Welcome to the Friday Feedback, on the eve of what is being presented by many as a make-or-break game for West Virginia. It’s Notre Dame and the Mountaineers in the first of three remaining home games against ranked teams. Soft bubble or not, WVU needs wins, and for teams like that wins at home are really no different than road wins — they’re good to have.

WVU has won the past two in the series in the Coliseum and Notre Dame, for a time, wasn’t very good on the road. The Irish started 3-3 in the Big East with losses at Syracuse, Marquette and St. John’s. Hey, the Mountaineers have lost to the same teams and two of those were on the road. It is there where a similiarity between the two teams takes shape.

Notre Dame, picked to finish seventh in the Big East and now No. 8 in the country, is defined by who isn’t on this team and doubts projected on the Irish have inspired those who remain. WVU was picked to finish fifth in the Big East and, like Notre Dame, had to replace important parts. The Mountaineers were also motivated to replace missing parts, but have struggled with the replacement process.

So get a look of Notre Dame led by Ben Hansbrough and his — as described by Coach Mike Brey — “borderline craziness” against WVU in one of the final chapters of what — as described by Coach Bob Huggins — “hasn’t been the most storybook year.”

“In all honesty, what’s affected us is losing our entire freshman class,” WVU Coach Bob Huggins said. “You take away two guards and the length the other guys had and we can’t do the things we really anticipated doing when you sit down and try to prepare for the season.

“That’s hurt us more than anything. You’re going to lose guys. We all knew Devin was going to leave. Da’Sean was a senior. Wells was a senior. You plan for that. What affected us was losing the new guys.”

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, don’t have a cow.

Foul Shot said:

Seems like we see the same refs, game after game, year after year.
And, they continually seem to tick us all off.
But, the refs don’t decide the game – unless it is a missed goal tending call at the end of the G-town game a couple of years ago. I dont think I’ll ever forget that one.
Hoping to get the next game against Depaul and then to make a strong stretch drive.
Still, 20 wins always seems to be the magic number to get into the Big Dance – still hoping we can get there.

Don’t fixate on 20 wins. It’s not a magic number anymore. If I heard it correctly, the selection committee’s mock selection this  week predicted WVU to finish ninth in the Big East. That doesn’t sound like 20 wins to me. But WVU was in the field. The SOS and RPI are too healthy. In the past 16 years, no team with a top 21 RPI has been left out of the field. Right now, WVU is No. 23.

Jeff in Akron said:

Completely off topic, Mike, I have no idea why this came to mind this morning. It is getting close to ramp season, I just thought I would send a reminder to start checking for festivals. While I believe it is too early to buy them, it isn’t too early to start networking to find them. Last year it was too late by the time we all started looking.

I’m tracking them already. I may have spent some time in the hotel in Syracuse looking for festivals.

Dave said:

Mike,
Was there any discussion about the similarity between Purnell’s team at DePaul for the two games this year and his team at Clemson that we beat in the tournament?

I would believe that there are personnel differences, but wondered about what Purnell wants to implement vs. what he had at Clemson.

The personnel isn’t there yet to do what he wants to do on either end, but it looks like he’s getting good players next year — and the freshmen Melvin and Young are good players already. Purnell still presses and traps and tries to guard the floor in thirds. His offense still forces the action and uses straight-line drives. I remember Beilein saying once Purnell was always very good agaisnt zones and WVU was quickly taken out of one Saturday. He just needs time to get his pieces in place, no offense to Jimmy Drew and Michael Bizoukas.

Ka’Lial Glaud said:

Actually, Mike, I flipped a coin and decided to go to Rutgers…

That’s true. You did. Can’t wait to see you in action next season.

WVManiac said:

I am really holding my expectations back for Bruce next season. While he might get more playing time, without Neild and Berry who else is going to require a double team other than Miller?

However with offenses scheming plays away from him, I think we will really see how amazing he could be.

Mike, Do you see him playing more stand up LB this season, maybe dropping him in coverage on a few plays?

Irvin’s projections are fun to mess around with for one reason: He didn’t play whole lot this past season and he’ll play more next season. So one part of me thinks the word is out and teams will scheme against him. Another part says he’ll perhaps double his playing time. Where he lands as far as productivity is pretty intriguing. I think he has to play. I’d imagine either he or Julian Miller plays Scooter Berry’s vacated DT position and the other plays the DE position.

