Campus Connection: Friday Notes
December 05, 2014 10:31 AM | General
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| Bob Huggins will have the next couple of days to work on his team's deficiencies before playing Northern Kentucky on Sunday. |
| All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo |
It’s never fun watching your team blow a 14-point second half lead and lose by one, especially if you are driving over from Martinsburg on a weeknight as MATTHEW NAJEWICZ said he did in a tweet to me on Thursday night, but I can see one silver lining in West Virginia’s 74-73 loss to LSU.
BOB HUGGINS will have his guys’ attention later today when they get back into the gym to begin preparing for Sunday night’s game at Northern Kentucky.
On Wednesday, Huggins mentioned that there were some things that he was concerned about with his young team despite their impressive 7-0 start, the gaudy steal and turnover numbers and the way his bigs were hitting the offensive glass.
Huggs said he had issues with their rotations in the back of the press, he was unhappy with the relative ease with which teams were making shots against them and also his guys’ inability to rebound the basketball on the defensive glass.
Well, all three of those things jumped up and got them on Thursday night against LSU.
West Virginia came into the game ranked 322nd out of 345 teams in defensive rebounding with an average of 20.43 per game. Against LSU, the Tigers grabbed 34 defensive boards to West Virginia’s 20.
“We got destroyed on the glass,” Huggins said during his postgame radio show.
West Virginia came into Thursday night’s game ranked 309th out of 345 teams in defensive field goal percentage allowing teams to shoot 46.9 against them. Against LSU, shot 46.4 percent overall, but the Tigers shot 50 percent in the second half and made 8 of 15 overall from 3 (53.3 percent).
There were times when West Virginia players were late getting out on LSU’s 3-point shooters and that allowed KEITH HORNSBY to knock down all three of his 3-point tries, including a wide open 3 in transition that gave the Tigers the lead with 30 seconds remaining.
TIM QUARTERMAN was also deadly from behind the arc, converting three of his four 3-point field goal attempts to finish with a game-high 21 points.
And as for those defensive rotations in the press, the Tigers outscored West Virginia 14-4 on fast break points - with most of those coming on easy layups in transition when the guys in the back were either beaten down the floor or were not in position to contest those shots.
I’m sure all of those things will be pointed out today, tomorrow and Sunday as the Mountaineers prepare for Northern Kentucky.
Sometimes players are a little more attentive after a one-point loss than they are following a one-point victory – wins former coach JOHN BEILEIN sometimes referred to as “Fools Gold.”
We’ll see.
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Kudos to Mountaineer fans and the WVU sports marketing staff for the strong turnout on Thursday night. Getting more than 10K inside the Coliseum for a midweek December game is not the easiest thing to do.
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The other day I was talking to JEFF CULHANE, our Mountaineer Tailgate Show host for West Virginia football games, and he believes there is a strong possibility that the Big 12 can get two teams in this year’s college football player.
Culhane thinks some Saturday upsets could pave the way for both TCU and Baylor to reach the playoffs, provided Baylor takes care of business this weekend against Kansas State.
Culhane sees Ohio State losing to Wisconsin in the Big Ten championship game and Florida State, which has been playing with fire all season, finally getting burned against Georgia Tech on Saturday in the ACC championship game.
If that happens, look out. And if the Big 12 gets two teams into this year’s college football playoff, that will have a trickle-down effect throughout the conference in terms of bowl slotting.
That’s why it might be a good idea to wait until Sunday afternoon before you start making your holiday bowl plans.
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I had a nice conversation with former Mountaineer assistant coach GARY McPHERSON before Thursday evening’s LSU game. We reminisced about Coach GALE CATLETT and the many games McPherson and Catlett worked together at Cincinnati and West Virginia.
McPherson says he really likes the full-court pressure defense Bob Huggins is using this year and he recalled the “33” press that he once came up with for Catlett.
