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Campus Connection: Comparing Great Teams
February 12, 2016 03:49 PM | Men's Basketball
Regardless of what happens the rest of the season, this year’s West Virginia University men’s basketball team is the best one Bob Huggins has had since his Final Four team of 2010.
The two are clearly different in the way they win basketball games, but there are some similarities, too, believe it or not.
The statistical differences are pretty obvious. The 2010 team ranked highly in assist-to-turnover ratio and assists per game; it shot free throws much better than this one does, it shot more threes and at a higher percentage than this one does and that team didn’t turn the basketball over nearly as much as this one does.
But this year’s team has a better shooting percentage than the 2010 team did (46 percent to 43 percent, as difficult to believe as it may seem), it creates far more steals and turnovers than that team did and it does a much better job of defending the three.
“The philosophy is a whole lot different,” said Huggins earlier today. “(The 2010 team was) a half-court team that ran really good half-court offense and we played really good half-court defense.”
Perhaps most surprising is how much more effective this year’s team team has been offensively compared to the 2010 team, averaging almost eight points more per contest than that team did.
Huggins has a ready explanation for that.
“The way we play there are more possessions,” he said. “This team has had a lot more chances to score because they play at a faster pace.”
As for the similarities, there are a few that really jump out, namely field goal percentage defense, rebounding margin and scoring defense. Those three statistical areas, in a nutshell, have been the hallmark of Huggins’ great success through the years, going all the way back to his days at Walsh.
Furthermore, this year’s team – like Huggins’ other really good ones – is a difficult team for which to prepare.
Don’t think for a minute that’s not by design.
“(The 2010 team) was a very good motion team and motion is very difficult to prepare for because you can do so many things if you have guys who understand how to play,” he explained. “That team had a bunch of guys who knew how to play. Da’Sean (Butler) was probably as good as any player I’ve ever had at just understanding how to play and what to take and what not to force.
This year's basketball team has some of the same unselfish qualities the Da'Sean-Butler-led Mountaineers had in 2010 (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo).
“We could spread people more,” Huggins continued. “(Kevin Jones) could shoot it. (Five-man) Wellington (Smith) could shoot it and we really played a guard and four forwards that year.”
I can’t speak for Huggins’ Cincinnati teams because I didn’t watch them the way I’ve observed his WVU teams now, but what makes this year’s team so effective - and what made his 2010 go - was the way they played together in unison.
All of the parts seemingly fit well. It's the same deal with this year's team.
And there are no superstars – on his 2010 team or on this one. In fact, Huggins has only had one superstar player during his storied coaching career (Kenyon Martin at Cincinnati), possibly two if you want to throw Steve Logan into the mix, which is basically the same number of superstar basketball players West Virginia has had over the last 113 years.
“You are very fortunate if you ever have a national-player-of-the-year kind of guy, in all honesty,” Huggins said.
The question is: Can Huggins continue to play this way five years from now? Or, will he have to go back into the laboratory and come up with something else to stay ahead of the Joneses?
“I just want to win, and I’ve never been at a place where I can kind of pick and choose (his roster),” Huggins said. “Some guys can pick and choose guys according to what style they want to play and that’s hard to do here. It was hard to do at Cincinnati. You have to take the best guys you can get and figure out what the best way to win with them is.
“There are no absolutes. Who knows what rule changes will come down the pike? There shouldn’t be any for next year – they can only change them once every two years,” Huggins said. “I know this, I don’t want guys anymore that don’t like to play and I don’t want guys that only like to play the way they want to play. We had guys that everyone thought were really wonderful guys and they weren’t, at times … and we have guys now that I think a lot of people don’t think are good guys – and they are really good guys.”
The guess here is five years from now Huggins will be tweaking things once again and making adjustments to stay ahead of the curve.
Only the really good ones can do that.
So, who says you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.
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Guard Jaysean Paige would be averaging about 27 points per game if you project his scoring rate over a full 40-minute game this year (All-Pro Photography/Dale Sparks photo.
I posted this last week but I think it bears repeating – Jaysean Paige is having one of the most productive scoring seasons in school history, despite averaging slightly more than 14 points per game.
How so, you may be wondering?
Well, I asked our stats guru, Mark DeVault, to run the numbers on his stats website http://www.wvustats.com to determine where Paige stacks up to some of WVU’s best all-time scorers based solely on points per minute.
And what Paige is doing this season is very impressive.
The senior has now scored 340 points in just 514 minutes of action, which projected over a 40-minute game comes out to an average of about 27 points per game.
Compare that to All-American Jerry West, whose 908 points scored in 1,129 minutes in 1960 equated to 32.2 points for a 40-minute game, or All-American guard Wil Robinson’s 706 points scored in 912 minutes in 1972, which projected out to 30.9 points for a 40-minute game.
