Friday Feedback
March 11, 2011 by Mike Casazza
Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which wasn’t very surprised by Wednesday night’s game and isn’t changing the prospects for the remainder of the postseason. West Virginia’s 31st game was noteworthy only because it was a loss in the Big East Tournament and the first is the past 12 games in March.
Apart from that, the 31st game wasn’t much different from the 21st or many others to come before or after that.
West Virginia’s loss in the second round – and its first game – of the Big East Conference tournament was its 11th of the basketball season.
In the previous 10 defeats the Mountaineers averaged 39.2 percent shooting.
Slot that in the national rankings this season and it’s right below Arkansas-Pine Bluff and right above Eastern Michigan. When the Mountaineers (20-11) are off, they’re awfully off. What they do in losses would qualify as the 323rd-best shooting percentage among 335 Division I teams.
Coach Bob Huggins arrived at his press conference following the 67-61 loss to Marquette on Wednesday night, having just looked at a boxscore.
Take a wild guess what his Mountaineers shot in defeat – 39.2 percent.
“It’s been a year-long problem,” he said. “We just don’t make open shots. I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve said it and said it and said it. We just don’t make open shots.”
That’s what distinguishes the very good postseason teams. The ones that go far generally make open shots — and see WVU v. Kentucky as a prime example. What continues to perplex everyone about these Mountaineers is how they’ll have it for one half or one game or even one week and then have no clue where it went or how to find it again.
How long the Mountaineers play the rest of this season might depend on how well players shoot, but their longevity is more likely to be shaped by how — or if — they can cover up the shooting numbers that are probably going to be poor. WVU didn’t do that Wednesday night and careless turnovers, bad transition defense and a negative rebounding margin made the lengthy field-goal droughts stand out even more. Shooting can rescue you and abandon you in March. Fundamentals never fail.
Onto the Feedback. As always comments appear as posted. In other words, stay committed.
glibglub said:
I dunno, Ford Childress kinda sounds like an ill-fated sedan concept.
Let’s begin there this week.
Dave said:
Mike … what’s up the with links? They’re both to “minka kelly” and it’s the same link for both girls … not to mention apparently triggering porn blocks at work (lcj).
Wasn’t a mistake, but I didn’t know it’d trigger a “porn block.”
X-Rayted said:
Mike, not that I’m complaining, b/c I could look at Minka Kelly all day despite getting a full body shiver at the fact that Jeter is sleeping with her, but now I’m intrigued to see how much Ford Childress’ (love that name) looks like her…please fix asap!!
I’m not changing it, Wooderson. You’ll need to get your teenage fix elswehere.
Drew said:
Am I the only one who thought the Minka/Minka comparison was a joke and not a mistake?
No, you’re not the only one.
The 25314 said:
Huggs just dropped a neat story about Jimmy Johns on Jim Rome.
Forget ethics: I’m going to facilitate this endorsement deal.
Jeff in Akron said:
Regarding the “bluenose elite”, a couple of weeks ago I was with a group of friends watching some basketball and having a few Nestea’s. Of course I was wearing one of my trusty WVU hats, in an establishment that was full of OSU fans. Rest assured the people I was with are fully versed in the accomplishments of WVU sports over the past few years and have a healthy respect.
As is generally the case, there is always one in every crowd that has had too many Nestea’s and is overly vocal about OSU. Which, is understandable considering I am in the middle of Ohio. Still, the guy decides to single me and my hat out, forget the Michigan hats, or Notre Dame hats present. One of the guys at my table was wearing a Kentucky hat. They all got a pass from this guy.
Long story short, the view of WVU nationally is far better than I think most fans of WVU recognize. WVU is 7-3 over the last ten meetings with Ohio State going all the way back to 1979. Add that Huggins is averaing 25 wins a season since taking over at WVU, and WVU needs just two wins to average 25 for the last seven years. Add the sweet sixteens, the great eight and final four finishes during that time and WVU gets a lot of respect. I even throw the NIT Championship into the mix.
