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Campus Connection – The Weekend Notebook is Back!
January 10, 2020 02:34 PM | Men's Basketball, Blog
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. - If you want to see this year's West Virginia University men's basketball team in person, you might want to hop on WVUGAME.com pretty soon!
Earlier today, West Virginia's Saturday, Feb. 29 game against Oklahoma was announced a sellout, marking the fourth game in the two weeks to hit that mark.
The next two close to selling out are the Saturday, Jan. 25 matchup against Missouri in the Big 12/SEC Challenge and the rematch with No. 3 Kansas on Wednesday, Feb. 12.
After that, your only other options to see this year's team live and in living color at the WVU Coliseum are versus TCU on Jan. 14, Texas on Jan. 20, Iowa State on Feb. 5 and Oklahoma State on Feb. 18.
Speaking of Missouri, that game has been designated Varsity Club Weekend by veteran WVU Varsity Club director Dale Wolfley, who is expecting another strong turnout of former players this year.
It coincides with the immensely popular Bob Huggins Fish Fry on Friday night, Jan. 24 to benefit the Norma Mae Huggins Endowment Fund and the Remember the Miners Scholarship Fund.
This year's featured guest is Rod Thorn, who was recently inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame.
By the way, Huggins is once again on this year's Naismith Hall of Fame ballot along with Fred Schaus, a star player for WVU in the late 1940s and six-year coach for the Mountaineers before transitioning to the NBA with the Lakers.
Both are certainly worthy of induction, in my opinion.
West Virginia's NCAA NET ranking of 11 this week should get a boost after Wichita State's 76-67 victory over No. 21 Memphis last night.
The Shockers are currently 14-1 and 2-0 in the American with a big game coming up Sunday afternoon at Connecticut.
The website RealTimeRPI.com, which rates teams based on the old RPI method, has the 17th-ranked Mountaineers No. 1 this week and projects a 27-4 overall regular-season record and a 15-3 finish in Big 12 play.
It rates West Virginia's schedule the sixth-toughest in the country this year.
Here are the current records of WVU's opponents heading into this weekend's action:
Akron – 10-3
Pitt – 11-4
Northern Colorado – 8-5
Boston University – 7-8
Northern Iowa – 11-2
Wichita State – 14-1
Rhode Island – 9-5
St. John's – 11-4
Austin Peay – 8-7
Nicholls – 6-6
Youngstown State – 9-7
Ohio State – 11-4
Kansas – 11-2
Oklahoma State – 9-5
Basketball's director of operations Josh Eilert deserves a lot of credit for the work he's done in researching the teams that make up this year's nonconference slate.
So don't forget Josh's work when we reach Selection Sunday a couple of months from now.
Years ago, pre-Bob Huggins and pre-John Beilein, whenever West Virginia played schedules this difficult there were usually a lot more notches in the L column than in the W column!
An interesting aspect to tomorrow night's Texas Tech game will be to see how Huggins chooses to defend Texas Tech's two-man game when 6-foot-6 guard Chris Clarke comes off the bench.
Tech likes to put the Virginia Tech transfer at the top of the key and use him as a passer and distributor to players off the ball such as dynamic freshman guard Jahmi'us Ramsey, who is averaging a team-best 17.7 points per game and who Huggins believes might be one of the best freshman guards in the country.
Because of Clarke's size, he can easily pass the ball over smaller players yet he's also mobile enough to go past bigger defenders.
West Virginia's Derek Culver and Gabe Osabuohien are two options Huggins could use against Clarke, or, possibly even Jermaine Haley. Derek is the tallest at 6-foot-10, but the other two are also the same size as Clarke.
"Derek is pretty versatile," Huggins said. "We can play him in the two-on-two situation and he'd do a really good job."
Whatever he chooses to do, Huggins has some defensive options that most other teams don't in dealing with Clarke's unique skillset.
Tip time is 6 p.m. and the game will be televised nationally on ESPN.
A term you hear a lot these days is "roster management" because of how much easier it has become for players to switch teams without having to sit out a year.
