Basketball Notebook
March 02, 2015 02:44 PM | General
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(22-7)
(23-6)With a week remaining in the regular season it’s time to begin considering the major Big 12 Conference award winners for 2015.
Based purely on numbers, it would appear Oklahoma’s Buddy Hield has the inside track on conference player of the year. The Sooner guard leads the league in scoring with an average of 17 points per game, followed by Oklahoma State forward Le’Bryan Nash at 16.9 points per game.
Meanwhile, the Big 12’s top rebounder, Baylor’s Rico Gathers, is comfortably ahead of West Virginia’s Devin Williams by nearly four rebounds per game with his 11.9 rebounds-per-game average.
However, Kansas coach Bill Self cautions those submitting their votes this year to not solely base their choices on gaudy numbers.
“To me, it’s not the guy who scores the most points or gets the most rebounds – even though that could very well be the case – but it’s the guy that means the most to their team,” he said earlier today during the Big 12 coaches’ teleconference. “Where would the team be without that guy? Winning is part of the equation.”
Self said his 2008 Jayhawk team that won the national championship didn’t have a single player on the first team all-league team that was selected by the media.
“It was because we were so balanced, which is totally understandable, but sometimes I think numbers can be overrated,” he said. “Instead of pure numbers, what would that team look like without that particular player on that team?”
According to Self, perhaps of even greater importance is when people are submitting their ballots.
“We’ve had issues in the past, I believe, where we’ve actually voted for the player of the year a week before the regular season is over and you’ve still got a championship to decide, guys can still put up big numbers and all these things, so I encourage everybody to not vote until all of the games are played.”
And that includes coach of the year, which Bob Huggins should garner strong consideration for this season. His team has already made a five-win improvement over last year with two more regular season games and postseason still remaining.
Incidentally, the last time West Virginia had a men’s basketball coach of the year was in 1982 when the Mountaineers were playing in the Eastern Eight. Of course, Gale Catlett was the coach honored that season.
Huggs certainly has a chance this year to end that long drought.
***
Huggins said guard Juwan Staten and Gary Browne are “day-to-day” but he wasn’t encouraged that they would be available for today’s practice in Lawrence, Kansas ahead of tomorrow night’s game against the Jayhawks.
“Everything I’m being told is day-to-day and I saw both of them earlier (this morning) and I doubt they practice today,” he said. “Tomorrow is another day though.”
A big issue with those two being sidelined is how much Huggins can use his full-court pressure packages now with his team possibly being down two key players.
“It hurts our depth,” he said. “I didn’t think our pressure was near as good in Waco (against Baylor on Saturday). They did a great job against it, and we pressed them the whole second half and didn’t take out (the two starting guards) at all.”
Freshman guard Jevon Carter is coming off a career-high 25-point performance against Baylor, while fellow freshman Daxter Miles Jr. put up 11 against the Bears.
Backup guards Jaysean Paige, Tarik Phillip and Chase Connor are going to have to give the Mountaineers more production on Tuesday night at Kansas than they did last Saturday at Baylor.
***
Huggins was asked to compare this year’s Big 12 tournament to some of the strongest Big East tournaments that he was a part of coaching the Mountaineers.
“The hard part about this league is that there are just not any bad teams,” he said. “Everybody is good. Everybody is extremely well coached and well prepared. This is probably as open a tournament as any that I’ve ever been involved with.”
In reality, the first day of the Big East tournament may have had some upsets, but for the most part the favored teams usually won. It was on day two and day three when the big upsets occurred.
Day one of this year’s Big 12 tournament is going to be something to see because anything can happen.
And the same goes for the Thursday, Friday and Saturday games.
Stay tuned.
***
Last week, I asked Huggins if he thought the college basketball season was getting too long. Teams have been going at it now for five months straight with the most important part of the season now coming up in March.
He said he doesn’t think so.
“I think football season is too long,” Huggins said. “You shouldn’t play football in January.”
Still, there aren’t many days off for coaches, assistant coaches and staff members once the team begins practicing in October.
“When we have a day off we go recruit,” he said. “I haven’t had a day off for 30-some years. It’s what we do and that’s what the average person doesn’t understand.”
Once the regular season is over Huggins then transitions to the fundraising and “friend-raising” season, conference meetings, clinics, camps and the other things that coaches are required to do on a yearly basis.
“People have a hard time understanding why I can’t do everything they want me to do but I can only be at one place and it’s not always easy,” he explained. “Between doing clinics, which I think are extremely beneficial to the program … I’ve got to do those things. It’s constant travel.”
***
The impression I am getting is that a lot of coaches and administrators were caught off guard by the Big Ten’s recent “year of readiness” proposal, which the conference plans to submit to the 2016 NCAA National Convention. The year of readiness plan would eliminate freshmen eligibility in football and men’s basketball.
Huggins says he is not in favor of the plan for a number of reasons.
“I think it would affect budgets tremendously,” he said. “(Financial factors) are just off the top of my head. There are a whole lot of things that you really need to look at. You talk about a freshman team, and using us as an example, I would assume we would play other teams in the Big 12. That’s nine trips out there and we’re probably not going to charter our freshmen out there. Can you imagine the number of classes they would miss?
“If we are concerned about academics and the academic progress of freshmen … or, then, do we start playing locally? Do we start playing (freshmen games) against Pitt in the ACC, Duquesne in the Atlantic 10? Who do these guys play?”
Those are very legitimate questions. I’m sure many more will come along as the Big Ten continues to push this proposal.
***
The Mountaineer women’s team didn’t cure all of its woes with Sunday’s 76-69 overtime victory over 24th-ranked Texas on Sunday afternoon, but they did significantly help their cause. Because this year’s NCAA tournament bubble field is so weak, the 17-12 Mountaineers are still right in the thick of things to land one of the last spots in this year’s Big Dance.
As a matter of fact, ESPN women’s bracketologist Charlie Creme had WVU as one of his last four teams in before Sunday’s big win over the Longhorns.
If West Virginia can win at Kansas State on Tuesday night – and that’s a big if considering WVU’s poor 1-7 road record in league play this year – and win a game or two in the Big 12 tournament coming up this weekend, Mike Carey’s Crew should find themselves back in the national tournament for an unprecedented sixth straight year.
Teams on the bubble can make up a lot of ground by playing in a league as strong and as balanced as the Big 12 is with all 10 teams in the top 125 of this week’s RPI rankings.
West Virginia is certainly finding that out.
***
Because of conflicts with Tuesday’s men’s game at Kansas and the women’s game at Kansas State, WRLF-FM will carry the women’s broadcast in its entirety locally on the Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG.
WRLF will most likely join the men after the women’s postgame show is complete and signed off
WZST-FM and WMMN-AM will air the men’s broadcast in its entirety, while WTCS-AM will join the men in progress at the conclusion of the Fairmont East high school boy’s basketball tournament game.
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