Saturday, December 21
Youngstown, Ohio
1:00 p.m.
West Virginia University
at
Youngstown State
Photo by: Parker Sheppard
Mountaineers Make Rare Trip to Youngstown on Saturday
December 20, 2019 01:22 PM | Men's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Bob Huggins once got a lesson from Louisville's Denny Crum about the big business of college basketball.
Huggins, a young, wet-behind-the-ears coach at Akron wanted to get a "name" school to come to his place to get his fans excited about the program he was building there.
He thought why not shoot for the stars and go get Louisville, coming off a national championship in 1986?
"I wrote a letter to Denny Crum when I was at Akron trying to get him to come to Akron to play," Huggins recalled Thursday. "I thought I had all of these great reasons, and he wrote me back a very nice letter - a great letter telling me how much money they made whenever they opened the doors at Freedom Hall for the athletic department.
"I started to understand then this is very much a business," Huggins said.
"What I think people have a hard time grasping is there is a business side (to college basketball) as well. It's hard to give up home games because this year we will end up averaging 10-11,000 people a game," Huggins pointed out. "This deal with Youngstown is good for them, obviously, and it's good for us because it's a two-for-one. They're going to come here twice, and we're going to go there once."
Business may be business, but in this instance West Virginia's rare visit to Youngstown for a Saturday afternoon game at the 6,000-seat Covelli Centre in downtown Youngstown is more about a relationship – namely Huggins' with third-year Penguins coach Jerrod Calhoun.
Their ties span back to Huggins' days at Cincinnati.
"I met Jerrod when he was coaching AAU and he came down and was a student assistant for me at Cincinnati," Huggins recalled. "Then I helped him get the assistant job at Walsh and after that he came here and then went to Fairmont and has done a terrific job."
There are other ties as well.
Northeast Ohio has become an important recruiting territory for West Virginia with sophomore forward Derek Culver hailing from the Steel Valley. Also, freshman forward Oscar Tshiebwe played right across the state line at Kennedy Catholic High in Hermitage, Pennsylvania, not too far from Youngstown.
Those two will have plenty of rooters in the Covelli Centre on Saturday afternoon. Their friends and family will also get an opportunity to see them in person once again the following Sunday when West Virginia plays fifth-ranked Ohio State at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in downtown Cleveland.
"The Ohio State thing, obviously, it was their availability, our availability, the availability of the building and a lot of things that went into that situation," Huggins explained.
That's two trips to the Rust Belt in a span of eight days. They're the only two games for the 25th-ranked Mountaineers between Nicholls on Dec. 14 and the Big 12 opener at Kansas on Jan. 4.
Huggins indicated last Saturday following his team's blowout win over Nicholls that he was concerned about his team's conditioning during this period.
"We've done a lot of offensive and defensive transition stuff, which got them running up and down the floor," Huggins said Thursday.
He expects a lot of running and gunning from 7-5 Youngstown State on Saturday. The Penguins have won three of their last four games and are closing in on last year's win total of 12. Calhoun has made steady progress since taking over a Youngstown program that won just 35 games during a three-year span prior to his arrival.
"I don't think they are shooting as many 3s as they shot a year ago, but they really do try and exploit the line," Huggins said.
Huggins will try and exploit his substantial size advantage on Saturday with area guys Culver and Tshiebwe. Hopefully, their ticket situation is under control.
"The ticket stuff, you never get out of the way," Huggins said. "I'm sure my cell phone will be ringing on the way to the game. They know. They're only permitted to have four tickets, and they distribute those in any way they want to distribute them. In Derek's case, mom and the family are going to be there.
"I don't really put a whole lot of thought into it. I'm more concerned with how we're going to score and how we're going to keep them from scoring," he added.
Saturday's game will tip at 1 p.m. MSN from Learfield IMG College's radio coverage will begin at noon leading into regular game coverage at 12:30 p.m. with Tony Caridi and Jay Jacobs on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app WVU Gameday.
This will be just West Virginia's second visit to Youngstown. The other came on Jan. 13, 1982 when the Mountaineers edged the Penguins 62-60. The circumstances were similar with star Mountaineer guard Greg Jones returning to his native city to play in front of friends and family.
Incidentally, Jones scored a team-high 21 to help the Mountaineers keep alive their nation's-best 23 game winning streak that season.
Briefly:
* Saturday's meeting against West Virginia will be the first Power 5 opponent to visit Youngstown State in more than a decade. Six of Youngstown State's seven wins this year have been in Youngstown, although all of them have come on campus at the 6,300-seat Beeghly Center.
* Huggins indicated on Thursday that 6-7 senior guard Jermaine Haley, who did not play in last Saturday's win over Nicholls, will be available on Saturday against the Penguins.
Haley has been one of West Virginia's most consistent players dating back to last year's game at Baylor. He is averaging 11.1 points and is shooting a team-best 65 percent from the floor in nine games so far this season.
"He's been practicing well," Huggins said.
