Wednesday, December 2
Indianapolis, Ind.
7:00 p.m.
West Virginia University
vs
Gonzaga
Photo by: Sarah Ramundt
WVU to Take on No. 1 Gonzaga Wednesday Night in Indianapolis
December 01, 2020 04:29 PM | Men's Basketball
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Bob Huggins isn't bashful about sticking his fishing pole into the water in search of a trophy catch.
Six times since his return to West Virginia in 2008, his Mountaineer teams have faced the No. 1-ranked basketball team in the country.
On Wednesday night, West Virginia will face another one when it takes on top-ranked Gonzaga in Indianapolis in the Jimmy V Classic.
It's the 11th-ranked Mountaineers' fourth appearance in the annual event, which features the top teams in college basketball.
West Virginia wasn't originally slated to play in the game, but when Youngstown State suspended basketball operations because of COVID and then Tennessee had to pull out of the event for the same reason, Huggins got on his phone.
"Have you ever been in South Dakota in a bubble? You get bored," he joked. "We were sitting there watching basketball, and it came across the ticker that Tennessee had an outbreak and canceled.
"They needed a game, and I've been doing this a long time, and I've got some very dear friends at ESPN, so I thought, 'what the heck? Let's go play Gonzaga.'"
Why not?
He's had some success in the past against No. 1s. Two of West Virginia's five all-time victories against college basketball's No. 1 have come on Huggins's watch.
Huggins also has 49 career wins against ranked teams since his return to WVU, including 19 against teams in the Top 10.
And he's got many more during his days at Cincinnati.
"We've always played a hard schedule," he pointed out. "Look back, we've always played somebody that may not have been the No. 1 ranked team in the country, but they were in the top 10, and certainly could have been the No. 1 ranked team in the country. We haven't run from anybody."
West Virginia certainly won't run from Gonzaga, but it will likely have to run with the Zags, 2-0 to begin the season after impressive wins over Kansas and Auburn.
Gonzaga has scored 192 points in those two games and is shooting a phenomenal 58.5% from the floor so far this season. In the second half, after teams have had an opportunity to make adjustments, the Zags are shooting 58.7%.
Against Kansas, the Zags missed only 12 of their 31 second-half shot attempts.
Drew Timme, a 6-foot-10, 235-pound forward from Richardson, Texas, is as good as they come in college basketball today. He scored 25 against the Jayhawks and added 28 points and 10 rebounds in Gonzaga's 23-point win over Auburn.
Freshman guard Jalen Suggs, one of just two McDonald's All-American players ever recruited to Gonzaga, scored 24 in his college debut against Kansas and added 12 on his second game on 6-of-9 shooting with a team-best six assists.
Six-foot-7 senior forward Corey Kipsert has scored 48 points in his first two games this season after averaging 14 points and four rebounds per game last year as a junior.
Those three can match up with any three players in the college game today.
"They're good. They are very, very skilled," Huggins said. "I think that's been a trait of Gonzaga basketball for a lot of years. They have a lot of skilled guys. They pass it extremely well. They shoot it extremely well. They shoot it as well as anybody we've played in a long time."
If that's not enough, veteran coach Mark Few has a pair of 7-footers he can bring off the bench in Oumar Ballo and Pavel Zakharov.
Pick your poison, right?
"I would love those guys coming off the bench to play about 35 minutes, instead of the guys they are starting because those guys they are starting are really good, man," Huggins said. "I don't worry about Derek's (Culver) ability to match up with a 7-footer. Gabe (Osabuohien) guards anybody. We can put Gabe on a point guard or we can put him on their center. I don't think that's as big an issue as what our perimeter defense has been."
West Virginia (3-0) won its three games against South Dakota State, VCU and Western Kentucky in the Bad Boy Mowers Crossover Classic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, last week, but Huggins was disappointed in the way his team defended in those three victories.
He believes his guys are capable of sticking to their men a lot closer than they did a week ago.
"We haven't guarded, not even a little bit, compared to what basically this same group did a year ago at the end of the year," he said. "Think about it. Baylor came in here (No. 4) in the country, and we guarded the heck of them. And they bounced it. We didn't guard the teams in South Dakota the way we guarded teams in our own league."
It will certainly have to do a much better job on Wednesday night against Gonzaga, which has become one of the premier college basketball teams in the country under Mark Few, who recently recorded his 600th career victory to tie North Carolina's Roy Williams as the fastest in NCAA history to do so in just 22 years.
Counting Huggins' 884 career wins, that's nearly 1,500 coaching victories between the two guys on the benches Wednesday night.
"I would think Fewy would be the first one to say he owes a lot of it to Dan Monson, who really got it going out there," Huggins said. "I think people forget they were on probation when Dan took over. He really kind of got them going, and then Fewy has taken it to another level, no question.
"They've done a great job recruiting," Huggins continued. "He was probably at the forefront of taking transfers and those kind of things and doing in a great job of bringing in a transfer and having him fit in to what they do. You go back and look at the team we lost to in the Sweet 16, they had a bunch of transfers. He's done a great job of doing whatever it takes (to build good teams). He's taken freshmen, he's taken JUCO guys and he's taken transfers and molded it all together."
Wednesday night's game is being played at a secure location at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. ESPN (Dan Shulman, Jay Bilas and Holly Rowe) will televise the contest nationally.
MSN from Learfield IMG College radio coverage will begin at 6:30 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia, satellite radio, and online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app WVU Gameday.
