West Virginia 84, TAMCC 64
December 17, 2011 05:06 PM | General
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – West Virginia coach Bob Huggins could see this one coming during walk-through.
His young team was going through the motions then, and it went through the motions during Saturday afternoon’s 84-64 victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the opening game of the Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic played at the WVU Coliseum in Morgantown.
West Virginia (7-2) will face Tennessee Tech Monday night at the Coliseum before traveling to Las Vegas to play a pair of games against Missouri State and Baylor later in the week.
“We weren’t sharp,” said Huggins, now just two wins shy of 700 for his career. “We weren’t where we were supposed to be.”
When Kevin Jones, who scored a team-high 22 points and grabbed eight rebounds, picked up a quick second foul, he was relegated to the bench for most of the first half. Senior Truck Bryant and junior Deniz Kilicli also spent a large portion of the first half watching from the bench.
That meant West Virginia’s young players were on the floor and that helped the Islanders stay in the game, trailing just 32-28 at the break.
“To be really honest I was trying to make a point,” said Huggins. “I think at other times I would have played (Jones). But he came out in the second half and played extremely well and took good shots.”
West Virginia used an 18-5 run at the beginning of the second half, keyed by Jones and Kilicli, to build its lead to 17. The lead swelled to as many as 20 at the 11-minute mark.
Huggins chose not to start Kilicli at the beginning of the second half before inserting him into the game after the first media timeout.
“When I put him in he came to play,” said Huggins. “It gets frustrating when you take three steps forward and two steps backwards. Why can’t we continue to build on what we’ve been doing?”
It was obvious to Huggins that his team was not focused at times.
“When you’re not ready to play you fumble balls. When you’re not ready to play you don’t rebound the ball,” he said. “The ball bounces off your hands. You don’t catch the ball. You don’t make free throws – all the concentration things; you dribble the ball off your foot, which we did numerous times today. When you’re not ready to play or you’re not concentrating, those are the signs.”
Still, the Mountaineers were able to put together some spurts of good basketball in the second half, especially defensively.
“In the second half I thought we came out and did a better job defensively,” said Huggins. “Everything is keyed by what we do defensively. When we make some plays we get out in transition and we get some easy baskets.”
Huggins also thought his team passed the ball much better in the second half, the Mountaineers finishing the game with 23 assists, including a team-high-tying five from forward Kevin Noreen.
“We did not pass it in the first half. It looked to me like a rec game,” said Huggins. “It was ‘let me get mine’ in the first half. We shoot 45 percent in the first half and come out and pass the ball in the second half and shoot 61 percent.”
Overall, the Mountaineers shot 54.5 percent from the floor for the game and out-rebounded the much smaller Islanders 37-26. In addition to Jones’ 22, Bryant scored 14 and Kilicli added 13.
Chris Hawkins-Mast scored 22 and Terence Jones added 20 for Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, now 1-7 on the season.
West Virginia has a quick turnaround with a game against Tennessee Tech on Monday night at the Coliseum. The Golden Eagles improved to 6-4 with a 72-70 win at Evansville earlier today. Tech is expected to put a lot of pressure on West Virginia’s young guards Monday night.
“They are going to do a little bit of what these guys did in the second half. It will kind of be a 1-1-3 and sometimes they will deny it in and sometimes they won’t,” said Huggins. “Sometimes they put a guy over the ball and sometimes they don’t.
“Generally speaking, pressure doesn’t bother you if you look up the floor. Presses bother you when you play laterally and play backwards. We’ve got to come and meet the ball and be able to pass the ball up the floor,” said Huggins. “That will be good for us and hopefully we come in with a whole lot different mindset than what we did today.”
Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. and the game will be televised locally on ROOT SPORTS.
His young team was going through the motions then, and it went through the motions during Saturday afternoon’s 84-64 victory over Texas A&M-Corpus Christi in the opening game of the Continental Tire Las Vegas Classic played at the WVU Coliseum in Morgantown.
West Virginia (7-2) will face Tennessee Tech Monday night at the Coliseum before traveling to Las Vegas to play a pair of games against Missouri State and Baylor later in the week.
“We weren’t sharp,” said Huggins, now just two wins shy of 700 for his career. “We weren’t where we were supposed to be.”
When Kevin Jones, who scored a team-high 22 points and grabbed eight rebounds, picked up a quick second foul, he was relegated to the bench for most of the first half. Senior Truck Bryant and junior Deniz Kilicli also spent a large portion of the first half watching from the bench.
That meant West Virginia’s young players were on the floor and that helped the Islanders stay in the game, trailing just 32-28 at the break.
“To be really honest I was trying to make a point,” said Huggins. “I think at other times I would have played (Jones). But he came out in the second half and played extremely well and took good shots.”
West Virginia used an 18-5 run at the beginning of the second half, keyed by Jones and Kilicli, to build its lead to 17. The lead swelled to as many as 20 at the 11-minute mark.
Huggins chose not to start Kilicli at the beginning of the second half before inserting him into the game after the first media timeout.
“When I put him in he came to play,” said Huggins. “It gets frustrating when you take three steps forward and two steps backwards. Why can’t we continue to build on what we’ve been doing?”
It was obvious to Huggins that his team was not focused at times.
“When you’re not ready to play you fumble balls. When you’re not ready to play you don’t rebound the ball,” he said. “The ball bounces off your hands. You don’t catch the ball. You don’t make free throws – all the concentration things; you dribble the ball off your foot, which we did numerous times today. When you’re not ready to play or you’re not concentrating, those are the signs.”
Still, the Mountaineers were able to put together some spurts of good basketball in the second half, especially defensively.
“In the second half I thought we came out and did a better job defensively,” said Huggins. “Everything is keyed by what we do defensively. When we make some plays we get out in transition and we get some easy baskets.”
Huggins also thought his team passed the ball much better in the second half, the Mountaineers finishing the game with 23 assists, including a team-high-tying five from forward Kevin Noreen.
“We did not pass it in the first half. It looked to me like a rec game,” said Huggins. “It was ‘let me get mine’ in the first half. We shoot 45 percent in the first half and come out and pass the ball in the second half and shoot 61 percent.”
Overall, the Mountaineers shot 54.5 percent from the floor for the game and out-rebounded the much smaller Islanders 37-26. In addition to Jones’ 22, Bryant scored 14 and Kilicli added 13.
Chris Hawkins-Mast scored 22 and Terence Jones added 20 for Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, now 1-7 on the season.
West Virginia has a quick turnaround with a game against Tennessee Tech on Monday night at the Coliseum. The Golden Eagles improved to 6-4 with a 72-70 win at Evansville earlier today. Tech is expected to put a lot of pressure on West Virginia’s young guards Monday night.
“They are going to do a little bit of what these guys did in the second half. It will kind of be a 1-1-3 and sometimes they will deny it in and sometimes they won’t,” said Huggins. “Sometimes they put a guy over the ball and sometimes they don’t.
“Generally speaking, pressure doesn’t bother you if you look up the floor. Presses bother you when you play laterally and play backwards. We’ve got to come and meet the ball and be able to pass the ball up the floor,” said Huggins. “That will be good for us and hopefully we come in with a whole lot different mindset than what we did today.”
Tipoff is set for 7 p.m. and the game will be televised locally on ROOT SPORTS.
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