Gotham Classic Preview
December 19, 2014 04:07 PM | General
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(9-1)
(9-2)The fun and games are now over for the 20th-ranked West Virginia University men's basketball team.
Earlier this week, Huggins had some fun on his radio show addressing comments Marshall coach Dan D’Antoni made about possibly playing a Bedlam Series of basketball games in Huntington and Morgantown throughout the year, but now it’s back to business with two very difficult games on the horizon.
First, West Virginia must tackle a 9-2 NC State team that is coming off an 83-72 win over Tennessee up in Madison Square Garden in New York City as part of the Gotham Classic. Then, two nights later, the Mountaineers will play one of the two teams that beat the Wolfpack this year – Wofford.
Huggins said Wofford was already on the schedule when the opportunity came to play NC State in the Garden on Saturday night.
“We wanted to play in the Garden,” said Huggins. “We’re going to play some Saturday-Mondays anyway. Wofford’s good. They’re real good.”
And so is NC State.
Huggins really likes State’s combo of Ralston Turner and Trevor Lacey, the two averaging close to a combined 33 points per game.
Lacey, a 6-foot-3, 208-pound junior guard, is shooting an impressive 54.5 percent from the floor, including 44.4 percent from 3 – an area on defense that West Virginia has really struggled with this year.
Turner is also an effective 3-point shooter, hitting 42.3 percent of his triples so far this season. Turner’s size (6-foot-5) will also cause some matchup problems because he can post smaller guys and go past bigger guys.
“They’re very talented,” said Huggins. “They make shots. Their two wings are two of the most talented wings we’ve played so far, and maybe all year. Both of them are great shot makers and they’ve got really good size. They’re going to be a problem for us.”
Turner and Tracey were terrific against Tennessee, Turner scoring 33 on 8-of-17 shooting from 3 and Tracey scoring 20 and pulling down a team-best eight rebounds.
“They shot the ball really well and handled Tennessee’s pressure really well,” said Huggins.
The Wolfpack don’t get too much scoring from their two bigs, BeeJay Anya and Lennard Freeman, but the two are grabbing about 12 rebounds per game between them and Anya has blocked 40 shots so far this year.
West Virginia, meanwhile, is looking to get to playing the way it did down in Puerto Rico when the Mountaineers defeated George Mason, Boston College and Connecticut to win the Puerto Rico Tipoff.
In its most recent game against Marshall last Sunday in Charleston, West Virginia shot just 38.6 percent and made only three of its 17 3-point field goal tries.
Guard Juwan Staten scored a team-best 15 points, but it was the play of backup guard Gary Browne down the stretch that stabilized things when the Mountaineers were trailing by eight midway through the second half.
Browne made a big 3 and hit some key free throws down the stretch to help deliver a 69-66 victory. West Virginia also struggled shooting the basketball in its 67-42 win at Northern Kentucky, the Mountaineers converting 39 percent overall, and just 19 percent from 3.
Huggins said he was happy with the way his guys practiced this week.
“Monday and Tuesday I thought our guys were real good, particularly for a game that far away,” he said.
The team traveled to New York City following Thursday’s practice and spent this afternoon in the city before Saturday night’s game against the Wolfpack.
Tipoff is set for 9:30 p.m. and the game will be televised nationally on ESPN2.
Gotham Classic Notebook: Madison Square Garden used to be a yearly staple for West Virginia and its fans when the Mountaineers were members of the Big East Conference …“I look forward to it. I think it’s a lot of fun,” said Huggins of returning to the world’s most famous arena. “I know our guys are looking forward to going to the Garden. Our fans love going back. It’s a great time to go back with Christmas at the Rockefeller Center. The world’s largest Christmas tree … it’s all good” … Huggins said Thursday morning that his last memory of the Garden is not a good one unfortunately - an overtime loss to Connecticut in the 2012 Big East tournament … “The last thing I remember is giving the Connecticut game away. We let Shabazz (Napier) just take it out of our hands twice and we had the game under control, too. That wasn’t a good deal,” he recalled … Huggs also remembers playing a game in the Garden against Rutgers in 1976 when he was a Mountaineer player … Huggins said the Knights were ranked No. 1 but they were actually No. 7 at the time they played West Virginia, beating the Mountaineers 86-76 … Huggins was also asked if he plans on doing some site seeing with his guys before the game … “I drop them off and say be back at this time. I’m not going to go walk around with them. You try and tell them don’t buy watches and the first thing they do is buy watches. It’s part of the experience,” he explained. “Those guys will talk about that when they’re 50 years old. They’ll say, ‘I thought I was buying a Gucci and when I looked at it it was an Uuchi. There’s no G. But it was only $30.’ ‘Yeah, but if you would have walked around the corner it was only $15.’ They figure it out” … Although West Virginia is no longer in the Big East, Huggins said he still keeps an eye out for New York City area players … “We still want to try and recruit in there and if we’re going to recruit in there we’ve got to get in there some,” he said. “The big part of what we sold was being able to go back home and play in the Big East tournament. Go back and play Connecticut. Go back and play St. John’s and Seton Hall. We said Syracuse - even though that wasn’t close - but you’ve got to say that. I think those guys really look forward to going back and playing there because they have family members there.”
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