Josh24601 said:

Deniz will not face a single-team in the post the rest of the year.

Agreed. Why would he? He hasn’t handled it consistently and the outside shots aren’t falling. It’s a gimme.

The Artist Formerly Known as EER96 said:

Mike,

Do they still have the guy continuallly run laps around the dome after each SU score? If so, he is lucky his job isn’t running laps around Mountaineer Field the last couple of years – he would be mighty bored.

He runs around during noisy timeouts. His performance Monday was well received — I guess he hand’t been seen recently. And that probably doesn’t make you feel any better about things. My bad.

michael said:

Time for the patented 8 min. drought & t for good measure.

This was funny because it happened. Like, right away. It was also one in a series of comments that illustrates these Mountaineers.

Josh24601 said:

It’s West Virginia (TM): John Flowers fouls to bail out a missed three.

… there’s one …

The Artist Formerly Known as EER96 said:

Here comes the other shoe…

… and another …

Drew said:

This team makes so many stupid, brainless mistakes.

And this game is over.

… and another …

hershy112 said:

STOP MAKING STUPID PASSES!!!!

… and another. I’ll stop.

Josh24601 said:

WVU absolutely cannot win without Cam’s contributions, but I’m terrified every time he vies for a rebound.

Also, it would seem that Casey has inherited the Ebanks Oh God Please Don’t Dribble in Traffic mantle.

That as a bad game for Cam. Cam’s not tall enough to score on putbacks when he’s surrounded. I think WVU is pretty happy to see him grab a rebound and throw it out. Not saying it’s the right thing to do, but I think WVU at least knows it’ll maintain possession that way. And I think Casey, as much as Deniz, is the guy Huggins talks about when he talks about guys dribbling who shouldn’t be dribbling. Casey’s best as a spot-up shooter who can step in when the defense runs out on him.

The 25314 said:

I guess the headline declaring the scoring slump dead after one game against the very worst team in the league may have been a bit premature.

I don’t write the headlines. I write stories saying DePaul was the proper elixir if WVU was to turn things around. Sometimes I write half-truths.

Sam said:

(I’m stunned whenever I see people assuming WVU is already in the tournament. we could finish 17-14 and 2-8 against ranked teams. That won’t get it done.)

Who is this team? A not very good collection of role players, without a leader and without a rotation that can get it points. At this point, we have at least three offensive liabilities that are getting serious playing time: Mazzulla, Thoroughman, and Bryant. Which means we’re counting on points from Jones (who is too busy trying to add an NBA jump shot to bother with rebounding the ball and scoring on putbacks), Flowers (who was never meant to be a serious scorer), Mitchell (whose game comes and goes depending upon the tides), Pepper (who can’t get any long stretches of playing time because Huggins yanks him off the court for the smallest mistakes), and Kilicli (who wanders into and out of the conversation on his own schedule).

Would a small ball lineup every so often kill the Mountaineers anymore than what they’re currently doing does? Mazzulla, Bryant, Mitchell, Pepper, and Flowers/Jones?

They play that five — or variations that include those six — and do pretty well with it. Teams that high screen give WVU trouble and WVU can handle that better when it has a lineup or similarly size players who can switch and guard. And yet, you kind of need Cam. He really does do good things to help the others get the ball in the basket.

Homer said:

Pitt’s a tough draw and a bit of a bad match. The Mountaineers could win the rest if they play well or even partly well. 4-1 isn’t impossible. 3-2 or even 2-3 would get it done.

Pitt’s an awful draw, and yet I can see WVU showing up and being very much in it. Agree with the rest, too.

jtmountaineer said:

What’s dispiriting about last night isn’t that we lost–a top 20 Syracuse at the Carrier Dome isn’t exactly a gimme–but that we led by 4 and played a terrific first half only to revert in the second half. If just three guys could give us their best games night after night, we’d be pretty solid. As is, we get two and the rest shoot those two in the feet. That it’s never the same two who bring their A, or even B+, game makes it difficult to predict how any game will turn out.

Why Mazzulla hasn’t managed to take over the way he has in a handful of games confuses me, and Cam needs to shoot the frickin’ ball, no matter if it goes in or not. At least Truck, slumping though he is, is perceived as a threat to shoot and thus someone other teams guard.

