Getting On a Roll
December 16, 2011 05:01 PM | General
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Last week was a week West Virginia’s Truck Bryant didn’t want to see end. The senior scored a season-high 24 points during the Mountaineers’ 85-80 double-overtime victory over Kansas State, and then two days later, poured in a career-high 27 points on 9 of 12 shooting in West Virginia’s 77-66 victory over Miami.
For his efforts, Bryant was named Big East player of the week.
“I thought he’s played well in every game but two,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “We’ve talked about it extensively. He forced things when we got behind and we were struggling, which made things worse. He’s been good. He’s put in extra time, and by and large, he’s tried to take an extra leadership role.”
Bryant is currently second to Kevin Jones on the team in scoring, averaging 17 points per game, and he is coming off a 5-for-7 shooting performance from 3 against Miami. That shooting effort has boosted his 3-point shooting percentage above 30 percent for the first time this season.
Bryant credits some extra shooting on game days with assistant coach Jerrod Calhoun for the turnaround.
“I just come in about 45 minutes before everyone else to try and get up a 100 shots before the game,” Bryant said. “I’ve just got to keep shooting with confidence and just keep working at it, and that’s something that I’ve been doing.”
Bryant is 16 for his last 29 from the floor, and has also been the team’s most consistent free throw shooter, making 75.9 percent of his attempts so far this year.
But against Kansas State, it was his ballhandling and experience that actually made a bigger impact on the game than his shooting. When West Virginia’s young guards were struggling against pressure, it was Bryant who was asked to bring the ball up the floor.
“I didn’t think we would get it up the floor in Wichita until we put him back at the point,” said Huggins. “It’s three years he’s been there and playing against the competition he’s faced in non-league and in the Big East, he should be good at it.”
“That’s something I have to do,” added Bryant. “There will be times when I have to bring the ball up the floor, but I think that was a case where I think the freshmen were a little rattled because they had never seen pressure like that before.
“This is college with grown men now. I just told them to calm down and everything will be alright because we are going to see a lot more pressure than that,” Bryant said. “We’ve got Louisville that will press and a lot of other teams will press like that.”
Bryant says he is seeing continual improvement in the team because the younger players are willing to work hard and listen, and the older players are helping the younger players get through their mistakes.
“We’re more athletic and it’s good to see the young boys coming in here and giving great effort and learning and getting better every day,” said Bryant. “And I think the veterans have done a great job of letting them play their game on the court, but correcting them when something goes wrong.”
Bryant says the team is able to get through practices now without a lot of stoppages to review mistakes being made by the younger players.
“There were times when they didn’t know the offense,” Bryant said. “I’m not going to lie there are still times when they don’t know, but as long as they continue to learn that’s all you can ask for.”
Saturday’s game against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the opening round of the Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic will provide another opportunity for the younger players to get better. Bryant sees this as an opportunity for a young team to continue to learn more about themselves.
“We’ve got to keep learning,” he said. “We can run a play that we never ran before, or just learn something different as a team.”
Saturday’s game will tip off at 2 p.m. and will be televised on the Big East Network. Locally, the game can be seen on ROOT SPORTS.
Notebook: West Virginia coach Bob Huggins is now just three wins shy of 700 for his coaching career … Fans outside of West Virginia can catch the game on SNY, MASN (Capital Region), Brighthouse (Florida), Cox (New Orleans) and ESPN Full Court; the game will be blacked out on ESPN3 … Fans bringing a non-perishable food item to Saturday’s game will receive a coupon for free admission to an upcoming West Virginia University women’s basketball game … Also, Saturday’s game has been deemed Mountaineer Doorbuster Saturday, meaning the purchase of one adult ticket at the gate will enable a fan to also receive one free youth admission to the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi game … Texas A&M Corpus-Christi dropped a 66-64 decision to South Florida on Thursday night to fall to 1-6 on the season … The Islanders have a very small starting lineup with two starters standing 6-6, two at 6-2, and the other being 5-10 … Junior guard Terence Jones is Texas A&M-Corpus Christi’s leading scorer averaging 12.6 points per game … TAMCC coach Willis Wilson faced West Virginia while he was coaching at Rice, falling 78-61 to the Mountaineers on Nov. 29, 1997 in the second game of the San Juan Shootout in San Juan, Puerto Rico … Redshirt freshman forward Kevin Noreen is 9 of 10 shooting this year and has made 16 of his 18 career field goal attempts in 15 games as a Mountaineer … Noreen is shooting 88.9 percent from the floor and 61.1 percent from the free throw line.