*The veteran coach was asked once again about the development Culver has made from last year to this year. It was right around this time when Culver's early-season suspension was lifted.
"Derek has grown up a lot," Huggins noted. "He's more serious about his game. He's done a great job in the classroom. Actually, he did a good job a year ago in the classroom. Derek is like all of us. We all grow up at some point in time in our life, and if we don't, then it's an awful rough life. Derek's been great. He's not been late for practice, class, study hall or any of that stuff anymore."
Culver is one of four Mountaineers averaging double figures (11.0 ppg.), and he's tops on the team in rebounding by grabbing 9.6 boards per contest.
Tshiebwe is also close to averaging a double-double at 12.3 points and 9.5 rebounds per contest.
"I tell Derek every once in a while it might be better if he wasn't having to rebound his own miss – (instead of) stat stuffing," Huggins joked, adding, "I've had guys before that did."
* West Virginia returned to the AP Top 25 this week after a year-long hiatus. West Virginia has made at least one Top 25 appearance in 10 out of the 13 seasons Huggins has coached his alma mater.
"The players kind of like it. They were happy about it," Huggins said. "At this time of the year it really doesn't mean a whole bunch. I guess the players I've had in the past want to be in there because that means their highlights are on ESPN."
* West Virginia's nonconference schedule this year has been much lighter travel wise with a recent bus trip to Pittsburgh to go along with bus rides to Youngstown and Cleveland leading into the Big 12 opener at Kansas on Jan. 4.
The Mountaineers will remain on the road to play at Oklahoma State two days later.
Huggins said team travel is always going to be a consideration for his program because of its association with the Big 12.
"You don't really feel it until you've actually done it. You hear people when they come in here talking about their 'long trip to Morgantown.' I'm like, 'Wait a minute fellas. We do it nine times.' It's rough. There is no way around it," Huggins admitted. "That's why when we're in school, we kept on the league people about 'this is an opportunity to not drag our guys all over God's creation when school's in session. Why can't we go out there and stay?' I thought it would end up being two days in between (Kansas-Oklahoma State), and it ended up being Saturday-Monday.
"My only thing with that was if we're going to be on the road on Saturday then the other team ought to be on the road Saturday. They shouldn't play home-home," he added.
* The interesting aspect of the Kansas game is that a start time for the Jan. 4 contest has not yet been determined three weeks ahead of the game.
That has presented some unique challenges for the team, Huggins said.
"It has caused problems that you really never think about. You never think about the hotel saying 'what time are you checking out?' They're trying to get us out to get other people in because of Kansas being a home game," he explained. "We thought about the travel part, but we never really thought about the hotel part of it, the meal part of it and that kind of thing."
Now we know.
Huggins, a young, wet-behind-the-ears coach at Akron wanted to get a "name" school to come to his place to get his fans excited about the program he was building there.
He thought why not shoot for the stars and go get Louisville, coming off a national championship in 1986?
"I wrote a letter to Denny Crum when I was at Akron trying to get him to come to Akron to play," Huggins recalled Thursday. "I thought I had all of these great reasons, and he wrote me back a very nice letter - a great letter telling me how much money they made whenever they opened the doors at Freedom Hall for the athletic department.
"I started to understand then this is very much a business," Huggins said.
"What I think people have a hard time grasping is there is a business side (to college basketball) as well. It's hard to give up home games because this year we will end up averaging 10-11,000 people a game," Huggins pointed out. "This deal with Youngstown is good for them, obviously, and it's good for us because it's a two-for-one. They're going to come here twice, and we're going to go there once."
Business may be business, but in this instance West Virginia's rare visit to Youngstown for a Saturday afternoon game at the 6,000-seat Covelli Centre in downtown Youngstown is more about a relationship – namely Huggins' with third-year Penguins coach Jerrod Calhoun.
Their ties span back to Huggins' days at Cincinnati.
"I met Jerrod when he was coaching AAU and he came down and was a student assistant for me at Cincinnati," Huggins recalled. "Then I helped him get the assistant job at Walsh and after that he came here and then went to Fairmont and has done a terrific job."
There are other ties as well.
Northeast Ohio has become an important recruiting territory for West Virginia with sophomore forward Derek Culver hailing from the Steel Valley. Also, freshman forward Oscar Tshiebwe played right across the state line at Kennedy Catholic High in Hermitage, Pennsylvania, not too far from Youngstown.Those two will have plenty of rooters in the Covelli Centre on Saturday afternoon. Their friends and family will also get an opportunity to see them in person once again the following Sunday when West Virginia plays fifth-ranked Ohio State at Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse in downtown Cleveland.
"The Ohio State thing, obviously, it was their availability, our availability, the availability of the building and a lot of things that went into that situation," Huggins explained.
That's two trips to the Rust Belt in a span of eight days. They're the only two games for the 25th-ranked Mountaineers between Nicholls on Dec. 14 and the Big 12 opener at Kansas on Jan. 4.
Huggins indicated last Saturday following his team's blowout win over Nicholls that he was concerned about his team's conditioning during this period.
