Men's Basketball Notebook
October 25, 2015 12:46 PM | Men's Basketball
The general public got its first glimpse of the 2016 West Virginia Mountaineers during Saturday evening’s Gold-Blue Debut at the WVU Coliseum.
The roster was split up and former Mountaineer players Juwan Staten and Gary Browne were on hand to coach the two teams during a 30-minute officiated scrimmage witnessed by an estimated 5,000 spectators that included about 100 high school and junior high coaches on campus taking part in Bob Huggins’ annual coaching clinic.
The Gold team, coached by Browne, defeated the Staten-led Blue team 46-24, with 30 of the 46 points coming from Elijah Macon, Daxter Miles Jr. and Tarik Phillip.
Afterward, Huggins was very complimentary of the way Macon, a 6-foot-9-inch, 235-pound sophomore forward, has been playing so far during the preseason.
“He basically had two years off going into last year,” Huggins said afterward. “I think he’s in a lot better shape. He’s bouncier.”
Macon averaged 13.1 minutes per game in 2015 as a freshman and made one start against Oklahoma when he scored eight points in a 71-52 loss to the Sooners. He also scored nine points in nine minutes of action in a home victory against Oklahoma and had eight points and four boards in an 81-72 home win over Oklahoma State.
However, there were other occasions last season when Macon was still trying to figure things out.
Perhaps now he is beginning to.
“I think he’s probably our most improved guy of our returners,” noted Huggins.
The aspect of play West Virginia’s veteran coach is still not comfortable with so far has been the team’s ball handling. The Mountaineers are breaking in a new backcourt that will feature a new starting point guard, most likely either Jevon Carter or Tarik Phillip, when the regular season begins on Friday, November 13, against Northern Kentucky.
The guy who can hang on to the ball and get it to the right people is the player who will likely see the most minutes at point guard this year.
“We’ve turned it over too much in practice and I thought we turned it over too much (Saturday night),” said Huggins. “We’ve got to do a better job with ball security.”
Huggins said Phillip did a pretty good job of running the Gold team.
“He took pretty good care of the ball,” said Huggins. “But we don’t know quite when to pass and when to shoot and those kind of things.”
Late-game situations last year is where Juwan Staten really thrived, either by getting the ball through traps and pressure or by holding on to it and scoring critical points at the foul line down the stretch.
Huggins clearly wanted the ball in his point guard’s hands in those situations.
“We lost one of the best point guards in the country,” he said of Staten. “I’ve told our guys this and I said this in Kansas City (during Big 12 media day). The one thing about Wanny is you couldn’t take the ball away from him when you trapped him, and for the most part he made his free throws.
“Our late-game situations with ball security was a lot better. Now, with the rules the way they are with no five-second rule, he could have dribbled the thing through the whole shot clock, conceivably,” said Huggins. “The only way they would have been able to stop the clock was to foul him. We don’t have that.”
Consequently, that means West Virginia’s guards this year are going to have to pass the ball instead of dribbling it and make the right choices at the end of the games.
“We need J.C. (Carter) to score, without question, but he’s got to make better decisions of when to score and when to pass,” Huggins admitted. “I told him, ‘I’ve never been opposed to having scoring point guards.’ (Nick) Van Exel scored it pretty well, (Steve) Logan scored it pretty well, Damon Flint scored it pretty well, so I’ve had guys that could score playing the point, but you have to know when to make a play and when to get other people involved.”
Fortunately, Huggins has a couple of additional weeks to work with his guys on that before the games count.
In the meantime, 23rd-ranked West Virginia will have one exhibition game against Glenville State at the Coliseum on Friday, November 6 for additional work on those late-game situations that Huggins wants to see get ironed out.
Briefly: West Virginia raised its 2015 NCAA Tournament Sweet 16 banner before Saturday’s scrimmage and also presented players on that team with their Sweet 16 rings … West Virginia’s exhibition game against Glenville State will be streamed live on WVUsports.com … Freshman forward Lamont West, who has been banged up a little bit during practice, was able to play during Saturday’s scrimmage … Walk-on guard Richard Romeo was not so fortunate, however … the Greenbrier East High product suffered a broken nose during practice and will be sidelined for a while … Romeo joins freshman point guard James “Beetle” Bolden and junior forward Brandon Watkins on the team’s injured list … Bolden tore his ACL during preseason practice and is out for the season while Watkins had offseason knee surgery last May and is now five months into the rehabilitation process, meaning he could be available at some point down the line … Watkins averaged 1.9 points and 1.4 rebounds in 23 games last year for the Mountaineers.
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