Photo by: All Pro Photography/Dale Sparks
With Ahmad Back, WVU Faces No. 8 Texas Tech Saturday
January 12, 2018 04:34 PM | Men's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - West Virginia has fared pretty well without one of the best small forwards in the Big 12. Now, we're going to see how things go with him.
Junior Esa Ahmad, forced to sit out the first 16 games of the season because of an NCAA-imposed suspension, will be back in uniform for the Mountaineers' top-10 showdown at eighth-ranked Texas Tech tomorrow.
After losing to Texas A&M, 88-65, in the season opener in Germany, West Virginia has not lost since, despite trailing at some point in every single game with the exception of the win at Pitt.
The Mountaineers are 15-1 overall, 4-0 in the Big 12, and are hoping Ahmad's addition can add to an already potent frontcourt that includes emerging forwards Sagaba Konate, Lamont West and Wesley Harris.
If Ahmad can give West Virginia this year what he did last season, that's 11.3 points and 4.3 rebounds per game, plus 31 steals and 21 blocks.
West Virginia coach Bob Huggins calls him the best rebounding small forward in the Big 12.
"It's not even close," he said.
Ahmad has been practicing with the team while sitting out, and he should be well adjusted when he returns to the floor.
"He's played well in practice is all I know," Huggins said. "I worry about his conditioning. He's practiced with us, but he really hasn't practiced with the guys who played the most; he's played against those guys.
"The think I like the most about Esa is he knows how to play. He may not be at the top of his game come Saturday, but it won't be long after that he will be," Huggins added.
Getting a player of Ahmad's caliber couldn't come at a better time for the second-ranked Mountaineers, facing a fired-up, 14-2 Red Raiders team in Lubbock. Texas Tech is promoting the game as a "Red Out" with fans going to 15,000-seat United Supermarkets Arena encouraged to wear red.
"We're going to have the bull's-eye on our back, but that's what you play for," Huggins said Thursday. "You work like crazy to get to the point where everybody is excited about playing you. When we came into this league, I don't think anybody even really knew who we were. And the way we played early on, they didn't need to, really."
That's certainly not the case today.
West Virginia sits alone at the top of the Big 12 standings, while the Red Raiders are one of three teams right behind the Mountaineers at 3-1.
The last two games West Virginia has played in Lubbock have been down-to-the-wire affairs, WVU needed a last-second basket from Tarik Phillip to win in 2016 before losing in overtime there last year.
If you recall, the Mountaineers struggled to stop Texas Tech's dribble drives and also sent the Red Raiders to the free throw line 30 times. West Virginia had a seven-point lead early in the second half but couldn't make its free throws. That opened the door for Texas Tech to eventually win the game in overtime on Anthony Livingston's 3 with six seconds left.
The rematch in Morgantown also required two sessions to decide, with West Virginia outlasting the Red Raiders 83-74.
Point guard Keenan Evans' 3 with five seconds left sent the game into overtime after WVU went through a six-minute field goal drought at the end of regulation.
Once again, missed free throws by the Mountaineers contributed to the two overtime periods.
Evans, guards Niem Stevenson and Justin Gray and athletic 6-foot-8-inch forward Zach Smith are back this year. However, Smith has been slowed by a foot injury that kept him out of Tuesday night's Oklahoma game, a Red Raider loss.
Texas Tech used a four-guard lineup with outstanding freshman Zhaire Smith joining Gray, Stevenson and Evans in the starting five.
Six-nine junior center Norense Odiase was the fifth starter against the Sooners.
Evans was the only Texas Tech player to reach double figures in the 75-65 loss to Oklahoma with 19. He is averaging a team-best 17.3 points per game and is shooting 49.2 percent from the floor.
"Keenan Evans is terrific at the point," Huggins said. "He makes huge plays for them."
Huggins is also very impressed with Tech's two freshmen Zhaire Smith and Jarrett Culver, both 6-5. Smith is the team's second-leading scorer with an average of 10.4 points per game while shooting a sizzling 61.2 percent from the floor.
Culver is third, averaging 10.3 points with a team-high-tying 23 3s.
"I don't know who has two better freshmen," he said. "There might be two as good, but I don't think anybody has two better freshmen than their freshmen.
"They play like seniors," he added. "That's the most impressive thing. They made big shots at Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse and that's not easy to do. They can both shoot it. They can bounce it. They're both extremely athletic. They're really, really good and I think Chris (Beard) has done a great job of mixing them in with the older guys."
Huggins is expecting another down-to-the-wire finish on Saturday.