Back to the guy, I did not say a word, my fellow OSU friends did it for me. Mainly because we had had the discusion about OSU vs WVU basketball. WVU may not be in the “elite” status yet, but, the invitation is being strongly considered. This year’s regular season finish only solidifies the resume. Now, should Huggs and his guys add a few wins at the Garden and two in the NCAA’s, they may actually decide to print that invitation. For the record WVU is ranked 24th all time by the NCAA in wins through the 2009 season, ahead of OSU(44), Villanova(27), UConn(28), Georgetown(34), and Michigan St.(40). Michigan isn’t in the top fifty.
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/m_basketball_RB/Reports/alltimewinningest.pdf
I’m going after Nestea’s dollars, too. Oh, and good anecdote. The Buckeyes were brought down a few notches last week, yes?
Karl said:
Rick Pitino must love Morgantown.
Clearly. And Bobby Petrino, too. Don’t forget that screw-up.
jtmountaineer said:
Can we get T-shirts for this year’s team that read: “Do what you do (in first halves)”?
Do it.
The Artist Formerly Known as EER96 said:
I might get killed for this Mike, but I disagree with you that Truck was fouled in the final sequence when he stole the ball and went to the hoop. I thought the tv replay clearly showed Truck being Truck. He wasn’t fouled in my opinion.
I’m not going to kill you. You’re allowed to disagree and encouraged to think about things and not simply accept them. I was sitting 25 feet away and right in line with it. I didn’t agree with Truck’s drive. I think he should have pulled it back because as soon as he picked up his head he had to see everyone was, because of the inbound, right under the basket. I also happened to think Jimmy Butler hacked Truck … who, yes, was being Truck. Hard to expect a ref to make that call. I know that. I also know you’ve got to make something happen. I guess you’re prefet acts of commission there, not omission.
JP said:
Artist, I agree. I had to restrain myself from throwing my remote at the tv when Truck went into the trees with another wild shot. I know hindsight is 20/20, but I think that’s a low percentage shot. You can’t rely on going into the lane like a madman and getting a foul call. At least with regard to Truck, I don’t think Big East refs are going to reward another of his out-of-control drives to the hoop with a foul call.
WVU looked flat to me. I know we were ahead at halftime, but I think we were lucky to be. I agree with Huggs, however, we got some good looks but didn’t make the shots. If Pepper makes a couple and KJ makes a couple, it would be a different story today.
I thought WVU was sluggish at the start and Huggins was begging his players to wake up. And then they did. As for Truck, there was a time Da’Sean Butler absolutely could not get a call in the lane. When he was a senior, he got a bunch of them.
Homer said:
Is that 3 Marquette guys (Crowder, Cadougan, Gardner) who have scored career highs off the bench against WVU this year? That’s an odd stat.
That is correct. It’s like back-to-back linebackers winning Big East defensive player of the week aganst WVU.
NCMountaineer said:
Truck has had some tough moments this year, but I really don’t think he played that bad last night. It wasn’t Truck the gift-wrapped those two dagger threes with bad turnovers (shockingly, it was Flowers). It wasn’t Truck the threw the ball out of bounds to nobody in particular (shockingly, that was Mazzulla). Truck got a good run in the first half, but barely played in the second. WVU was up 10 when Truck went out of the game, and I believe we were down when he returned.
Truck has an up, and mostly down season, but he wasn’t bad last night. I just hate to see all the stuff piling up on this kid, especially in a game where everyone wasn’t good.
Truck was fine Wednesday night. That’s a tricky thing about the Mountaineers. They can’t consistently get all their key players lined up on the same night. When it happens, WVU is pretty tough. When it doesn’t happen, WVU has to play even harder.
Shoot4Show said:
I think we all should probably relax a bit and enjoy an entertaining, competitive team. We’re scrutinizing college kids who are succeptible to the typical foibles and distractions of late teens and early 20s young men plus the new age media pressures that comes with playing major college athletics. They’re sometimes up, sometimes down but work hard to represent our university and state. This team isn’t last year’s team, but it is a team to be proud of. We would have been thrilled to have such a competitive team in some years past.
