Tuesday, December 5
Morgantown, W.Va.
7:00 p.m.
West Virginia University
vs
Virginia
Photo by: Pete Emerson
The Pack Line Meets 'Press Virginia'
December 04, 2017 04:23 PM | Men's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - The Pack Line meets "Press Virginia" when the Old Dominion and the New Dominion collide Tuesday night at the WVU Coliseum.
Oh, and by the way, both teams are ranked in this week's Top 25.
Virginia brings a 7-0 record and No. 15 national ranking into the Coliseum for an interesting early December ACC-Big 12 matchup.
West Virginia, now 7-1 after last Thursday night's win over New Jersey Tech, checks in at No. 18 in this week's Associated Press poll. Both teams are ranked higher by the coaches – Virginia at No. 12 and WVU at No. 16.
This one should have the feel of one of those electric January Coliseum games against Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas or Baylor.
"I tried to play Virginia Tech, Pitt and Virginia because I thought that's what our people wanted to see," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. "I don't want everybody to wait until January to come to the games. You try to sprinkle in some of those games that are kind of long-standing, I guess, rivalries."
The Cavaliers are making their first appearance in Morgantown since 1985, when they beat West Virginia in the first round of the NIT, 56-55.
The last time they wanted to come to Morgantown to play a regular season game was 41 years ago when Huggins was still a Mountaineer player.
"We used to play Virginia a bunch years ago," Huggins said.
Veteran coach Tony Bennett appears to have another ACC contender after a strong start that features Power 5 Conference wins over Vanderbilt and Wisconsin.
The Pack Line defense is as lethal as ever with just one opponent, VCU, scoring more than 60 points so far this year. The Rams scored 67 in a nine-point loss to the Cavaliers in Richmond back on Nov. 17.
UNC Greensboro scored 48, Austin Peay scored 49, Monmouth had 53, Vanderbilt 42, Rhode Island 55, Wisconsin 37 and Lehigh 54 in its most recent game last Saturday.
Virginia's style of play is Woody Hayes' basketball version of three yards and a cloud of dust.
"I think a lot is said about their defense, but the reality is they control games with their offense," Huggins said. "The Pack Line is good and Tony does the best job in the country at teaching the Pack Line, and it's a weapon, no question, but the reality is – and your kids are even smart enough to understand that you don't want to go down there and defend them for 30 seconds and then go down and jack one up the first five seconds you have the ball.
"Then go back down and defend for 30 seconds and jack another one up," he said. "That's why everybody slows down. You want them to guard as well."
Or speed up, which is what West Virginia was able to do last year in Charlottesville when it defeated Virginia, 66-57.
Two years ago at Madison Square Garden in New York, the Cavaliers were playing faster then they wanted to for a good portion of the first half as well.
"They're hard to speed up, but we got them sped up a little bit," Huggins said. "We actually had them sped up the year before, but you can't make bonehead plays and two years ago, we made some really boneheaded plays."
Tuesday night's game will conclude the two-game series, although Huggins is interested in continuing it down the line.
"They've got another series," he said. "Tony wants to play, but we're not going to play next year, so we're going to have to move it back some."
A 7 p.m. tipoff is slated for the game to be televised nationally on ESPNU (Jason Benetti and Dino Gaudio). The Mountaineer Sports network from IMG's coverage begins at 6 p.m. with the pregame show on stations throughout West Virginia, online via WVUsports.com and via the mobile app TuneIn.
Briefly:
* According to the Mountaineer Ticket Office, nearly 13,000 tickets are out for tomorrow's game. However, advance orders are still being accepted by calling the ticket office toll-free at 1-800-WVU GAME or by logging on to WVUGAME.com.
* Virginia's top two scorers are guards Kyle Guy (16.6 ppg.) and Devon Hall (11.8 ppg.), which line up well with West Virginia's top two scorers, guards Jevon Carter (19.0 ppg.) and Daxter Miles Jr. (14.9 ppg.).
"Guy obviously shoots it real well," Huggins said. "They don't have an experienced point guard like they did a year ago, but they're good."
The Cavs are averaging 70.5 points and surrendering 50.6 points per game, while West Virginia is averaging 89.6 and giving up 66.6.
* Huggins said Tuesday he does not have a philosophy for non-conference scheduling like he used to at Cincinnati when he would try and project which teams were going to be good to help his RPI at the end of the year.
