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Campus Connection: WVU Sports Notes
January 04, 2017 04:59 PM | Men's Basketball
Tuesday night’s overtime loss at Texas Tech will surely stick in Bob Huggins’ craw for a while - just as the Temple loss has - but the Red Raider defeat is not to be totally unexpected.
West Virginia’s two road games to start Big 12 play at Oklahoma State and Texas Tech, plus the fact that the trips were not doubled up this year, meant some serious travel time for the Mountaineers.
In all, West Virginia players, coaches and staff logged 5,098.4 round-trip air miles in the last five days flying out to Stillwater, Oklahoma, for last Friday’s game and then back out to Lubbock, Texas, for Tuesday night’s game.
Counting the 45-minute bus ride from Bridgeport to Morgantown, the team pulled into the practice facility this morning at 5:20 a.m.
Therefore, a 1-1 record to begin Big 12 play is really not all that bad, considering the circumstances.
It will be interesting to see how the team responds on Saturday afternoon against a much-improved TCU team that bagged its first conference victory on Tuesday night at Oklahoma. It will also be interesting to see how the fans treat TCU coach Jamie Dixon, who spent 14 seasons coaching at rival Pitt.
It was during Dixon’s coaching tenure with the Panthers that West Virginia’s 184-game, 106-year basketball series with Pitt ended in 2012.
That final game in Pittsburgh resulted in a 66-48 WVU victory.
By the way, Dixon has a 12-7 record against West Virginia.
* I am hearing advance ticket sales for Saturday’s TCU game are strong with nearly 12,000 tickets accounted for as of Wednesday morning.
With all of the ticket-selling resources now at its disposal, West Virginia is doing a terrific job of moving single-game tickets these days.
So far, nearly 31,500 single-game tickets have been sold through the Mountaineer Ticket Office, or about 4,500 more than were sold at this time last year and nearly 14,000 more than were sold three years ago at a similar point.
That speaks well for WVU’s ticket sales staff - headed by senior associate athletic director Matt Wells - and the department’s willingness to embrace trendy, advance-sales techniques.
It also doesn’t hurt to have a men’s basketball team ranked No. 7 in the country, either!
* One of the beauties of college basketball is the confounding nature of the game. Consider the curious case of Temple, for example, which owns out-of-conference victories over West Virginia and Florida State.
The 9-6 Owls are currently bringing up the bottom of the American Athletic Conference with an 0-2 league record after getting absolutely pummeled by Central Florida last Saturday.
So you think, well, perhaps Central Florida is pretty good - and the Knights very well may be - but it’s difficult to know for sure after watching them fail to hit 50 points in a down-to-the-wire victory over East Carolina Tuesday night.
We got the pleasure of watching the ending to that one because it preempted the beginning of last night’s Texas Tech game.
General Douglas MacArthur once famously said, “Old soldiers never die, they just fade away.”
After watching last night’s UCF-ECU game, I’m beginning to think bad basketball games never end, they just fade away.
* Incidentally, do you remember Temple’s 6-foot-10-inch forward Obi Enechionya, who looked like the second coming of Dirk Nowitzki against West Virginia during the Owls’ win over the Mountaineers in Brooklyn back in November?
Well, he has scored three, seven and four points in his last three games against Yale, Cincinnati and Central Florida.
* One of the ticking time bombs with this year’s men’s basketball team has been its difficulty shooting free throws. And that time bomb finally went off Tuesday night at Texas Tech.
Eleven misses - six coming in overtime - were a major factor in the Mountaineers’ 77-76 overtime defeat in Lubbock.
If West Virginia had made 67 percent of its overtime free throw tries instead of just half (8 of 12 rather than of 6 of 12), the Mountaineers would be looking at a 2-0 start to conference play.
Interestingly enough, I went back and researched Huggins’ three-best teams since his WVU return in 2007.
The 2008 Sweet 16 team shot free throws at a 68.9-percent clip. The 2010 Final Four team shot them at 70.4 percent efficiency, while the 2015 squad converted 66.2 percent of its free throw tries.
So far this year, the Mountaineers are shooting free throws at a 64.6-percent rate, which is statistically significant considering the sample size.
In other words, if you are trying 28 free throws per game and only making 18, on average, that’s 10 points per game being left on the table.
Ten additional points per game can win a lot of tough Big 12 basketball games this year.
Tight end Randy Swinson catches a pass against Penn State in this game played at old Mountaineer Field in 1974. WVU Athletic Communications photo
* We received the sad news that Bobby Bowden-Frank Cignetti-era tight end Randy Swinson died over the holidays.
If you recall, Swinson was on the receiving end of Dan Kendra’s pass down the far sideline that set up Bill McKenzie’s game-winning field goal to defeat Pitt, 17-14, at Mountaineer Field in 1975.
In three seasons of varsity action for the Mountaineers, Swinson caught 63 passes for 917 yards and two touchdowns, including a career-best 25 catches for 357 yards during his senior season in 1977.
Swinson was a native of Washington, D.C.
* Former Morgantown High and WVU quarterback Curt Cignetti has taken a new job as head football coach at Elon. The 55-year-old Cignetti was coming off a 10-2 season at Division II Indiana University of Pennsylvania this season - his sixth there, producing an impressive 53-17 record over that span of time.