There you go. Enjoy the ride.
jtmountaineer said:
Lame. What is gained by making ballots due the day before the season’s last day as opposed to, say, the evening after all games have been played? Would it matter so much for these superlatives to be handed out tomorrow and Wednesday instead of today and Tuesday?
Rick Jackson is nowhere near the versatile defender Flowers is. Put Jackson on Brooks and see what happens.
I never followed up on myself on this one, but the ballots were due Saturday this year. I do know a few coaches, including Huggins, who couldn’t vote for Flowers, submitted their ballots Friday or earlier. There’s no value in changing the deadline, though. Coaches are maniacs and they’re going to start prepping for the postseason as soon as their final regular-season game ends. There isn’t time for a ballot. You’d be interested to note that Jim Boeheim, of all people, suggested the media ought to be in charge of the awards.
Drew said:
Stats don’t take into account the degree of diffuculty.
Consider how hard it is to play the 5 in a 2-3 zone. Then consider how hard it is to match up against the opponent’s best player night after night in the toughest conference in the country.
Let’s see if Jackson can defend against ball screens, stay in front of Preston Knowles and Kemba Walker on dribble drives, and hold Marshon Brooks to 13 points.
Even Kilicli could probably do well playing the 5 in a 2-3 zone.
You had me until the end there. Other than that, yes, absolutely. Those are all the points in John’s favor. I do think foul trouble really worked against him … but that’s also what made him so good. Weird double standard there, I know.
overtheSEC said:
Marshon Brooks went 5 for 15 and had his 2nd lowest scoring day in BE play against Flowers–and more impressively, didn’t shoot a single free throw (the only BE game all season that happened). Jeremy Hazell (quiet, he’s listening to us right now), scored 5 points against Flowers. Jackson’s a beast, but he still owes a lot to the system. No one said Bryant Moniz was the best quarterback in the NCAA last year even though he led all passers. He’s a system quarterback.
I think it’s pretty clear where I stand on all of this, but I do want to get on the other side of the line, just to balance it out and be fair. Playing in the middle of the zone isn’t as hard as doing what Flowers does, but it’s not quite as easy as we’re making it seem. Yes, Syracuse opponents shoot a lot of 3s and that inflates the rebounding numbers for Jackson — but that’s his job. And they shoot a lot because it’s either hard to get inside or its more ideal to get inside, have no shot against Jackson and then kick it out. Additionally, the steals and the blocked shots are there because Syracuse will funnel action inside and let the big guy do his job. … I need a shower.
Sam said:
You’d better lead the league in rebounding if you only stand in one place all game, and you’d better lead it in blocked shots if you’re going to get dribble drive penetrators attempting to break down a zone. What Jackson accomplished isn’t being denigrated; it just isn’t as impressive as what Flowers was able to do.
To put that another way, if Flowers played somewhere else in the Big East and put on an equivalent show, he might have received some more serious consideration.
I might buy that conspiracy, but Huggins is respected throughout the conference for defense. Same goes for his players. And the same goes for Boeheim and his players. Syracuse had the top defense. Jackson was a major reason why. I do like this debate, though.
Homer said:
Rebounding stats should be not considered as indicative of defensive performance. You can get 10 rebounds a game standing under the basket not guarding anybody all game.
It can be argued further that blocked shots aren’t even that great of a stat if we define defense as keeping your man (and his team) from scoring.
Jackson had better name recognition, and like it or not, that’s a factor on these popularity contests. Glad Mike mentioned it because most ignore it, but that to me was the deciding factor in a close race.