"I tried to play the best team in every mid-major conference in the preseason as best I possibly could from whatever the projections were," he said. "Eighteen games in this league and you can play Brooklyn College four times, and I don't think it would matter.
"We're going to have enough top 10 teams; top 25 teams and you never know who it is. TCU is going to be 13-0 going into league play. I think every team received votes a year ago, and I think it was either eight or nine teams were ranked at one point in time. What else do you need?"
However, one thing Huggins would like to do with his non-conference schedule is get back to New York City. He has always viewed that as an important place to play.
"We still want to be able to recruit New York. This is the first year I haven't had a New York guard pretty much since I've been here," he said. "I like those guys. They can make big plays. They can put their head down and get it at the rim so I like playing in New York and playing in the metropolitan area. You play there and you can go to so many difference places around and say we're coming back to the Garden and all those kids are excited."
* Huggins had a ready answer for something he read recently about his so-called soft non-conference schedule.
"Some guy who follows Virginia said our 'cupcake schedule …' Well, Long Beach just went and beat Stanford at Stanford and UCF just beat Alabama at Alabama," Huggins pointed out. "I don't know if they've got people doing that.
"Then you go in a tournament and we may never even have played Missouri if Missouri had lost (to St. John's). Maybe we play Nebraska (instead of UCF)," Huggins said. "You don't know that part of it. The Long Beach thing I wanted to play – and (Dan) Monson and I are really good friends – but I wanted to play. That's why we offered to fly them down and stuff because I knew they were going to be good. They're going to win their league."
* Of note, senior guard Daxter Miles Jr. is now 34 points shy of becoming West Virginia's 52nd 1,000-point scorer … He will be making his 100th career start tomorrow night … Huggins is now four wins shy of tying Jim Phelan for seventh place in Division I victories with 830 … Above Phelan at No. 6 is Connecticut's Jim Calhoun with 873 … Then you're looking at Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith, Bob Knight, Jim Boeheim and Mike Krzyzewski … Despite the proximity of the two schools, West Virginia and Virginia have met just 18 prior times, with both teams claiming nine victories each … Huggins has faced the Cavs three times, twice at WVU and once at Cincinnati and holds a 2-1 record against them … Huggins said his team did not practice very well on Sunday … on deck is the revival of the Backyard Brawl in Pittsburgh on Saturday night at 8 p.m. … That game will also be televised nationally on ESPN2.
Oh, and by the way, both teams are ranked in this week's Top 25.
Virginia brings a 7-0 record and No. 15 national ranking into the Coliseum for an interesting early December ACC-Big 12 matchup.
West Virginia, now 7-1 after last Thursday night's win over New Jersey Tech, checks in at No. 18 in this week's Associated Press poll. Both teams are ranked higher by the coaches – Virginia at No. 12 and WVU at No. 16.
This one should have the feel of one of those electric January Coliseum games against Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas or Baylor.
"I tried to play Virginia Tech, Pitt and Virginia because I thought that's what our people wanted to see," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said. "I don't want everybody to wait until January to come to the games. You try to sprinkle in some of those games that are kind of long-standing, I guess, rivalries."
The Cavaliers are making their first appearance in Morgantown since 1985, when they beat West Virginia in the first round of the NIT, 56-55.
The last time they wanted to come to Morgantown to play a regular season game was 41 years ago when Huggins was still a Mountaineer player.
"We used to play Virginia a bunch years ago," Huggins said.
Veteran coach Tony Bennett appears to have another ACC contender after a strong start that features Power 5 Conference wins over Vanderbilt and Wisconsin.
The Pack Line defense is as lethal as ever with just one opponent, VCU, scoring more than 60 points so far this year. The Rams scored 67 in a nine-point loss to the Cavaliers in Richmond back on Nov. 17.
UNC Greensboro scored 48, Austin Peay scored 49, Monmouth had 53, Vanderbilt 42, Rhode Island 55, Wisconsin 37 and Lehigh 54 in its most recent game last Saturday.
Virginia's style of play is Woody Hayes' basketball version of three yards and a cloud of dust.
"I think a lot is said about their defense, but the reality is they control games with their offense," Huggins said. "The Pack Line is good and Tony does the best job in the country at teaching the Pack Line, and it's a weapon, no question, but the reality is – and your kids are even smart enough to understand that you don't want to go down there and defend them for 30 seconds and then go down and jack one up the first five seconds you have the ball.