Curt’s father Frank was a longtime football coach and athletic director at IUP following his unsuccessful four-year coaching tenure at West Virginia from 1976-79.
At WVU, Curt was a backup to starting quarterbacks Oliver Luck and Jeff Hostetler from 1980-82.
Speaking of Luck, he figures to be in the mix for the Texas athletic director job when the school begins its formal search, according to Austin American-Statesman’s Kirk Bohls. Another name with WVU ties the Longhorns could be considering is former Mountaineer Athletic Club director Whit Babcock, now AD at Virginia Tech, writes Bohls.
* According to a tweet sent out by Bruce Feldman earlier this week, the Big 12 - a conference maligned for its lack of defense - actually allowed the fewest points per game in bowls this year at 21.5 points per contest.
As for the Big 12’s six bowl performances this year, overall, the league fared pretty well. Oklahoma routed Auburn in the Sugar Bowl, as expected, but Oklahoma State had a surprisingly easy time with 10th-ranked Colorado in the Alamo Bowl, Kansas State knocked off Texas A&M in the Texas Bowl and Baylor routed Boise in the Cactus Bowl.
The league’s two losses came in the Russell Athletic Bowl where West Virginia fell to Miami, and in the Liberty Bowl as Georgia defeated TCU.
* If there is one thing we’ve learned from watching the two College Football Playoff games this year, it’s the value of having a dominant defensive line/defense.
The two teams playing in this year’s national championship game clearly demonstrated that in the two semifinal games.
As for West Virginia, offensively, it appears to me the Mountaineers could use some more size at wide receiver to help in the red zone, a reliable pass-catching tight end to work the middle of the field on third down and perhaps another explosive playmaker with the ball in his hands out in space.
Such a player could also help WVU in the return game, too, which was not really much of a factor this season.
West Virginia’s longest kickoff return was 51 yards while its longest punt return was only 18 yards.
Defensively, West Virginia could use some more size up front, some taller linebackers to make those passing windows a little more difficult for opposing quarterbacks and, of course, an edge pass rusher.
Adding a couple more pass defenders (with size) would be nice, too.
I’m sure all of those things are on director of player personnel Ryan Dorchester’s list for signing day come February.
Rasul Douglas
* The Big 12 released its season-ending football statistics/superlatives for 2016 and West Virginia had two individual leaders - Mike Molina in PAT percentage (51 of 51) and Rasul Douglas in interceptions (eight).
As a team, West Virginia finished first in the conference in PAT kicking, opponent penalties (68.5 ypg.) and opponent 4th-down conversion percentage (35.0).
Among individual game superlatives, Shelton Gibson’s 53.7 yards per reception average against Iowa State was tops in the conference, as were Rasul Douglas’ two interceptions against Kansas, tying seven others.
Justin Crawford’s 331-yard rushing performance against Oklahoma was second-best in the Big 12 this year, behind D’Onta Foreman’s 341 yards rushing against Kansas, and Crawford’s five 100-yard rushing games were third-best in the league behind Foreman’s 11 and Oklahoma State’s Justice Hill’s six.
Additionally, West Virginia’s 10.2 yards-per-carry average against Oklahoma and its 26.2 yards-per-reception average against Iowa State were also conference standards in 2016.
* Here is where the players from this year’s team now stand in the major career statistical categories in school history:
Rushel Shell III
Rushing Attempts, 11th, 444
Rushing Yards, 17th, 2,010
Rushing Touchdowns, T9th, 20
Total Touchdowns, T20th, 20
Skyler Howard
Passing Attempts, 4th, 891
Passing Completions, T3rd, 507
Passing Yards, 3rd, 7,168
Passing Touchdowns, 2nd, 60
Total Plays, 5th, 1,191
Total Offense, 3rd, 8,210
Daikiel Shorts Jr.
Receptions, 5th, 172
Receiving Yards, 6th, 2,202
Receiving Touchdowns, T14th, 14
Shelton Gibson
Receiving Yards, 14th, 1,874
Receiving Touchdowns, 9th, 17
Kickoff Returns, T6th, 51
Kickoff Return Yards, 6th, 1,217
Rasul Douglas
Interceptions, 18th, 9
Gary Jennings
Punt Returns, 17th, 34
Josh Lambert
PAT Attempts, 5th, 135
PATs Made, 5th, 133
Field Goals Attempted, T1st, 92
Field Goals Made, 2nd, 69
Total Points, 3rd, 340
Mike Molina
PAT Attempts, 18th, 51
PATs Made, 16th, 51
Field Goals Attempted, 15th, 22
Field Goals Made, 14th, 15
Noble Nwachukwu
Tackles For Loss, 11th, 30
Sacks, 10th, 15.5
Career Starts, T18th, 37
Tyler Orlosky
Career Starts, T4th, 41
* And finally, during Monday’s Rose Bowl telecast on ESPN, a very frail-looking Keith Jackson reminded us once again the value of wisdom.
Jackson was making some general comments about the state of the game today and brought up a quote once made by Amos Alonzo Stagg, which I am paraphrasing … “I’d rather have big, fast guys than little, fast guys.”
So true!
There will be lots of big fast guys playing in the big game at Raymond James Stadium next Monday night, that’s for sure.
Have a great week!
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