Rebounding and blocked shots matter, especially if you’re a center because you can’t give up easy baskets or second shots. I’m just not sure they need to matter as much as they’re sometimes made to matter. I think more needs to go into points allowed and that was what Flowers did the best. He locked guys down — and a variety of guys. He stopped guys from getting passes. He kept guys off the board. He closed driving lanes. He prevented shots from being even attempted. He was just very good in so many areas you can and can’t find on the stat sheet and he did that in a league dominated by guards and wings. There were no dynamic offensive players in the post this season … which is why Jackson didn’t make the first team. Not that he wasn’t very good — he is — but because there were more guards with better qualifications. And Flowers prospered in that league.
hershy112 said:
I would make the argument that the conference’s first team is all about how many points you score. That is what I hate about POY races. It doesn’t usually go to the best player, it usually goes to the best scorer. Morrison and Reddick were neck and neck the whole year a few years ago and they averaged like 25 shots a game or something. No wonder they were scoring 30 pts a game. That’s just the tip of the iceberg of my problems with POY though. Last year had an exception in Evan Turner.
Before Kemba Walker went nuts this week, I wasn’t sure there was a more important player in the Big East than Brad Wannamaker. He made the second team.
jtmountaineer said:
I don’t know if this will be part of a later post today, but is anyone else surprised/disappointed that Mike Brey won his third coach of the year in five years? 3/5!? And he hasn’t made it past the sweet 16, and made it there only once, about 8 years ago. I know Hugs had no realistic shot, and as much as I thought it was Steve Lavin’s to lose, I have nothing personal at stake in the award. It’s just that if you looked at Mike Brey’s resume, excepting the NCAA tournament, one might get the impression he could actually coach.
It’s odd, I’ll admit that, but his NCAA Tournament success can’t be tied to the Big East award. And what Brey did this year was pretty shocking. You have to look at it as if no one has ever won the award. If he won it for the first time this year, or if this was the first annual award, I think it’s hard to nit-pick. Extend this conversation and talk about the best coaches in the game. Is Brey mentioned early or at all?
Parks said:
I have no arguement against Brey winning it but I do have an arguement for Steve Lavin. I don’t know how you don’t give it to him with all he has done. Brey did a lot at ND, but he also had Abromitis and Hansbrough (sp?). I can’t name one guy for St. John’s and they have looked really good at times this season. Lavin also gets my award for most entertaining ejection this season.
If that was part of the criteria, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation. That would be a lock. Joe Lindsey is not what you’d call a coach’s official, either.
ccteam said:
RU coach deserves credit for handling it better than most would. The thing is, the end was only one of the problems. A blocking foul should have been called on RU’s drive to the basket a few seconds before, as well St J’s over the back on the free throw rebound that went out of bounds. Very poor. There must be consequences against the officials.
You have to watch Mike Rice work to fully appreciate how he handled this. The guy runs are about 120 mph from start to finish — and he owned his “lunatic” behavior at the end of the game. Afterward, I knew he had the world on his side so he added to his support by being understanding and accepting … though not at all happy.
rekterx said:
Fran Fraschilla, before that end of game sequence, had already made note on television that the officials had quit calling the game. He made the comment when there was an obvious over the back foul committed by a St. John’s player. Instead the ball went out of bounds and SJ was given possession.
The announcers, all three of them, agreed on the air after the game that the officials quit before the game was over.
It was awful to watch and a lot of us were worried the officials would step all over the ending … and they did, though in a totally new way. The over-the-back and the foul on the Rutgers big as he tried to catch the final inbound pass are being wildly overlooked. I get that because the other two errors were egregious, but those other two were just as important. There are points attached to those plays — St. John’s scored after the OTB miss and Rutgers would have had free throws had the inbound foul been called.
Sheik Ybuti said:
Probably a 95% chance the officials’ errors didn’t affect the result of the game, but that’s still patently unacceptable. Rutgers would have taken the 1 chance in 20.
Oh yeah. Rutgers did a lot to lose that game late. It’s easy to not consider they would have had no timeouts and 1.7 seconds to get a shot/basket, but that’s also not the point either. And let me ask you this: What if Burr calls the travel or the out of bounds and gives Rutgers the ball and Rutgers hits a game-winner? Aren’t people still going to flip out for making that call in that end-game sitaution? I say yes. I also say that the characteristics of this season were building to a moment when people could assassinate officiating. There it was.