"We're going to have close games," he said. "There are not going to be very many routs, if any, in this league. It's a hard league."
A 2 p.m. tipoff is set for the game, to be televised nationally on ESPN (Mark Neely and Robbie Hummel). The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG's coverage on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the mobile app TuneIn will begin at 1 p.m.
With the possibility of overlap with the WVU women's game against TCU at 5 p.m., the men's game will remain on the normal affiliates with the exception of WMMN-AM 920 and 95.7 FM The Ticket in Morgantown which will carry the women's game at beginning at 4:45 p.m. The women's game will also begin online and on TuneIn with WZST-FM 100.9 joining the broadcast following the conclusion of the men's game.
Pregame Notes: Huggins on Thursday lauded Texas Tech's depth this year, indicating they can comfortably go 10-deep. "I was looking at their stats again (Thursday) morning and they really spread their minutes out. They don't have anybody playing really heavy minutes like we do with our two guards," he said … Huggins was non-committal if Ahmad would be in the starting lineup Saturday, "You will have to wait and see," he said … West Virginia's 15-game winning streak is currently the longest in the country, and the longest at WVU since the 1988-89 season when the Mountaineers were playing in the Atlantic 10 Conference … West Virginia's first game in 58 years playing as the No. 2-ranked team in the country resulted in a down-to-the-wire, 57-54 victory over Baylor … WVU needed a 3 from Jevon Carter with 56 seconds left to hold off the Bears … Baylor's 3 at the buzzer to tie completely missed the rim. "Was I happy they missed a shot? Yeah, I was about as happy as I was unhappy that we kept missing them," Huggins said … Two weeks ago, Texas Tech drilled Baylor, 77-53, in Lubbock … Both Red Raider losses this season have come by double-digit margins - to Seton Hall and Oklahoma away from United Supermarkets Arena … Texas Tech has given up just 58, 53, 47, 54, 53 and 53 points in its last six home games dating back to Dec. 19 … Bob Huggins now has 41 victories over ranked teams at WVU, including 16 over top 10 teams … Jevon Carter continues to lead the team in scoring with 16.1 points per game … Sophomore Sagaba Konate, with his seven blocks Tuesday night against Baylor, now shows 100 blocks for his Mountaineer career to become just the 11th player in school history to do so …The school record holder for blocks is D'Or Fischer, who got his 190 rejections in just two seasons while playing for John Beilein.
Junior Esa Ahmad, forced to sit out the first 16 games of the season because of an NCAA-imposed suspension, will be back in uniform for the Mountaineers' top-10 showdown at eighth-ranked Texas Tech tomorrow.
After losing to Texas A&M, 88-65, in the season opener in Germany, West Virginia has not lost since, despite trailing at some point in every single game with the exception of the win at Pitt.
The Mountaineers are 15-1 overall, 4-0 in the Big 12, and are hoping Ahmad's addition can add to an already potent frontcourt that includes emerging forwards Sagaba Konate, Lamont West and Wesley Harris.
If Ahmad can give West Virginia this year what he did last season, that's 11.3 points and 4.3 rebounds per game, plus 31 steals and 21 blocks.
West Virginia coach Bob Huggins calls him the best rebounding small forward in the Big 12.
"It's not even close," he said.
Ahmad has been practicing with the team while sitting out, and he should be well adjusted when he returns to the floor.
"He's played well in practice is all I know," Huggins said. "I worry about his conditioning. He's practiced with us, but he really hasn't practiced with the guys who played the most; he's played against those guys.
"The think I like the most about Esa is he knows how to play. He may not be at the top of his game come Saturday, but it won't be long after that he will be," Huggins added.
Getting a player of Ahmad's caliber couldn't come at a better time for the second-ranked Mountaineers, facing a fired-up, 14-2 Red Raiders team in Lubbock. Texas Tech is promoting the game as a "Red Out" with fans going to 15,000-seat United Supermarkets Arena encouraged to wear red.
"We're going to have the bull's-eye on our back, but that's what you play for," Huggins said Thursday. "You work like crazy to get to the point where everybody is excited about playing you. When we came into this league, I don't think anybody even really knew who we were. And the way we played early on, they didn't need to, really."
That's certainly not the case today.
West Virginia sits alone at the top of the Big 12 standings, while the Red Raiders are one of three teams right behind the Mountaineers at 3-1.
The last two games West Virginia has played in Lubbock have been down-to-the-wire affairs, WVU needed a last-second basket from Tarik Phillip to win in 2016 before losing in overtime there last year.