Hot Rod Hundley’s biggest year in 1956 projected out to 27.8 points for a full 40-minute game.
So, when Huggs says Jaysean Paige needs to quit fouling so often in order to stay on the floor, now you know the reason why he’s saying it.
***
I saw NFL draft expert Mike Mayock’s player rankings heading into this year’s NFL Scouting Combine taking place in Indianapolis during the last week of February, and it’s not surprising to see Karl Joseph at the top of his list of safeties – even after he missed a good portion of the season with a knee injury.
According to some of the strength and conditioning coaches that I talked to out in Arizona when West Virginia was getting ready for the 2016 Cactus Bowl, the interest in Joseph from the pro scouts never waned following his injury.
I’m not sure if Joseph winds up in the top three rounds of this year’s draft, but he will be picked, and he will make someone’s roster.
The same goes for linebacker Nick Kwiatkoski.
WVU defensive coordinator Tony Gibson believes Kwiatkoski is capable of having a long and productive NFL career, probably at middle linebacker where he will be calling the defenses.
Joseph and Kwiatkoski are two of six players at this year’s scouting combine – equaling the most ever invited in one year. It’s also the 15th consecutive year at least one Mountaineer player has attended the scouting combine.
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Dana Holgorsen protégé and former West Virginia offensive coordinator Jake Spavital was recently named offensive coordinator at Cal: http://www.calbears.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=30100&ATCLID=210706812
By the way, Spavital’s wife, the former Mehgan Morris, was a record-setting gymnast for the Mountaineers who used to provide commentary on gymnastics webcasts for our website WVUsports.com.
Also, former Mountaineer offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson is expected to be named the new offensive coordinator at Southern Mississippi in the coming days: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/ncaaf/2016/02/11/shannon-dawson-southern-miss-offensive-coordinator/80223536/
Dawson spent last season as Kentucky’s offensive coordinator while Spavital was recently Kevin Sumlin’s top play caller at Texas A&M.
***
The West Virginia women’s basketball team right now is comfortably in this year’s NCAA tournament, according to ESPN women’s bracketologist Charlie Creme, who projects the Mountaineers as a No. 7 seed if the season were to end today.
Creme has five Big 12 teams in this year’s dance at the moment, with Kansas State one of his first four out. But considering the way Connecticut handled South Carolina in a recent No. 1 vs. No. 2 matchup, does it really even matter?
Connecticut’s yearly dominance of women’s basketball has made it difficult for the average sports fan to really appreciate what’s happening in women’s college basketball right now. The sport has come so far from where it was just 15, 20 years ago when I was involved in it and I think Connecticut’s success has overshadowed that, to a certain degree.
To me, the biggest issue the sport has is not Connecticut’s dominance, but rather the continued disparity between the top players Connecticut is getting on a yearly basis and the talent pool left for the rest of women’s college basketball.
I’m not sure what the solution is, but it is obvious even to these untrained eyes that the players Connecticut is putting out on the floor on a yearly basis are clearly different than what the rest of the teams are putting out there, that’s for sure.
***
How many of you would sign up to take what Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh is spending right now on air travel for recruiting?
I thought so.
Me too!
***
It looks like I was one of the few people who actually enjoyed Coldplay’s halftime performance at this year’s Super Bowl. Unlike the person in the office next door to me who goes to every Bruce Springsteen show in the region, my live entertainment expertise is extremely limited.
I can count on one hand the number of live performances I’ve seen in the last 25 years since I began working here at WVU, and none of them have been remarkable.
I recall former Mountaineer grid standout Tom Woodeshick once getting a group of us some free tickets to see comedienne Joan Rivers do a live performance at Trop World in Atlantic City the night before a Temple football game played at Veterans Stadium back in the 1990s.
When Rivers was finished with her act I actually left thinking I had spent money on it, that's how dull it was.
I believe the last concert I saw in person was a Steely Dan show about 10 years ago and the dude singing that night had trouble remembering the words to his own songs!
Come to think of it, I probably need to get out a little bit more, as one person suggested I do on Twitter.
***
And finally, I appreciate all of the birthday wishes I received on Twitter, Facebook, email and via text message earlier this week.
Contrary to a tweet that was sent out from an unnamed associate athletic director in charge of external affairs here at WVU, I have not hit the big 5-0 yet.
For the record, I recently turned 40 … in Julio Franco years!
Have a great weekend!
College Basketball Crown Recap
Thursday, April 16
Ross Hodge, Honor Huff & Brenen Lorient | Oklahoma Postgame
Sunday, April 05
Ross Hodge, Treysen Eaglestaff & Brenen Lorient | Creighton Postgame
Saturday, April 04
Ross Hodge & Honor Huff | Stanford Postgame
Thursday, April 02