For his efforts, Bryant was named Big East player of the week.
“I thought he’s played well in every game but two,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins. “We’ve talked about it extensively. He forced things when we got behind and we were struggling, which made things worse. He’s been good. He’s put in extra time, and by and large, he’s tried to take an extra leadership role.”
Bryant is currently second to Kevin Jones on the team in scoring, averaging 17 points per game, and he is coming off a 5-for-7 shooting performance from 3 against Miami. That shooting effort has boosted his 3-point shooting percentage above 30 percent for the first time this season.
Bryant credits some extra shooting on game days with assistant coach Jerrod Calhoun for the turnaround.
“I just come in about 45 minutes before everyone else to try and get up a 100 shots before the game,” Bryant said. “I’ve just got to keep shooting with confidence and just keep working at it, and that’s something that I’ve been doing.”
Bryant is 16 for his last 29 from the floor, and has also been the team’s most consistent free throw shooter, making 75.9 percent of his attempts so far this year.
But against Kansas State, it was his ballhandling and experience that actually made a bigger impact on the game than his shooting. When West Virginia’s young guards were struggling against pressure, it was Bryant who was asked to bring the ball up the floor.
“I didn’t think we would get it up the floor in Wichita until we put him back at the point,” said Huggins. “It’s three years he’s been there and playing against the competition he’s faced in non-league and in the Big East, he should be good at it.”
“That’s something I have to do,” added Bryant. “There will be times when I have to bring the ball up the floor, but I think that was a case where I think the freshmen were a little rattled because they had never seen pressure like that before.
“This is college with grown men now. I just told them to calm down and everything will be alright because we are going to see a lot more pressure than that,” Bryant said. “We’ve got Louisville that will press and a lot of other teams will press like that.”
Bryant says he is seeing continual improvement in the team because the younger players are willing to work hard and listen, and the older players are helping the younger players get through their mistakes.
“We’re more athletic and it’s good to see the young boys coming in here and giving great effort and learning and getting better every day,” said Bryant. “And I think the veterans have done a great job of letting them play their game on the court, but correcting them when something goes wrong.”
Bryant says the team is able to get through practices now without a lot of stoppages to review mistakes being made by the younger players.
“There were times when they didn’t know the offense,” Bryant said. “I’m not going to lie there are still times when they don’t know, but as long as they continue to learn that’s all you can ask for.”
Saturday’s game against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the opening round of the Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic will provide another opportunity for the younger players to get better. Bryant sees this as an opportunity for a young team to continue to learn more about themselves.
“We’ve got to keep learning,” he said. “We can run a play that we never ran before, or just learn something different as a team.”
Saturday’s game will tip off at 2 p.m. and will be televised on the Big East Network. Locally, the game can be seen on ROOT SPORTS.
Notebook: West Virginia coach Bob Huggins is now just three wins shy of 700 for his coaching career … Fans outside of West Virginia can catch the game on SNY, MASN (Capital Region), Brighthouse (Florida), Cox (New Orleans) and ESPN Full Court; the game will be blacked out on ESPN3 … Fans bringing a non-perishable food item to Saturday’s game will receive a coupon for free admission to an upcoming West Virginia University women’s basketball game … Also, Saturday’s game has been deemed Mountaineer Doorbuster Saturday, meaning the purchase of one adult ticket at the gate will enable a fan to also receive one free youth admission to the Texas A&M-Corpus Christi game … Texas A&M Corpus-Christi dropped a 66-64 decision to South Florida on Thursday night to fall to 1-6 on the season … The Islanders have a very small starting lineup with two starters standing 6-6, two at 6-2, and the other being 5-10 … Junior guard Terence Jones is Texas A&M-Corpus Christi’s leading scorer averaging 12.6 points per game … TAMCC coach Willis Wilson faced West Virginia while he was coaching at Rice, falling 78-61 to the Mountaineers on Nov. 29, 1997 in the second game of the San Juan Shootout in San Juan, Puerto Rico … Redshirt freshman forward Kevin Noreen is 9 of 10 shooting this year and has made 16 of his 18 career field goal attempts in 15 games as a Mountaineer … Noreen is shooting 88.9 percent from the floor and 61.1 percent from the free throw line.
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