Catlett would sometimes pull McPherson into the huddle during timeouts to have him diagram the press and on one occasion, a year after McPherson had retired from coaching and was working for the Mountaineer Athletic Club, Catlett ordered him out of the stands and into the team huddle to draw up the press late in a game.
“Gale, I’m no longer on the staff and I can’t do that because it’s against the rules,” McPherson said.
“I don’t care, get in here and show these guys how to run that ‘33’ press,” Catlett ordered.
McPherson did as he was told and discreetly slid into the team huddle and began drawing up his press.
What I forgot to ask Coach Mac was if it worked or not. Knowing Gary that would have led to another story, for sure.
We also talked about West Virginia’s Atlantic 10 days, the LITTLE GENERAL, the disputed loss at St. Joseph’s that ended up being overturned three days later, plus, we also talked a little high school recruiting back in the day when high school basketball coaches still had control over the process.
On many occasions, the high school coach determined which schools talked to their players and where their guys went to school – much the way AAU coaches are now involved. In some instances, high school coaches back then were able to use relationships with their players to springboard their coaching careers.
Such was the case with DICK VITALE, whose ties to LES CASON helped him break into the college ranks as an assistant coach at Rutgers.
Cason’s career (and life) didn’t turn out too well, but Vitale’s certainly did.
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| A photo of Aliyia with West Virginia University president Gordon Gee. |
| Submitted photo |
Tragedy struck the women’s basketball program a few weeks ago when student manger ALIYIA HANCOCK died on Saturday, November 22, when the car she was riding in collided with a school bus during a freezing rainstorm near her hometown of Minerva, Ohio.
Numerous coaches and staff members from various women’s programs around the country have sent notes of condolences to the West Virginia women’s staff. Among the organizations and teams sending notes: the Women’s Basketball Coaches Association (WBCA), the Big 12 Conference, Indiana, Texas Tech, TCU and Villanova, just to name a few.
Aliyia was also mentioned during the FOX Sports 1 telecast of the Tennessee-Texas game last Sunday.
Our continued thoughts and prayers go out to Aliyia’s family.
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I am saddened and also uplifted by DARRYL TALLEY’S story – saddened that the Talleys are having such a difficult time right now and saddened that such a proud and dignified man is going through what he is going through, but I am also uplifted by the outpouring of love and support the Talleys have received since Darryl courageously revealed his personal struggles to reporter TIM GRAHAM for this November 26 story that ran on the Buffalo News website.
Soon after reading Talley’s story, Appleton, N.Y. resident FRANK THOMAS CROISDALE created an online fund to help the Talleys get back on their feet with the goal of raising $100,000.
Since then, more than $150,000 has been raised and contributions are still rolling in – many of those from generous Mountaineer fans.
In difficult times, you can always count on the Mountaineers to rise to the occasion, that’s for sure.
The same can be said for Western New Yorkers, too.
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Before the start of the season, how many of you would have gladly signed up for a 7-5 record and a bowl berth for this year’s football team? Most, if not all of you, of course - based on West Virginia’s struggles in 2013 and having basically the same roster of players returning in 2014 to face the MOST DIFFICULT SCHEDULE IN SCHOOL HISTORY.
There were no JIM BROWNS, JOE NAMATHS, MEAN JOE GREENES, PEYTON MANNINGS or TOM BRADYS parachuting out of helicopters into Milan Puskar Stadium to suit up for the Mountaineers this year.
But once West Virginia’s record hit 6-2 heading into the TCU game - with College Gameday in town that weekend - all of those preseason expectations went out the window.
Then, when West Virginia lost three in a row to TCU, Texas and Kansas State a lot of people went off the deep end – or at least some of the callers that I listened to on the Fifth Quarter Show that aired after West Virginia’s season-ending game at Iowa State, which happened to be a Mountaineer win by the way.
DAN WOFLGANG, the Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG’s talented studio host, unleashed a whole new level of crazy with some of the callers that he let on the air last Saturday evening, that’s for sure.
For the sane ones out there listening in to the show, keep this in mind … fan is short for fanatic.
Have a great weekend!
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