From Seth Davis’ Hoop Thoughts:

• A Big East coach who has scouted West Virginia told me that part of the Mountaineers’ problem is that their guards who can defend are not good shooters, and their guards who can shoot are not good defenders. Case in point: The Mountaineers could not hit outside shots against Syracuse’s zone, but when Bob Huggins substituted Casey Mitchell into the game, Brandon Triche, the Orange’s freshman point guard, took him to school.

P.S.
This will also be your open post for tonight’s game…

This isn’t news to those watching closely and/or regularly, but it’s becoming news across the map. It’s surprising, too, to those who know Huggins teams to be defensive teams. And don’t think defensive trouble isn’t connected to offensive trouble. It is and the Mountaineers are having a hard time on offense — and it’s not going to get any easier against Marshall.

Three of WVU’s past five opponents have shot better than 50 percent and each team won. Not that it mattered.

In those three losses, the Mountaineers shot 45.9, 37.5 and 39.3 percent. The team’s scoring averaged has slipped from 76.4 when they were 11-0 to 75 at 13-3. A streak of 27 consecutive wins when scoring at least 70 points ended against the fifth-ranked Orange. Suddenly offense is WVU’s problem.

“If you watch the really good teams, when they get open looks they make them,” Huggins said. “Not all of them, but most of them. We haven’t made them in a while. We’ve got to start making some shots.”

If you have a hard time guarding the opponent there is then a premium placed on scoring and offsetting the other team’s offense. Simple basketball, really. What’s happening to WVU is defensive lapses are coinciding with offensive woes. It’s linked. One weakness puts pressure on the other to become a strength.

There’s a lot of worrying and fretting about the Mountaineers, who, it can be forgotten, are 13-3 and No. 11 in the country. There’s a lot to like about WVU. A lot. At the present, though, there is just enough to wonder about as the season rests at the halfway point.

And from all this discussion about a team that relies on the foul line less than anyone else in the Big East and seems unable to score off the dribble came a frank explanation from Huggins.

“If you look at the teams that get to the line, they’re guard-oriented and have guys who can play off the bounce,” Huggins said. “That’s not our team. We don’t have those kind of guys. That’s probably the way to go, but that’s not what we have.

“Look at the guys that were left here (when former Coach John Beilein moved to Michigan). None of those guys play that way. They were brought in to play a system and it’s a different system. We obviously needed size, and primarily what we’ve done is gone out and gotten size.”