a hard night. (This team) doesn’t have anything to do with that and they don’t understand that.
“They don’t understand that they are going to get everybody’s best shot because everybody knows how hard we’re supposed to play,” he said.
Until 3 p.m. today fans can log on to WVUGAME.com, click on the promotions tab and enter the promo code UNITED to purchase a $10 ticket for the game, courtesy of United Bank.
ESPN (Sean McDonough and Bill Raftery) will televise the game nationally.
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