Despite losing a lot of firepower from last year's NCAA runner-up squad, Texas Tech's Chris Beard has managed to reload this year by taking advantage of the recruiting bump the Red Raiders got from last year and by also adding Clarke, a graduate transfer from Virginia Tech.
In the past, coaches could do more long-term planning because they had a pretty good idea what their roster was going to look like one-, two- and sometimes three years down the road.
Now, college basketball has become a year-to-year deal.
West Virginia, too, has greatly benefited from the transfer route with the addition of Arkansas forward Osabuohien, who gives the Mountaineers a dynamic wing defender and an above-average passer similar to what Nathan Adrian and Jonathan Holton provided for WVU's "Press Virginia" teams.
"Gabe is one of the better defenders we've had in the half court, and he's been one of the most versatile," Huggins explained. "He can guard posts. He can guard guards, guard wings and having Gabe and Derek are a luxury, really."
Huggins was once a transfer player, and he admitted the year he spent at WVU sitting out and watching games was not an enjoyable one.
"I got to practice with the team, and I sat on the bench for a few games and then I found out it was more fun sitting in the student section," he recalled. "So I crossed the floor and heckled the opponents. I was right in there amongst them."
Huggins said some of his team's recent offensive struggles can be attributed to perimeter guys shooting the ball flat, which makes it difficult to rebound.
"At least when you get it over the rim we have a chance to offensive rebound it," he explained. "I thought (Thursday) we started to shoot the ball better. We didn't shoot it very well on Wednesday."
I was talking to our Dan Zangrilli the other day, and he believes women's basketball's Tynice Martin has a legitimate shot of breaking Cathy Parson's 36-year-old school scoring record this year.
Martin still has a lot of work to do, however, as the senior needs 349 points to top the 2,115 Parson scored in 121 career games from 1980-83.
To do it during the regular season, Martin would need to average roughly 22 points per game, but when counting postseason play, which should also include NCAA Tournament action this year, it will likely require her to maintain her career scoring average of 15.3 points per game to do so.
Tynice recently cracked WVU's top five with her 23 points in last Sunday's blowout win at vastly improved Kansas.
She needs 52 more points to surpass Teana Muldrow (1,819 points) and after that, she's headed to WVU women's basketball's Mount Rushmore with Bria Holmes (2,001), Rosemary Kosiorek (2,061) and Parson (2,115).
In my opinion, Holmes was the most physically gifted of the trio, but I just loved watching Kosiorek play. Rosemary was one of the most competitive players I've ever been around in more than 30 years of doing this.
She would have knocked her grandmother down to get a loose basketball!
***
Incidentally, I really like the team Mike Carey is putting on the floor this year. It can defend – as all Carey teams do – but he's got two dynamic, high-scoring perimeter players in Martin and junior Kysre Gondrezick. Teams who choose to double Martin run the risk of leaving Gondrezick, a 17.7 points per game scorer, wide open.
What makes these two so valuable is they don't need a pass to score because both can create their own offense off the bounce.
"We try to put them in space," Carey said earlier today. "You'll see us a lot of times go four-out and one in and that's just to get them in space a little bit, and they are starting to look for each other. Weakside is usually open once they penetrate the middle."
Because he's got two really good scorers, he can split up between them the quick-hitters he calls.
"(Defenses) can't just sit on one person because both can score on all three levels," he explained. "That's something we haven't had in a long time."
Perhaps ever.
And on those rare occasions when both miss, sophomore Kari Niblack is usually right around the rim to clean things up.
The real wild card for this year's team is 6-foot-2 freshman forward Esmery Rodriguez, a gifted player who is still learning how to play for Carey.
"She can play," Carey admitted. "Communication is a little bit tough for her and a lot of times in games we try to make adjustments and she says she understands what I'm saying, but I know dang well she doesn't understand.
"Probably good for her, but once she gets used to everything, she has a chance to be really, really good," Carey added.
Whenever she figures it all out, look out!
Which Texas team is West Virginia going to see on Sunday, the immensely talented one that has won nine games this year or the one that has lost to USF, Arizona, NC State, Hawaii and TCU?