"Then go back down and defend for 30 seconds and jack another one up," he said. "That's why everybody slows down. You want them to guard as well."
Or speed up, which is what West Virginia was able to do last year in Charlottesville when it defeated Virginia, 66-57.
Two years ago at Madison Square Garden in New York, the Cavaliers were playing faster then they wanted to for a good portion of the first half as well.
"They're hard to speed up, but we got them sped up a little bit," Huggins said. "We actually had them sped up the year before, but you can't make bonehead plays and two years ago, we made some really boneheaded plays."
Tuesday night's game will conclude the two-game series, although Huggins is interested in continuing it down the line.
"They've got another series," he said. "Tony wants to play, but we're not going to play next year, so we're going to have to move it back some."
A 7 p.m. tipoff is slated for the game to be televised nationally on ESPNU (Jason Benetti and Dino Gaudio). The Mountaineer Sports network from IMG's coverage begins at 6 p.m. with the pregame show on stations throughout West Virginia, online via WVUsports.com and via the mobile app TuneIn.
Briefly:
* According to the Mountaineer Ticket Office, nearly 13,000 tickets are out for tomorrow's game. However, advance orders are still being accepted by calling the ticket office toll-free at 1-800-WVU GAME or by logging on to WVUGAME.com.
* Virginia's top two scorers are guards Kyle Guy (16.6 ppg.) and Devon Hall (11.8 ppg.), which line up well with West Virginia's top two scorers, guards Jevon Carter (19.0 ppg.) and Daxter Miles Jr. (14.9 ppg.).
"Guy obviously shoots it real well," Huggins said. "They don't have an experienced point guard like they did a year ago, but they're good."
The Cavs are averaging 70.5 points and surrendering 50.6 points per game, while West Virginia is averaging 89.6 and giving up 66.6.
* Huggins said Tuesday he does not have a philosophy for non-conference scheduling like he used to at Cincinnati when he would try and project which teams were going to be good to help his RPI at the end of the year."I tried to play the best team in every mid-major conference in the preseason as best I possibly could from whatever the projections were," he said. "Eighteen games in this league and you can play Brooklyn College four times, and I don't think it would matter.
"We're going to have enough top 10 teams; top 25 teams and you never know who it is. TCU is going to be 13-0 going into league play. I think every team received votes a year ago, and I think it was either eight or nine teams were ranked at one point in time. What else do you need?"
However, one thing Huggins would like to do with his non-conference schedule is get back to New York City. He has always viewed that as an important place to play.
"We still want to be able to recruit New York. This is the first year I haven't had a New York guard pretty much since I've been here," he said. "I like those guys. They can make big plays. They can put their head down and get it at the rim so I like playing in New York and playing in the metropolitan area. You play there and you can go to so many difference places around and say we're coming back to the Garden and all those kids are excited."
* Huggins had a ready answer for something he read recently about his so-called soft non-conference schedule.
"Some guy who follows Virginia said our 'cupcake schedule …' Well, Long Beach just went and beat Stanford at Stanford and UCF just beat Alabama at Alabama," Huggins pointed out. "I don't know if they've got people doing that.
"Then you go in a tournament and we may never even have played Missouri if Missouri had lost (to St. John's). Maybe we play Nebraska (instead of UCF)," Huggins said. "You don't know that part of it. The Long Beach thing I wanted to play – and (Dan) Monson and I are really good friends – but I wanted to play. That's why we offered to fly them down and stuff because I knew they were going to be good. They're going to win their league."
* Of note, senior guard Daxter Miles Jr. is now 34 points shy of becoming West Virginia's 52nd 1,000-point scorer … He will be making his 100th career start tomorrow night … Huggins is now four wins shy of tying Jim Phelan for seventh place in Division I victories with 830 … Above Phelan at No. 6 is Connecticut's Jim Calhoun with 873 … Then you're looking at Adolph Rupp, Dean Smith, Bob Knight, Jim Boeheim and Mike Krzyzewski … Despite the proximity of the two schools, West Virginia and Virginia have met just 18 prior times, with both teams claiming nine victories each … Huggins has faced the Cavs three times, twice at WVU and once at Cincinnati and holds a 2-1 record against them … Huggins said his team did not practice very well on Sunday … on deck is the revival of the Backyard Brawl in Pittsburgh on Saturday night at 8 p.m. … That game will also be televised nationally on ESPN2.
Players Mentioned
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