Campus Connection: The Coliseum Has Seen Its Share of Great Guards
January 04, 2018 01:01 PM | Men's Basketball, Blog
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By: John Antonik
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - Who isn't interested to see how West Virginia is going to fare against Oklahoma's sensational freshman guard Trae Young on Saturday night?
The son of former Texas Tech standout guard Rayford Young, who once dropped 41 points on Kansas in a 90-84 victory over the Jayhawks on Feb. 13, 1999, Trae Young has emerged as the game's brightest star just 13 games into his college basketball career.
It began with a 43-point explosion against Oregon back in on Nov. 26, and hasn't let up leading into this weekend's top-10 showdown in Morgantown.
Young scored 29 in back-to-back wins over USC and Wichita State, and had a phenomenal 39-point, 14-assist performance in Oklahoma's come-from-behind, 90-89 victory at 16th-ranked TCU last Saturday.
Last night, Young had a "pedestrian" 27 points and 10 assists in the Sooners' 109-89 win over Oklahoma State.
"He's an unbelievable competitor, and probably the thing that goes unnoticed is that he's extremely competitive," Oklahoma State coach Mike Boynton said. "He's not just talented. He's unselfish and he makes those other guys better."
Prior to Wednesday night's game against the Cowboys, Young was leading the country in scoring (29.7 ppg.) and assists (10.7 apg.). He is already being compared to some of the greatest point guards college basketball has ever produced.
"I think he has the most impact from the point guard position of anybody I've seen since Jason Kidd," West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said Thursday morning. "We played Jason Kidd three or four times when I was at Cincinnati and he had an unbelievable impact, but he didn't shoot the ball and didn't the score the ball the way Trae is scoring the ball.
"His ability to find open people and then those people he finds ... their ability to make shots has made Oklahoma terrific. On top of that, you've got the guy sitting over there on the bench (Lon Kruger) who really knows how to coach," Huggins added.
You probably have to go all the way back to 1971, when Notre Dame All-American guard Austin Carr made an appearance at the WVU Coliseum, to find a player with similar college statistics making his first appearance at the Coliseum.
That year, Carr ranked second in the country to Ole Miss' Johnny Neumann (40.1 ppg.) in scoring with an average of 37.4 points per game. Carr scored 55 against West Virginia in a 114-78 Fighting Irish victory in South Bend the year prior and was as good as advertised in his Morgantown debut, scoring 47 and grabbing 10 rebounds in a 107-98 Notre Dame victory.
That was the first season for the WVU Coliseum, a venue that has seen many great guards since then. In '71, the Coliseum was christened with the likes of Carr, Virginia's Barry Parkhill and Ohio State's outstanding backcourt tandem of Jim Cleamons and Allan Hornyak.
Other terrific guards who came through here during the 1970s included Wake Forest's Tony Byers, Duquesne's Norm Nixon, Rutgers' Phil Sellers, Purdue's Kyle Macy (before he transferred to Kentucky), Duke's Jim Spanarkle, Villanova's Rory Sparrow and Ohio State's Kelvin Ransey.
A player you might not have heard of - George Washington's Pat Tallent - absolutely wore out the Mountaineers in the mid-70s. Playing for his older brother Bob Tallent, Pat Tallent and those Colonial teams won three times at the Coliseum and he was a major reason why, scoring 30, 28 and 32 respectively.
Bring up Tallent's name around Bob Huggins and you are certain to get a scowl.
Louisville's Dr. Dunkenstein, Darrell Griffith, treated Mountaineer basketball fans to an assortment of high-flying dunks in a 90-78 Cardinal victory here on Feb. 14, 1980. He scored 35 points on 16-of-23 shooting, grabbed eight rebounds and handed out seven assists in one of the great all-around performances by a guard at the Coliseum.
Among the other tremendous guards to play at the Coliseum during that period were Virginia Tech's Dell Curry and Bimbo Coles, Rutgers' John Battle, Temple's Mark Macon and Terence Stansbury, and Rhode Island's backcourt tandem of Carlton "Silk" Owens and Tommy Garrick.
Owens and Garrick led the Rams to three straight wins over WVU in the late 1980s, including a stinging, 65-63 triumph in the Atlantic 10 tournament semifinals in 1988. One night before beating WVU, Garrick scored a Coliseum-record 50 points in a quarterfinal win over Rutgers.
The next wave of great guards to hit the Coliseum came in 1996 when West Virginia joined the Big East.
The Mountaineers' first-ever Big East game at the Coliseum featured Georgetown's Allen Iverson, one of the most dynamic point guards to ever play the game. The 11-time NBA All-Star and the overall first pick in the draft didn't disappoint, scoring 22 points and handing out 10 assists in Georgetown's come-from-behind, 86-83 overtime victory over the Mountaineers.