With the exception of Baylor, UConn and perhaps a few others, the Longhorns can match just about any team in the country in terms of talent.
Don't look now but South Florida is becoming WVU South.
New Bulls coach Jeff Scott recently hired Xavier Dye away from the Mountaineers to coach USF's wide receivers, and he also added a pair of former Mountaineer gridders to his coaching staff.
WVU great Pat White was hired away from Alcorn State to coach South Florida's running backs and Jules Montinar, who played for a couple of Mountaineer Gator Bowl teams for coach Rich Rodriguez, will coach USF's cornerbacks.
Montinar, who completed his collegiate career at Eastern Kentucky, most recently was a defensive quality control assistant at Georgia. He is a native of Naples, Florida.
A tip of the cap to former Mountaineer tight end Shawn Lutz, named NCAA Division II all-region coach of the year after leading Slippery Rock to a 14-1 record and a Super Region 1 title this season. His record in four years at Slippery Rock is an impressive 39-11.
The Massillon, Ohio, native played four seasons for Don Nehlen from 1992-95.
Another former Nehlen player, Curt Cignetti, is coaching in tomorrow's FCS championship game at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas against defending national champion North Dakota State.
Cignetti's James Madison Dukes own a flashy 14-1 record with their only loss coming in the season opener at West Virginia.
North Dakota State has had a stranglehold on the FCS title by winning seven of the last eight, but the year it didn't win the championship, in 2016, James Madison did.
Coincidentally, North Dakota State's play-by-play voice is a familiar name to West Virginia sports fans – Jeff Culhane, who coined the popular phrase "Cue Country Roads" after each Mountaineer victory.
Jeff has spent the last four years as the Voice of the Bisons.
And finally, Blaine Stewart continues to add to his coaching resume.
The son of the late Bill Stewart has been selected to coach in this year's East-West Shrine Game on Saturday, Jan. 18, in St. Petersburg, Florida. Stewart, currently a member of Mike Tomlin's Pittsburgh Steelers coaching staff, will coach the West team's quarterbacks.
Blaine played collegiately at James Madison and the University of Charleston.
Have a great weekend!
Earlier today, West Virginia's Saturday, Feb. 29 game against Oklahoma was announced a sellout, marking the fourth game in the two weeks to hit that mark.
The next two close to selling out are the Saturday, Jan. 25 matchup against Missouri in the Big 12/SEC Challenge and the rematch with No. 3 Kansas on Wednesday, Feb. 12.
After that, your only other options to see this year's team live and in living color at the WVU Coliseum are versus TCU on Jan. 14, Texas on Jan. 20, Iowa State on Feb. 5 and Oklahoma State on Feb. 18.
Speaking of Missouri, that game has been designated Varsity Club Weekend by veteran WVU Varsity Club director Dale Wolfley, who is expecting another strong turnout of former players this year.
It coincides with the immensely popular Bob Huggins Fish Fry on Friday night, Jan. 24 to benefit the Norma Mae Huggins Endowment Fund and the Remember the Miners Scholarship Fund.
This year's featured guest is Rod Thorn, who was recently inducted into the Naismith Hall of Fame.
By the way, Huggins is once again on this year's Naismith Hall of Fame ballot along with Fred Schaus, a star player for WVU in the late 1940s and six-year coach for the Mountaineers before transitioning to the NBA with the Lakers.
Both are certainly worthy of induction, in my opinion.
***
West Virginia's NCAA NET ranking of 11 this week should get a boost after Wichita State's 76-67 victory over No. 21 Memphis last night.
The Shockers are currently 14-1 and 2-0 in the American with a big game coming up Sunday afternoon at Connecticut.
The website RealTimeRPI.com, which rates teams based on the old RPI method, has the 17th-ranked Mountaineers No. 1 this week and projects a 27-4 overall regular-season record and a 15-3 finish in Big 12 play.
It rates West Virginia's schedule the sixth-toughest in the country this year.