Where from here? Some rest anyway. And a home game against a very tough ND.

First paragraph is the team, as of late, in a nutshell. Second paragraph is becasuse teams collapse the defense and surround Joe when he gets inside or because they clog the lane and dare him to shoot.

Al said:

This is a team that seems to have a low basketball IQ, some internal issues, and is undersized & missing people. We don’t have true freshmen on the court, yes some are young, but when a player has an epiphany that ‘they’ll play harder after half time’ this late in his career and the year – look out.

Suspensions, dismissals, leaving at half-time all suggest that this team hasn’t jelled. My guess is that it’s a few people who are killing the atmosphere. Last year there was far more senior leadership to keep some of these players in line. Now, they’re the leaders …

We’re short and most of the good raw talent that should have been seasoning to what should have been a really good core team left for personal reasons, had health issues or are injured.

What type of team is this? The type that will do okay in the NIT.

I don’t know about chemistry issues. That’s heavy-handed. I do sense frustrations, but what can you expect? Losing sucks and no one likes to talk about it. There’s a personality void, though, and we knew that’d be an item of concern all season. Can’t stay down in this league. Need a guy who can put his Nikes on and give his team a belief.

Chris from DC said:

This team is woefully undermanned. We have had the leads in the first half only to run out of gas down the stretch. Losing Dan Jennings hurt just for the fact that we don’t have any one else to take some minutes for the Turk and Cam.

Our other issue is no one has stepped up to be the leader offensively. The hopes from here were was that Kevin Jones would have been our go to guy with others being solid role players who would pick their spots to step up. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened and we’ve needed Casey Mitchell to be our main scorer. Needing CM to be our leading scorer is not a good position to be in.

Right now, we are a middle of the road Big East team. Luckily, middle of the road Big East team is better than most top teams in the other conferences. I think we’ll make the tourney due to our high RPI and can potentially make some noise depending on our seed.

Definitely undermanned and Huggins more or less admits as much saying they’ve been hurt by losing the freshman class. Include Jennings in there, too. He’d be an asset for this team in physique, if nothing else.

NCMountaineer said:

This team needs scoring, period. In my opinion, the only really glaring liability on the defensive end is Kilicli, but he has to play at least 20 minutes a night because most night he can put the ball in the basket.

I like what Sam mentioned above, possibly playing some small ball to try to get some guy in the game that can score the ball. I’d like to see them run with Truck/Mazzulla, Jones, Flowers, Mitchell, and Pepper. Deniz barely rebounds as it is, so I think that lineup might be able to do some damage.

Mike mentioned Pepper’s shooting the last seven games in one of his articles today. It’s amazing he still can’t seem to get extended time now that Mitchell’s back. Why can’t they both play? Especially since nobody else is putting the ball in the bucket right now.

These were all really good evaluations, by the way. This one wraps a ribbon on them all. Deniz is good on offense and the team needs offense, but he can hurt the team on the defensive end. Pepper and Mitchell can both score, but don’t often play together. There’s a sliding scale  involved here to match up elements in an ideal state. I thought these all gave a good look at the issues and, more importantly, solutions involved and asking to be balanced here.

Karl said:

Huggins is recruiting agressively to fill one of this team’s most obvious needs, outside and mid-range jump shooting. The recruiting sites have so far been slow in connecting WVU to this 5-star prospect, who was seen at Shooter’s last weekend: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DZSL-ThllQ

That’s not going to be an easy get.

notruB said:

I think we consistently don’t play well in the 2nd half…

Precisely.

The 25314 said:

“Tremendous” thinks that Huggins says “the truth of the matter” a lot.

It is what it is.

Foul Shot said:

You see the same guys, it seems, every game.
And, most of them seem to be pushing 65.
Not to be age discriminatory, but can’t they get some fresh blood in there?
Maybe that would help with spreading guys so thin?

I’m been wondering this for a long time. Remember, they’re independent contractors. It’s not like a conference  or some company is working with salaries and can’t afford to take on more personnel. What’s stopping guys from getting  in the business?

glibglub said:

Gotta be a correlation. God knows I’m overworked, and you should see some of the slapdash garbage I’m putting out

Enjoy the weekend!

P.S.

Jonathan Hargett tried the dunk off the backboard at UConn in February 2002.