Gonzaga has won all four prior meetings, including the last one in the 2017 NCAA West Regional semifinals in San Jose, California.
Six times since his return to West Virginia in 2008, his Mountaineer teams have faced the No. 1-ranked basketball team in the country.
On Wednesday night, West Virginia will face another one when it takes on top-ranked Gonzaga in Indianapolis in the Jimmy V Classic.
It's the 11th-ranked Mountaineers' fourth appearance in the annual event, which features the top teams in college basketball.
West Virginia wasn't originally slated to play in the game, but when Youngstown State suspended basketball operations because of COVID and then Tennessee had to pull out of the event for the same reason, Huggins got on his phone.
"Have you ever been in South Dakota in a bubble? You get bored," he joked. "We were sitting there watching basketball, and it came across the ticker that Tennessee had an outbreak and canceled.
"They needed a game, and I've been doing this a long time, and I've got some very dear friends at ESPN, so I thought, 'what the heck? Let's go play Gonzaga.'"
Why not?
He's had some success in the past against No. 1s. Two of West Virginia's five all-time victories against college basketball's No. 1 have come on Huggins's watch.
Huggins also has 49 career wins against ranked teams since his return to WVU, including 19 against teams in the Top 10.
And he's got many more during his days at Cincinnati.
"We've always played a hard schedule," he pointed out. "Look back, we've always played somebody that may not have been the No. 1 ranked team in the country, but they were in the top 10, and certainly could have been the No. 1 ranked team in the country. We haven't run from anybody."
West Virginia certainly won't run from Gonzaga, but it will likely have to run with the Zags, 2-0 to begin the season after impressive wins over Kansas and Auburn.
Gonzaga has scored 192 points in those two games and is shooting a phenomenal 58.5% from the floor so far this season. In the second half, after teams have had an opportunity to make adjustments, the Zags are shooting 58.7%.
Against Kansas, the Zags missed only 12 of their 31 second-half shot attempts.
Drew Timme, a 6-foot-10, 235-pound forward from Richardson, Texas, is as good as they come in college basketball today. He scored 25 against the Jayhawks and added 28 points and 10 rebounds in Gonzaga's 23-point win over Auburn.
Freshman guard Jalen Suggs, one of just two McDonald's All-American players ever recruited to Gonzaga, scored 24 in his college debut against Kansas and added 12 on his second game on 6-of-9 shooting with a team-best six assists.
Six-foot-7 senior forward Corey Kipsert has scored 48 points in his first two games this season after averaging 14 points and four rebounds per game last year as a junior.
Those three can match up with any three players in the college game today.
"They're good. They are very, very skilled," Huggins said. "I think that's been a trait of Gonzaga basketball for a lot of years. They have a lot of skilled guys. They pass it extremely well. They shoot it extremely well. They shoot it as well as anybody we've played in a long time."
If that's not enough, veteran coach Mark Few has a pair of 7-footers he can bring off the bench in Oumar Ballo and Pavel Zakharov.
Pick your poison, right?
"I would love those guys coming off the bench to play about 35 minutes, instead of the guys they are starting because those guys they are starting are really good, man," Huggins said. "I don't worry about Derek's (Culver) ability to match up with a 7-footer. Gabe (Osabuohien) guards anybody. We can put Gabe on a point guard or we can put him on their center. I don't think that's as big an issue as what our perimeter defense has been."
West Virginia (3-0) won its three games against South Dakota State, VCU and Western Kentucky in the Bad Boy Mowers Crossover Classic in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, last week, but Huggins was disappointed in the way his team defended in those three victories.
He believes his guys are capable of sticking to their men a lot closer than they did a week ago.
"We haven't guarded, not even a little bit, compared to what basically this same group did a year ago at the end of the year," he said. "Think about it. Baylor came in here (No. 4) in the country, and we guarded the heck of them. And they bounced it. We didn't guard the teams in South Dakota the way we guarded teams in our own league."
It will certainly have to do a much better job on Wednesday night against Gonzaga, which has become one of the premier college basketball teams in the country under Mark Few, who recently recorded his 600th career victory to tie North Carolina's Roy Williams as the fastest in NCAA history to do so in just 22 years.
Counting Huggins' 884 career wins, that's nearly 1,500 coaching victories between the two guys on the benches Wednesday night.
"I would think Fewy would be the first one to say he owes a lot of it to Dan Monson, who really got it going out there," Huggins said. "I think people forget they were on probation when Dan took over. He really kind of got them going, and then Fewy has taken it to another level, no question.
"They've done a great job recruiting," Huggins continued. "He was probably at the forefront of taking transfers and those kind of things and doing in a great job of bringing in a transfer and having him fit in to what they do. You go back and look at the team we lost to in the Sweet 16, they had a bunch of transfers. He's done a great job of doing whatever it takes (to build good teams). He's taken freshmen, he's taken JUCO guys and he's taken transfers and molded it all together."
Wednesday night's game is being played at a secure location at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. ESPN (Dan Shulman, Jay Bilas and Holly Rowe) will televise the contest nationally.
MSN from Learfield IMG College radio coverage will begin at 6:30 p.m. on stations throughout West Virginia, satellite radio, and online via WVUsports.com and the popular mobile app WVU Gameday.
Gonzaga has won all four prior meetings, including the last one in the 2017 NCAA West Regional semifinals in San Jose, California.
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