Here are the current records of WVU's opponents heading into this weekend's action:
Akron – 10-3
Pitt – 11-4
Northern Colorado – 8-5
Boston University – 7-8
Northern Iowa – 11-2
Wichita State – 14-1
Rhode Island – 9-5
St. John's – 11-4
Austin Peay – 8-7
Nicholls – 6-6
Youngstown State – 9-7
Ohio State – 11-4
Kansas – 11-2
Oklahoma State – 9-5
Basketball's director of operations Josh Eilert deserves a lot of credit for the work he's done in researching the teams that make up this year's nonconference slate. So don't forget Josh's work when we reach Selection Sunday a couple of months from now.
Years ago, pre-Bob Huggins and pre-John Beilein, whenever West Virginia played schedules this difficult there were usually a lot more notches in the L column than in the W column!
***
An interesting aspect to tomorrow night's Texas Tech game will be to see how Huggins chooses to defend Texas Tech's two-man game when 6-foot-6 guard Chris Clarke comes off the bench.
Tech likes to put the Virginia Tech transfer at the top of the key and use him as a passer and distributor to players off the ball such as dynamic freshman guard Jahmi'us Ramsey, who is averaging a team-best 17.7 points per game and who Huggins believes might be one of the best freshman guards in the country.
Because of Clarke's size, he can easily pass the ball over smaller players yet he's also mobile enough to go past bigger defenders.
West Virginia's Derek Culver and Gabe Osabuohien are two options Huggins could use against Clarke, or, possibly even Jermaine Haley. Derek is the tallest at 6-foot-10, but the other two are also the same size as Clarke.
"Derek is pretty versatile," Huggins said. "We can play him in the two-on-two situation and he'd do a really good job."
Whatever he chooses to do, Huggins has some defensive options that most other teams don't in dealing with Clarke's unique skillset.
Tip time is 6 p.m. and the game will be televised nationally on ESPN.
***
A term you hear a lot these days is "roster management" because of how much easier it has become for players to switch teams without having to sit out a year.Despite losing a lot of firepower from last year's NCAA runner-up squad, Texas Tech's Chris Beard has managed to reload this year by taking advantage of the recruiting bump the Red Raiders got from last year and by also adding Clarke, a graduate transfer from Virginia Tech.
In the past, coaches could do more long-term planning because they had a pretty good idea what their roster was going to look like one-, two- and sometimes three years down the road.
Now, college basketball has become a year-to-year deal.
West Virginia, too, has greatly benefited from the transfer route with the addition of Arkansas forward Osabuohien, who gives the Mountaineers a dynamic wing defender and an above-average passer similar to what Nathan Adrian and Jonathan Holton provided for WVU's "Press Virginia" teams.
"Gabe is one of the better defenders we've had in the half court, and he's been one of the most versatile," Huggins explained. "He can guard posts. He can guard guards, guard wings and having Gabe and Derek are a luxury, really."
***
Huggins was once a transfer player, and he admitted the year he spent at WVU sitting out and watching games was not an enjoyable one.
"I got to practice with the team, and I sat on the bench for a few games and then I found out it was more fun sitting in the student section," he recalled. "So I crossed the floor and heckled the opponents. I was right in there amongst them."
***
Huggins said some of his team's recent offensive struggles can be attributed to perimeter guys shooting the ball flat, which makes it difficult to rebound.
"At least when you get it over the rim we have a chance to offensive rebound it," he explained. "I thought (Thursday) we started to shoot the ball better. We didn't shoot it very well on Wednesday."
***
I was talking to our Dan Zangrilli the other day, and he believes women's basketball's Tynice Martin has a legitimate shot of breaking Cathy Parson's 36-year-old school scoring record this year.Martin still has a lot of work to do, however, as the senior needs 349 points to top the 2,115 Parson scored in 121 career games from 1980-83.
To do it during the regular season, Martin would need to average roughly 22 points per game, but when counting postseason play, which should also include NCAA Tournament action this year, it will likely require her to maintain her career scoring average of 15.3 points per game to do so.
Tynice recently cracked WVU's top five with her 23 points in last Sunday's blowout win at vastly improved Kansas.