West Virginia had a double-digit lead late in the game before Iverson and Hoya teammate Victor Page took over.
Iverson was the first of five great Big East guards to play at the Coliseum in '95-96. The others were Connecticut's Ray Allen, Villanova's Kerry Kittles, Boston College's Scoonie Penn (who later transferred to Ohio State) and Felipe Lopez of St. John's.
Providence point guard John Linehan didn't have an NBA career, but his 385 steals are the most in NCAA history and a mark WVU's Jevon Carter is currently chasing. Twelve of those steals came at the Coliseum.
Bowling Green's Antonio Daniels' 38 points in an NIT loss to WVU in 1997 is also worth mentioning.
Four years later, BC's Troy Bell dropped 28 on West Virginia in one of the Mountaineers' worst losses in Coliseum history, a 96-65 BC victory in 2001.
In 2004, Villanova's dynamic duo backcourt of Allen Ray and Randy Foye were not quite what they were in 2006 when they both earned All-America honors, but they were still pretty good against WVU, combining for 25 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists as sophomores.
But Ray and Foye pale in comparison to the backcourt UCLA brought to Morgantown in 2007. The Bruins that year had Russell Westbrook AND Aaron Afflalo, and still couldn't beat West Virginia! The Mountaineers, countering with the backcourt trio of Darris Nichols, Alex Ruoff and Teddy "Ballgame" Talkington, somehow toppled the second-ranked Bruins, 70-65.
A third future UCLA NBA guard, Darren Collison, didn't play in the game, which somehow tarnished West Virginia's great victory in the eyes of the NCAA Tournament selection committee that year.
And while Afflalo was great, scoring 27 and grabbing nine boards, Westbrook wasn't, shooting just 1 of 11 and committing three turnovers. But Westbrook has been great against everyone since, including the NBA where he led the league in scoring last year with an average of 31.6 points per game.
Connecticut's Kemba Walker was another tremendous guard who was as good as advertised. The New York City native scored 22 in the Huskies' 65-56 loss to Bob Huggins' Mountaineers in 2011 - UConn's next to last loss on the way to a national title that season.
In 2013, the Big 12 introduced West Virginia fans to even more outstanding backcourt players. That year, WVU faced Oklahoma's Buddy Hield for the first time, as well as Kansas' Ben McLemore and Oklahoma State's Marcus Smart.
Other great Big 12 guards we've seen since then include Kansas' Andrew Wiggins (now a small forward in the NBA with the Minnesota Timberwolves) and Frank Mason III, Iowa State's Monté Morris and Oklahoma State's Jawun Evans leading into Saturday's appearance by Mr. Young.
Will Trae Young measure up to some of the other terrific guards to play in the WVU Coliseum?
Stay tuned!
The Ten Best Opposing Guards to Play at the Coliseum
10. Tom Garrick, Rhode Island
Nobody today knows who Tom Garrick is, but he once won three straight versus the Mountaineers here and owns the Coliseum single-game scoring record with 50 points against Rutgers in the 1988 Atlantic 10 tournament quarterfinals.
WVU Coliseum Stats - 5 Games
70 PTS, 27 REB, 15 AST, 9 STL, 18 TO
9. Russell Westbrook, UCLA
It's hard to rank one of the best guards on the planet so low, but his Coliseum appearance against the Mountaineers was definitely forgettable - 4 points, 3 turnovers and 1 of 11 shooting in a five-point Bruin loss in 2007.
WVU Coliseum Stats - 1 Game
4 PTS, 5 REB, 4 AST, 2 STL, 3 TO
8. Andrew Wiggins, Kansas
Andrew Wiggins played just one game at the WVU Coliseum, but oh was it great. Although now a small forward in the NBA, Wiggins played guard during his one season with the Jayhawks in 2013-14 and his 41 points accounted for nearly half of Kansas' 86 in a six-point loss to West Virginia. Wiggins was 12-of-18 from the floor, 15 of 19 from the line and also grabbed eight boards.
WVU Coliseum Stats - 1 Game
41 PTS, 8 REB, 2 AST, 5 STL, 4 TO
7. Dell Curry, Virginia Tech
The smooth-shooting father of NBA sensation Stephen Curry, Dell Curry had 18 points to help Virginia Tech to a 65-62 win here during the '84-85 season. He also had 22 in a four-point loss to the Mountaineers as a freshman in 1983.