"We've done a lot of offensive and defensive transition stuff, which got them running up and down the floor," Huggins said Thursday.
He expects a lot of running and gunning from 7-5 Youngstown State on Saturday. The Penguins have won three of their last four games and are closing in on last year's win total of 12. Calhoun has made steady progress since taking over a Youngstown program that won just 35 games during a three-year span prior to his arrival.
"I don't think they are shooting as many 3s as they shot a year ago, but they really do try and exploit the line," Huggins said.
Huggins will try and exploit his substantial size advantage on Saturday with area guys Culver and Tshiebwe. Hopefully, their ticket situation is under control.
"The ticket stuff, you never get out of the way," Huggins said. "I'm sure my cell phone will be ringing on the way to the game. They know. They're only permitted to have four tickets, and they distribute those in any way they want to distribute them. In Derek's case, mom and the family are going to be there.
"I don't really put a whole lot of thought into it. I'm more concerned with how we're going to score and how we're going to keep them from scoring," he added.
Saturday's game will tip at 1 p.m. MSN from Learfield IMG College's radio coverage will begin at noon leading into regular game coverage at 12:30 p.m. with Tony Caridi and Jay Jacobs on stations throughout West Virginia and online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app WVU Gameday.
This will be just West Virginia's second visit to Youngstown. The other came on Jan. 13, 1982 when the Mountaineers edged the Penguins 62-60. The circumstances were similar with star Mountaineer guard Greg Jones returning to his native city to play in front of friends and family.
Incidentally, Jones scored a team-high 21 to help the Mountaineers keep alive their nation's-best 23 game winning streak that season.
Briefly:
* Saturday's meeting against West Virginia will be the first Power 5 opponent to visit Youngstown State in more than a decade. Six of Youngstown State's seven wins this year have been in Youngstown, although all of them have come on campus at the 6,300-seat Beeghly Center.
* Huggins indicated on Thursday that 6-7 senior guard Jermaine Haley, who did not play in last Saturday's win over Nicholls, will be available on Saturday against the Penguins.Haley has been one of West Virginia's most consistent players dating back to last year's game at Baylor. He is averaging 11.1 points and is shooting a team-best 65 percent from the floor in nine games so far this season.
"He's been practicing well," Huggins said.
*The veteran coach was asked once again about the development Culver has made from last year to this year. It was right around this time when Culver's early-season suspension was lifted.
"Derek has grown up a lot," Huggins noted. "He's more serious about his game. He's done a great job in the classroom. Actually, he did a good job a year ago in the classroom. Derek is like all of us. We all grow up at some point in time in our life, and if we don't, then it's an awful rough life. Derek's been great. He's not been late for practice, class, study hall or any of that stuff anymore."
Culver is one of four Mountaineers averaging double figures (11.0 ppg.), and he's tops on the team in rebounding by grabbing 9.6 boards per contest.
Tshiebwe is also close to averaging a double-double at 12.3 points and 9.5 rebounds per contest.
"I tell Derek every once in a while it might be better if he wasn't having to rebound his own miss – (instead of) stat stuffing," Huggins joked, adding, "I've had guys before that did."
* West Virginia returned to the AP Top 25 this week after a year-long hiatus. West Virginia has made at least one Top 25 appearance in 10 out of the 13 seasons Huggins has coached his alma mater.
"The players kind of like it. They were happy about it," Huggins said. "At this time of the year it really doesn't mean a whole bunch. I guess the players I've had in the past want to be in there because that means their highlights are on ESPN."
* West Virginia's nonconference schedule this year has been much lighter travel wise with a recent bus trip to Pittsburgh to go along with bus rides to Youngstown and Cleveland leading into the Big 12 opener at Kansas on Jan. 4.
The Mountaineers will remain on the road to play at Oklahoma State two days later.
Huggins said team travel is always going to be a consideration for his program because of its association with the Big 12.
"You don't really feel it until you've actually done it. You hear people when they come in here talking about their 'long trip to Morgantown.' I'm like, 'Wait a minute fellas. We do it nine times.' It's rough. There is no way around it," Huggins admitted. "That's why when we're in school, we kept on the league people about 'this is an opportunity to not drag our guys all over God's creation when school's in session. Why can't we go out there and stay?' I thought it would end up being two days in between (Kansas-Oklahoma State), and it ended up being Saturday-Monday.
"My only thing with that was if we're going to be on the road on Saturday then the other team ought to be on the road Saturday. They shouldn't play home-home," he added.
* The interesting aspect of the Kansas game is that a start time for the Jan. 4 contest has not yet been determined three weeks ahead of the game.
That has presented some unique challenges for the team, Huggins said.
"It has caused problems that you really never think about. You never think about the hotel saying 'what time are you checking out?' They're trying to get us out to get other people in because of Kansas being a home game," he explained. "We thought about the travel part, but we never really thought about the hotel part of it, the meal part of it and that kind of thing."
Now we know.
Players Mentioned
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