She needs 52 more points to surpass Teana Muldrow (1,819 points) and after that, she's headed to WVU women's basketball's Mount Rushmore with Bria Holmes (2,001), Rosemary Kosiorek (2,061) and Parson (2,115).
In my opinion, Holmes was the most physically gifted of the trio, but I just loved watching Kosiorek play. Rosemary was one of the most competitive players I've ever been around in more than 30 years of doing this.
She would have knocked her grandmother down to get a loose basketball!
***
Incidentally, I really like the team Mike Carey is putting on the floor this year. It can defend – as all Carey teams do – but he's got two dynamic, high-scoring perimeter players in Martin and junior Kysre Gondrezick. Teams who choose to double Martin run the risk of leaving Gondrezick, a 17.7 points per game scorer, wide open.
What makes these two so valuable is they don't need a pass to score because both can create their own offense off the bounce.
"We try to put them in space," Carey said earlier today. "You'll see us a lot of times go four-out and one in and that's just to get them in space a little bit, and they are starting to look for each other. Weakside is usually open once they penetrate the middle."
Because he's got two really good scorers, he can split up between them the quick-hitters he calls.
"(Defenses) can't just sit on one person because both can score on all three levels," he explained. "That's something we haven't had in a long time."
Perhaps ever.
And on those rare occasions when both miss, sophomore Kari Niblack is usually right around the rim to clean things up.
The real wild card for this year's team is 6-foot-2 freshman forward Esmery Rodriguez, a gifted player who is still learning how to play for Carey.
"She can play," Carey admitted. "Communication is a little bit tough for her and a lot of times in games we try to make adjustments and she says she understands what I'm saying, but I know dang well she doesn't understand.
"Probably good for her, but once she gets used to everything, she has a chance to be really, really good," Carey added.
Whenever she figures it all out, look out!
***
Which Texas team is West Virginia going to see on Sunday, the immensely talented one that has won nine games this year or the one that has lost to USF, Arizona, NC State, Hawaii and TCU?
With the exception of Baylor, UConn and perhaps a few others, the Longhorns can match just about any team in the country in terms of talent.
***
Don't look now but South Florida is becoming WVU South.
New Bulls coach Jeff Scott recently hired Xavier Dye away from the Mountaineers to coach USF's wide receivers, and he also added a pair of former Mountaineer gridders to his coaching staff.
WVU great Pat White was hired away from Alcorn State to coach South Florida's running backs and Jules Montinar, who played for a couple of Mountaineer Gator Bowl teams for coach Rich Rodriguez, will coach USF's cornerbacks.
Montinar, who completed his collegiate career at Eastern Kentucky, most recently was a defensive quality control assistant at Georgia. He is a native of Naples, Florida.
***
A tip of the cap to former Mountaineer tight end Shawn Lutz, named NCAA Division II all-region coach of the year after leading Slippery Rock to a 14-1 record and a Super Region 1 title this season. His record in four years at Slippery Rock is an impressive 39-11.
The Massillon, Ohio, native played four seasons for Don Nehlen from 1992-95.
Another former Nehlen player, Curt Cignetti, is coaching in tomorrow's FCS championship game at Toyota Stadium in Frisco, Texas against defending national champion North Dakota State.
Cignetti's James Madison Dukes own a flashy 14-1 record with their only loss coming in the season opener at West Virginia.
North Dakota State has had a stranglehold on the FCS title by winning seven of the last eight, but the year it didn't win the championship, in 2016, James Madison did.
Coincidentally, North Dakota State's play-by-play voice is a familiar name to West Virginia sports fans – Jeff Culhane, who coined the popular phrase "Cue Country Roads" after each Mountaineer victory.
Jeff has spent the last four years as the Voice of the Bisons.
***
And finally, Blaine Stewart continues to add to his coaching resume.
The son of the late Bill Stewart has been selected to coach in this year's East-West Shrine Game on Saturday, Jan. 18, in St. Petersburg, Florida. Stewart, currently a member of Mike Tomlin's Pittsburgh Steelers coaching staff, will coach the West team's quarterbacks.
Blaine played collegiately at James Madison and the University of Charleston.
Have a great weekend!
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