Jeff in Akron said:
I didn’t see this one coming. Come to think of it, I haven’t read or seen much of Galloway since Holgy and Co. came to town. I wish the man luck, no pun intended, it appears he is going home.
I’ve got to believe if we are hearing about it, Holgorsen is already on the case and has not only a list but individuals he has already talked to. “At the end of the day”, I have to wonder if this is really that much of a setback. Galloway did a good job with the receivers since he has arrived. If there was a good time for this to happen, now is probably that time.
As I type this Roger Miller’s “King of the Road” shuffled up on my music app, not sure if that means anything.
Galloway’s move caught me off guard, too, but my head is stuck in a basketball right now. I don’t think Holgorsen will do anything with this now. He knows receivers. Shannon Dawson knows receivers. He actually doesn’t have a special teams coach, so that might be the move he ends up making. Whatever the case, if you don’t see something soon — like, next week — then it’ll be after spring practice. And all coaches always have a “what if” list. It’s silly not to and situations like this remind you of why.
Mack said:
Oh good god! That’s Rich Rodriguez’s music!
Well, he was in very good seats that belonged to WVU personnel for the Wednesday game and was out and about in New York City after the game with a lot of old friends. He’s been contrite about his actions upon leaving WVU. I know some WVU people would one day like to say, “Let’s heal this wound.” I just can’t see him coming on Holgorsen’s staff right now … but I wonder if it’s crazy enough to work for everyone.
Dave said:
Is it possible that Stewart can roll with this and make it a good year? I think so.
Having been in various roles during mergers and acquisitions, the people you want to work with are those who maintain a positive attitude and roll with it. The ones who are more difficult to get along with are the ones who can’t leave soon enough.
For all the thoughts on the way Stewart ran the program, the fact that Luck sees him involved long-term is probably the most telling of how he’s expected to roll with it.
Your question is the theme of the season. We don’t know the answer. We have inclinations and suspicions. And I don’t care how many reasons you line up that state it can work, there are as many to suggest it won’t. And vice versa … please don’t forget that.
Hall said:
Of all those involved, Coach Stewart has been the “class act.” Time will tell if the powers that be (read wealthy contributers) made the right decision. Regardless, Stew will always hold a special place in all loyal Mountaineer hearts. The man deserves our respect.
No one denies that. I do wonder, though, if relative to the position Stewart is in if all people take him seriously. The article even makes a point to make that point and that’s a guy from a national Web site, not a paper in Charleston.
Parks said:
Somehow when I think of dreams I think Disney. I’m not really seeing Disney in this situation.
I tried to and I struggled, but suppose this ends up in a BCS game. Stewart does kind of go out in a good manner. BCS games were his dream and a win would make his dream come true.
jtmountaineer said:
A dream come true… There’s gotta be an Inception joke to be made somewhere…
Found one …
The 25314 said:
Stew has lost his totem.
Perfect.
Karl said:
For anyone losing sleep over the chemistry between Stew and the new offensive staff, the start of our schedule should alleviate your worries. The season opener is a home game against Marshall and Doc Holliday, and given the bad blood and the close call last year, this is a game that might mean more to Stew than any other. A blowout would create some pretty good feelings between Stew and the new guys, no? And the stars seem lined up for just such a result. Consider:
* Holgorsen is going to want to come out and put up some points in his first game at Mountaineer Field.
* Stew may not be as apt to show mercy to the guy on the other sidelines.
* Marshall will have no tape on this new WVU offense to work with.
* WVU will probably take them more seriously after last year’s narrow escape.
* We’re the better team and have the players to make it happen.You’ve got to give Oliver Luck credit here, he lined this up perfectly. As far as ADs go, the man is quite a chess player, as this interview clip shows: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kfzspEQj6UE