If you recall, the Mountaineers struggled to stop Texas Tech's dribble drives and also sent the Red Raiders to the free throw line 30 times. West Virginia had a seven-point lead early in the second half but couldn't make its free throws. That opened the door for Texas Tech to eventually win the game in overtime on Anthony Livingston's 3 with six seconds left.
The rematch in Morgantown also required two sessions to decide, with West Virginia outlasting the Red Raiders 83-74.
Point guard Keenan Evans' 3 with five seconds left sent the game into overtime after WVU went through a six-minute field goal drought at the end of regulation.
Once again, missed free throws by the Mountaineers contributed to the two overtime periods.
Evans, guards Niem Stevenson and Justin Gray and athletic 6-foot-8-inch forward Zach Smith are back this year. However, Smith has been slowed by a foot injury that kept him out of Tuesday night's Oklahoma game, a Red Raider loss.
Texas Tech used a four-guard lineup with outstanding freshman Zhaire Smith joining Gray, Stevenson and Evans in the starting five.
Six-nine junior center Norense Odiase was the fifth starter against the Sooners.
Evans was the only Texas Tech player to reach double figures in the 75-65 loss to Oklahoma with 19. He is averaging a team-best 17.3 points per game and is shooting 49.2 percent from the floor.
"Keenan Evans is terrific at the point," Huggins said. "He makes huge plays for them."
Huggins is also very impressed with Tech's two freshmen Zhaire Smith and Jarrett Culver, both 6-5. Smith is the team's second-leading scorer with an average of 10.4 points per game while shooting a sizzling 61.2 percent from the floor.
Culver is third, averaging 10.3 points with a team-high-tying 23 3s.
"I don't know who has two better freshmen," he said. "There might be two as good, but I don't think anybody has two better freshmen than their freshmen.
"They play like seniors," he added. "That's the most impressive thing. They made big shots at Kansas in Allen Fieldhouse and that's not easy to do. They can both shoot it. They can bounce it. They're both extremely athletic. They're really, really good and I think Chris (Beard) has done a great job of mixing them in with the older guys."
Huggins is expecting another down-to-the-wire finish on Saturday.
"We're going to have close games," he said. "There are not going to be very many routs, if any, in this league. It's a hard league."
A 2 p.m. tipoff is set for the game, to be televised nationally on ESPN (Mark Neely and Robbie Hummel). The Mountaineer Sports Network from IMG's coverage on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the mobile app TuneIn will begin at 1 p.m.
With the possibility of overlap with the WVU women's game against TCU at 5 p.m., the men's game will remain on the normal affiliates with the exception of WMMN-AM 920 and 95.7 FM The Ticket in Morgantown which will carry the women's game at beginning at 4:45 p.m. The women's game will also begin online and on TuneIn with WZST-FM 100.9 joining the broadcast following the conclusion of the men's game.
Pregame Notes: Huggins on Thursday lauded Texas Tech's depth this year, indicating they can comfortably go 10-deep. "I was looking at their stats again (Thursday) morning and they really spread their minutes out. They don't have anybody playing really heavy minutes like we do with our two guards," he said … Huggins was non-committal if Ahmad would be in the starting lineup Saturday, "You will have to wait and see," he said … West Virginia's 15-game winning streak is currently the longest in the country, and the longest at WVU since the 1988-89 season when the Mountaineers were playing in the Atlantic 10 Conference … West Virginia's first game in 58 years playing as the No. 2-ranked team in the country resulted in a down-to-the-wire, 57-54 victory over Baylor … WVU needed a 3 from Jevon Carter with 56 seconds left to hold off the Bears … Baylor's 3 at the buzzer to tie completely missed the rim. "Was I happy they missed a shot? Yeah, I was about as happy as I was unhappy that we kept missing them," Huggins said … Two weeks ago, Texas Tech drilled Baylor, 77-53, in Lubbock … Both Red Raider losses this season have come by double-digit margins - to Seton Hall and Oklahoma away from United Supermarkets Arena … Texas Tech has given up just 58, 53, 47, 54, 53 and 53 points in its last six home games dating back to Dec. 19 … Bob Huggins now has 41 victories over ranked teams at WVU, including 16 over top 10 teams … Jevon Carter continues to lead the team in scoring with 16.1 points per game … Sophomore Sagaba Konate, with his seven blocks Tuesday night against Baylor, now shows 100 blocks for his Mountaineer career to become just the 11th player in school history to do so …The school record holder for blocks is D'Or Fischer, who got his 190 rejections in just two seasons while playing for John Beilein.
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