Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which wants to get right to business today.

pknocker40 said:

Doggone lack of cell service at a crowded Coliseum prevented me from texting about a certain gentlemen – wearing a fur coat – in the Coliseum Club area who created a scene by refusing to cover up his “Eat #### Pitt” shirt. State Troopers intervened, his “date” lost her composure, and Eddie Pastilong was sitting ten feet away the whole time. At halftime I noticed him chatting with Major Harris. Rough night, but man do I love Morgantown….

That’s fantastic and why we have to do TFGD. It’s my duty. There’s no way you could be aware of that scene and watch the game the same knowing something else like that is going on in the background. And it’s also another reason we don’t to TFGD for many basketball games. I’m glad they’re revving up the cell service at Mountaineer Field, but the Coliseum has to be next. And I’m hopeful. We got a press-only WiFi network finally and it was without a hitch Monday night — and yet, the blog inexplicably ate most of the comments during the live blog. Oh well.

Between the WiFi and the violin national anthem and a surprisingly palatable 7NA for the intro, the Coliseum is killing it all of a sudden. (Quick note on 7NA. It’s no CEJ. I actually  like this song and the band. Have for years. I don’t like the across-sports overkill … but, man, does it get a crowd rolling. The Coliseum thing was pretty neat. I can’t find the video, but here’s the audio from a different and worthwhile video.

Or catch the whole song here …

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, choose wisely.

JC said:

Is it just me, or is college basketball almost as archaic as baseball when it comes to replay? I know goaltending is a judgement call and all circumstances of goaltending should not be replayed, but when it hits off the glass, it is no longer a subjective call. There’s no maybe about it. When the ball is solely in the air or above the cylinder, sure, let the officials’ judgement stand, but there is no subjectivity when the ball hits the backboard, period. Just because they may not have been in position to clearly see it doesn’t make it a subjective call.

But it will slow the game down, interrupt the flow, etc…..how about getting the call right.

So the officials can randomly review the monitors, neglect KJ calling for a non-existant TO (which obviously would have cost them the game), and use a stopwatch to run out the clock after it stopped, but they cannot review a situation like this. Lame…..

Don’t want to get into the Syracuse debacle too much, and I’ve already tried to explain and ended up arguing this point with some people, but it really was a judgment call. The officials thought it was Keita who hit the ball into the backboard, as opposed to Kilicli banking it off the backboard first. We’re caught up in semantics here. Technically, everything is a judgment call and a matter of objectivity. Follow those guides and you’ll get lost. The officials who watched the play did not think Kilicli put the ball off the glass. They thought Keita blocked the shot off the glass. It’s a horrible mistake, but that’s the “judgment” part of it. Some confusion on the KJ/timeout thing, too. He can’t call a timeout if his team doesn’t have the ball and neither team had the ball there. I think your point is about the application of reviews, but, for me, I don’t want them reviewing stuff like that. I think they’re indecisive as it is. I don’t want them working with a net.

Eu. Smith said:

The refs at the Syracuse game did a fantastic job. Perfect calls all day, especially in the last 10 seconds. They got everything EXACTLY right. Just like they got that out-of-bounds call exactly correct at the UConn game.

(What, you think I want another nasty note from Marinatto?)

Such growth!

JP said:

Anyone else hear Bill Stewart may be going to the Stillers? If I were a Browns fan like Casazza I would be thrilled …

Just to be clear, Bill Stewart is not going to be the offensive coordinator for the Steelers. I don’t pretend to know anything about the situation, but that is not going to happen. I imagine Mike Tomlin enjoys paychecks. As for a possible job there, say as a special teams assistant, my Josh Cribbs jersey is thrilled.

Birch said:

Is anyone else concerned that Mike blew his entire art budget on that graphic and the calendar only reads January?

So, about those ads on the blog and the chat — uhuh.

pknocker40 said:

Go ahead, have your fun with Ol’ Billy Boy – he’s at least staying true to his roots and looking for work in the Black and Blue Division…

7s, not 3s.

rekterx said:

I figure that a college basketball official, from December through February, can make $40-60,000/month, keeping the schedule that some of those guys work.

They get what, $1500-2000 per game, right?

Carpe diem dude! And no, I don’t have to comment on the quality of my own work.

It’s a side job for most of these guys. Seriously, google some of them and you’d be shocked to find what they do for a living. The money you mention is about right, but it’s a 20-week season. Do “just” four games a week at $1,000 per night and … yikes. And the money is going up. Put it this way: WVU had Steratore, Roger Ayers and Tony Chiazza as the officials for the exhibition game and paid those three more than it paid Northern Kentucky.

overtheSEC said:

Mike, does Steratore still live in Uniontown? Do the powers that assign officials take things like driving distance into consideration?

