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Men's Basketball: A Passing Interest
September 29, 2016 03:22 PM | Men's Basketball
How does a team that loses its two best scorers (Jaysean Paige and Devin Williams) and its two best rebounders (Williams and Jonathan Holton) become better the following year?
According to Bob Huggins, who is closing in on 800 career victories, which he should achieve sometime in early December, the pathway to success in 2017 will most likely come from the players responsible for passing the basketball.
“Our ball security was as bad as it’s been probably in the nine years that I’ve been here,” Huggins said yesterday during his annual fall media gathering at the basketball practice facility. “We just can’t throw it away the way we did.”
The sting of West Virginia’s bad passing was really felt during West Virginia’s final two postseason games, against Kansas in the Big 12 Championship in Kansas City and then in the upset loss in the NCAA tournament to Stephen F. Austin in Brooklyn, New York.
Against Kansas, West Virginia fought back from a 14-point deficit in the second half and had an opportunity to reduce the Jayhawks’ lead to two with four minutes remaining.
“We screwed the Kansas game up so bad in the championship and the next thing you know we’re shooting two free throws (to reduce the KU lead to two) and we miss them both,” Huggins recalled. "Then we stole it again and come down three on one and threw it to the one. That’s hard to do, but we did.”
A week later, West Virginia turned the basketball over a depressing 22 times against Stephen F. Austin, many in live-ball situations, and a postseason run some believed could continue all the way to Houston for the Final Four ended after just 40 minutes of play.
Huggins admits that performance probably sticks in his craw more than the players'.
“When the game is over with everybody is mad and everybody knows we didn’t have the right frame of mind, but how long does that last? I don’t know,” he said. “You would hope that it would but it’s a long year.
“I didn’t mislead you guys (media). I told you we had terrible practices and it wasn’t as much a physical thing because they’re kind of conditioned to play hard, it was more just mentally we weren’t there and I kept telling them and telling them and telling them and it didn’t do any good,” he added. “They played about as well as they could play and we played poorly and that’s generally when upsets happen.”
The focus of this year’s team will likely be in the backcourt where Huggins has three experienced, proven players in senior Tarik Phillip and juniors Jevon Carter and Daxter Miles Jr.
Carter, recently tabbed by CBS College Sports as one of its potential “breakout players” this season, is the team’s leading returning scorer with an average of 9.5 points per game. Miles Jr. is a close second at 9.4 points per game, while Phillip averaged 9.3 points last year and shot a team-best 40.9 percent from 3.
What Huggins is looking for is a fourth guard to emerge from a group that includes seniors Teyvon Myers and James Long and freshmen James “Beetle” Bolden and Chase Harler.
Based on last year, Myers is the player most likely to fill that role, but Huggins said he is seeking more consistency from the former high-scoring junior college standout.
“I tell him every time I talk to him, ‘I’ve got to depend on you.’ I can’t play guys I can’t depend on,” he said. “Last week, he was really good.”
Junior forward Elijah Macon and Brandon Watkins are the two most likely candidates to take on Williams’ role near the basket, with promising 250-pound freshman forward Sagaba Konate or redshirt freshman Logan Routt of Cameron, West Virginia, also possible options.
Huggins admits there will have to be adjustments made with Williams no longer on the floor.
“The scary thing is this league has come down to last possessions a lot, or at least the last couple of minutes, so you’ve got to get hard rebounds,” Huggins said. “I think that’s primarily been one of the reasons Kansas has been so successful is they have guys that can go and get hard rebounds and Dev could do that for us. Jon Holton could do that for us, so we’re going to have to have other guys step up. Elijah is going to have to realize the potential he has. Brandon is going to have to play. And I think Sags can get hard rebounds.”
Konate is an interesting addition because of his impressive physical size, his raw ability and potential high ceiling. Konate looks to be another in the long line of developmental players Huggins has had great success with in the past.
“Sagaba is our best shot blocker and he may be our best rebounder,” Huggins said. “Sags wasn’t a top-100 player but wait until you see some of the things he can do.”
Assuming Holton’s spot at the top of the press will likely be senior forward Nathan Adrian, who is coming off the best summer of his career. Adrian is the best passing big man on the team and has displayed improved outside shooting during individual workouts.
Touted forward Maciej Bender, from Mountain Mission School in Grundy, Virginia, is a bigger, younger version of Adrian with great shooting range. He is a guy who could emerge down the road as he becomes more comfortable with his surroundings.
“He’s got a ways to go with the language,” Huggins admitted. “He had three Polish teammates and a Polish coach at Mountain Mission and he speaks English pretty well, but I’m not sure he understands everything - especially when you get to talking and the terminology is different and we’re talking pretty fast and he’s trying to process it. He stands and watches a lot and I’d wish he’d get in there a little more, but he’s trying to figure it out, which the other guys, they will pretty much go on one-word commands because they’ve done it so much and he’s trying to figure it out.”
One player who is beginning to figure things out is talented 6-foot-8-inch sophomore forward Esa Ahmad, a player capable of creating matchup problems for opposing teams because of his size and athleticism.
Huggins pointed out that Ahmad was recruited to provide an antidote to the team’s struggles in the past of trying to match up with some of the athletic wings in the Big 12.
“He’s a talented guy and he ought to be a hard matchup,” Huggins said. “He got better and better at the other things as the season went on. He played really well at Baylor and Baylor had been a hard matchup for us because Baylor always has guys like Esa and Lamont (West) - 6-6, 6-7 guys that can play inside and out.”
Huggins said the full-court pressure defense will continue, which means he will need to have at least 11 players ready to play this season.
“We have a chance to be deeper, I think,” Huggins said.
The question is, will more guys playing equate into a better passing and ball handling basketball team? Huggins said that will be addressed as soon as the guys hit the court for official practice in early October.
“What I told them is we’re going to stop turning it over or we’re going to be the best conditioned team in college basketball history because they’re going to be over there on the treadmill,” he said. “That will make them concentrate more. It’s amazing when you start sending them to the treadmill how their concentration level improves.”
The general public will get its first opportunity to see the team at the Wheeling Civic Center on Thursday, October 13, in the Gold-Blue Debut. A preseason game against WVU Tech at the King Coal Beckley Automall Arena on Saturday, October 29 will be the team’s final tune-up before opening the regular season inside the WVU Coliseum on Saturday, November 11 against Mount St. Mary’s.
Game time and TV coverage for the Mount St. Mary’s game has not been announced.
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