Thanks to Wendell Barnhouse, whose keen insight can be read daily on the website
todaysu.com, “Press” Virginia was easily the trending topic on today’s Big 12 Conference men’s basketball coaches’ teleconference.
Barnhouse picked the brains of some of the other coaches around the league to get their insight into what makes West Virginia’s full-court press so effective.
According to Jamie Dixon, whose TCU team faced West Virginia last Saturday in Morgantown and was right there with the Mountaineers with seven minutes remaining in the game, the guy at the top of the press is really what makes it go.
“If you pick one guy (Nathan) Adrian is the key to it,” he said. “He’s the guy who picks and chooses when they trap that first pass or lay off and then come with a run and jump.”
Dixon said Adrian’s size and length is only one factor in why he is so difficult to deal with.
“I think it’s his stamina. He’s their leading guy in minutes and he’s playing the entire length of the court,” Dixon explained. “He’s the guy at the top of the press and he’s the guy running back and getting deflections at the end of it, so that has something to do with it. He’s smart. He’s been through it. He picks spots well, he’s long and strong and I think he recognizes his role. In watching them play, I was shocked at seeing his minutes and how he’s playing those minutes at the same time.”
Baylor’s Scott Drew concurs.
“He’s a senior. He has a good motor and he keeps coming,” Drew explained. “I think his understanding of angles and making sure he’s keeping guys in traps is very good. Again, when you are a senior you’re a little more vested in knowing what their coach wants.”
Oklahoma State’s Brad Underwood, who worked one year for Bob Huggins at Kansas State, said the press is not something teams do that often today - particularly teams that play in one of the Power 5 conferences.
That makes getting familiar with it and comfortable playing against it a big challenge.
“It’s not like the late 1980s, early 1990s when multiple teams pressed. Very rarely do you see teams press any more so that’s part of it,” Underwood said. “The uncertainty and the unpredictability of it - it’s not your typical zone press where you are going to go trap in the corner on an inbounds pass and rotate.
“This is after a missed free throw. This is running and jumping in the half-court and the constant movement,” he continued. “It makes it very challenging because you have to be able to pass and you have to be able to have multiple ball handlers on the floor to attack it.”
Dixon had two point guards on the floor at the same time last Saturday, but early foul trouble eventually became an issue late in the game when the Mountaineers made their run.
Because it’s 40 minutes, the press can make an impact at any point in the game - early in the first half, late in the half, early in the second half or at the end of the game.
For TCU, it happened with seven remaining when the game was tied.
“Our challenge was getting into foul trouble with our two guards,” Dixon admitted. “That changed things for us.”
Drew believes having a bunch of veteran guys playing this style also makes West Virginia’s press so difficult to deal with.
West Virginia’s two starting guards, Jevon Carter and Daxter Miles Jr., have a combined 186 games worth of experience, while sixth-man Tarik Phillip will be playing his 86th career game on Saturday at Texas.
That’s a ton of experience.
“When you’ve become a junior and you’ve done it for three years now you are better at it,” Drew noted. “Coach Huggins, like always, does a great job of getting his guys prepared and they’re just better now at doing what he wants.”
The next team in line to face “Press” Virginia is Texas, which handled it extremely well last year. Coach Shaka Smart’s team swept the Mountaineers, winning two seven-point games last season.
If you recall, last season the Longhorns had three ball handlers on the court at the same time in Isaiah Taylor, Javan Felix and Kendal Yancy.
But of the three, Yancy is the only one returning from last year and he has played just four minutes in Texas’ four Big 12 games so far this season.
“Just looking back at the tape, Isaiah Taylor and Javan Felix just did a phenomenal job handling the ball and making decisions,” Smart recalled. “We never really got frantic against the pressure last year. We were able to keep our composure even after we turned it over a few times. Looking back at both games as a whole, we did a really good job of keeping our poise.”
On Saturday, the primary responsibility of handling the ball for the Longhorns falls on the shoulders of freshman guard Andrew Jones.
Last year he was playing at MacArthur High in Irving, Texas.
“Any time you are playing against aggressiveness you’ve got to attack it with aggressiveness,” Smart said. “We want our young guards to be very aggressive, but at the same time you have to have poise and you have to understand spacing on the floor. For instance, when the ball is thrown into the dead corner, especially on the ball side, West Virginia is terrific at trapping and turning you over there.
“When you have the ball in the middle of the floor it’s a little bit more difficult to trap,” Smart said. “When you beat a trap you’ve got to have an awareness of who’s coming from behind you.”
Smart pressed extensively when he coached at VCU so he understands the mindset it can create for the team doing the pressing and the team attempting to handle it.
“I think it’s a terrific press that they have and it starts with their aggressiveness and their mentality,” he said. “They really have an identity as a team in terms of every time they take the floor knowing what they are about and knowing what they’re going to do.
“Just watching them play, you can tell their players are very, very connected with each other and Coach Huggins around that identity,” he concluded.