WVU Coliseum Stats - 2 Games
40 PTS, 10 REB, 4 AST, 5 STL, 13 TO
6. Kemba Walker, Connecticut
Now a seven-year NBA vet who averaged 23.2 points per game last year with the Charlotte Hornets, Kemba Walker's two appearances at the Coliseum in 2009 and 2011 resulted in a 1-1 record. He scored 10 and grabbed eight boards in '09 and had 22 points in UConn's 65-56 loss to WVU two years later.
WVU Coliseum Stats - 1 Game
32 PTS, 10 REB, 2 AST, 1 STL, 1 TO
5. Buddy Hield, Oklahoma
Smiling Buddy Hield killed you with kindness and then killed you with his lethal jump shot. All four of his games in Morgantown were good, but his best was his last - 29 points in OU's 76-62 victory in 2016.
WVU Coliseum Stats - 4 Games
73 PTS, 27 REB, 8 AST, 3 STL, 10 TO
4. Ray Allen, Connecticut
Ray Allen could take you off the bounce; he could post up smaller players and he had great shooting range. He dropped in 23, grabbed six boards and handed out five assists in Connecticut's 89-79 victory over WVU at the Coliseum in '96.
WVU Coliseum Stats - 1 Game
23 PTS, 5 REB, 6 AST, 3 STL, 3 TO
3. Darrell Griffith, Louisville
Dr. Dunkenstein, Darrell Griffith, was a revelation for West Virginia hoop fans during his only appearance at the Coliseum in 1980. The sky-walking guard scored 35, grabbed eight rebounds and handed out seven assists in a 90-78 Cardinal victory.
WVU Coliseum Stats - 1 Game
35 PTS, 8 REB, 7 AST, 3 STL, 4 TO
2. Austin Carr, Notre Dame
Austin Carr's 47 points against West Virginia in 1971 are the most ever scored versus the Mountaineers in this building. He missed 12 but made 18, plus 11 free throws to go with 10 rebounds in Notre Dame's 107-98 win.
WVU Coliseum Stats - 1 Game
47 PTS, 10 REB, 1 AST
1. Allen Iverson, Georgetown
One of basketball's truly unique talents, Iverson, standing 6-feet tall and weighing barely 160 pounds, was one of the most explosive players the game has ever seen. The 11-time NBA all-star and 2001 league MVP showed WVU fans his immense talents in a 1996 Hoya overtime victory with 22 points and 10 assists.
WVU Coliseum Stats - 1 Game
22 PTS, 2 REB, 10 AST, 2 STL, 7 TO
Others worth mentioning: Barry Parkhill, Jim Cleamons, Allan Hornyak, Pat Tallent, Tony Byers, Norm Nixon, Phil Sellers, Kyle Macy, Jim Spanarkle, Rory Sparrow, B.B. Flenory, Kelvin Troy, Bunny Gibson, Kelvin Ransey, Terence Stansbury, Maurice Martin, John Battle, Silk Owens, Skip Henderson, Nate Blackwell, Howie Evans, Bimbo Coles, Jim McCoy, Bruiser Flint, Mark Macon, Walt Williams, Bernard Blunt, Eddie Jones, Aaron McKie, Rick Brunson, Kerry Kittles, Scoonie Penn, Felipe Lopez, God Shamgod, Jason Hart, Antonio Daniels, Shaheen Holloway, Vonteego Cummings, John Linehan, Khalid El-Amin, Troy Bell, Quincy Douby, Chris Thomas, Brandin Knight, Kyle Lowry, Gerry McNamara, Allen Ray, Randy Foye, Scottie Reynolds, Edgar Sosa, Aaron Afflalo, Jonny Flynn, Jeremy Hazell, Peyton Siva, Ben McLemore, Monte Morris, Marcus Smart, Frank Mason III and Jawun Evans.
* Note, Connecticut's Ben Gordon never played at the Coliseum, all of his games against WVU coming at Gampel Pavilion.
How did I do?
Tweet me your top guards to play at the Coliseum @JohnAntonik and we will include some of your responses below:
AWESOME read, John! Couple nuggets worth mentioning on Kemba - he actually played 2X at coliseum, had 10 pts 8 rebs as a FR in '09. Also worth noting that his squad that WVU beat @ Coliseum in March of '11 went on to win it all.
According to this from CBS Sports college and NBA writer Kyle Boone, Young is a sure-fire NBA Draft lottery pick: https://www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/news/the-curious-case-of-trae-youngs-nba-draft-stock-and-why-hes-a-lottery-lock/
Iverson was the first of five great Big East guards to play at the Coliseum in '95-96. The others were Connecticut's Ray Allen, Villanova's Kerry Kittles, Boston College's Scoonie Penn (who later transferred to Ohio State) and Felipe Lopez of St. John's.