He resides in Washington, Pa., I believe, but I’m not sure there’s a real method to scheduling. And I bet the guys don’t care, either. Expenses are covered.

HS said:

Been fan for almost 60 yrs., not a coach just a loyal fan who bleeds blue and gold. But can someone tell me why we have a starting forward that averages 1 point a game? This is a hard time to watch. Sometimes, they just look lost out there.

Yeah, Miles really hasn’t gotten better and he didn’t do much of anything with that six-point, seven-assist game last month. But he knows what he’s doing, he doesn’t turn the ball over (14 in 23 games) and he’s an above average defender. He just makes matchups more even for WVU. If he could just get his confidence even with everyone else on the floor. Miles looks perpetually hesitant when he’s open and that’s not a good trait.

r said:

The best part of this game was the Marine who played the Star Spangled Banner on his violin. It was spectacular and it was great to see the team swarm him when it was over. The dude was amazing. and was an ex-WVU student.

Agreed. Never thought a violin would get the place going like that. I want more instrumental-only versions of our anthem. Don’t get me wrong. It’s a beautiful song, but it’s really hard to sing and most of these singers just sound the same now or try so hard to be different that it comes off way worse. Give me instrumentals. That’s why Spain’s anthem is so great. It literally has no words. Hendrix’s anthem? No words. Let’s follow the violin with … a kazoo. Something.

Sam said:

True story: that Marine was my babysitter when I was a kid. He broke my wrist horsing around.

Thanks for not breaking his wrist. Otherwise you might have prevented that anthem from happening.

Mack said:

Kevin Jones is a great player . . . but with a losing streak and missing the tournament (if it happens) he could fall into the category of “good player on a bad team,” which tends to make people believe the stats are inflated by the fact that he has no help. Not sure I could argue against that either.

It’s in the balance. Probably not unlike Joe Alexander in 2008. Young team, in age and with Huggins, but he really picked WVU up and carried it into the tournament.

The 25314 said:

Cam Thoroughman thinks Deniz Kilicli misses a lot of three footers.

Stunning development. Kilicli had been a pretty efficient scorer. Not a lot of points, but he made the most of his shots. Now, I don’t know. I thought he was great against Cincinnati (6-for-11, 13 points, seven rebounds, five assists in a career-high 38 minutes after missing the Marshall game) but he’s slipped. He’s putting up shots and he’s not making them and he’s not going to the free-throw line. In the past three games, he’s taken 27 shots and tried five free throws. That’s unusual. And he’s had good shots the past two games. He was kind of a non-factor against St. John’s, but he had 10 mostly good looks against Syracuse and 13 mostly good looks against Pitt. It looks like he’s hurrying, same as he does at the free-throw line when Huggins will yell at him to slow down. He has some good moves in the post, but he needs to go all the way through them and get centered and balanced. When he’s off, he’s off to either side rather then shooting too strong.

oklahoma mountaineer said:

Noreen’s ankle puts Rutledge’s need for improvement at the top of Huggs’ to-do list.

One player, especially a role player, should not break a team but in this case……when Turk goes into a funk or foul trouble, we have to be able to put someone in there who is at least servicable on defense….

Can Truck’s play in January be summarized as awful and be done with it??? I know there are probably a ton of people who will disagree, but I feel he is the most overrated player that WVU has had in my 30 years of loving WVU basketball…..

Start at the bottom. January is over for Truck, which is good news. He wasn’t very good and that continues a pattern. Something we never went over — because there’s no explanation, except an allergy that doesn’t exist — is that he’s had three bad Januarys at WVU. Check it out. He was actually really good in January 2010 and that followed a stretch in December where he was hurt and affected and lost his starting spot. As for Nique, he might be OK. He had a week to get up to speed, or as close as he can, and he needs that. The knee injury in the summer, the fact he didn’t play last year, the rotation this year, it all conspired against him. He needs reps in practice and minutes in the games to get going and he has that now — and he’s been serviceable when he’s played minutes this season. His biggest problem is holding the ball on offense and, ironically, dribbling the ball on offense. The former, he thinks through things when everyone else is just doing them because he’s not as familiar with things as is everyone else. The latter, he puts the ball on the floor a lot and that’ll cost you every time.

overtheSEC said:

Does anyone else use the mnemonic of

Gar-E
Aar-N

To remember which one is BrownE and which one is BrowN?

Just me? Okay. Carry on

No way I’m not doing that now. It’s stuck in my head.

Sam said:

I almost prefer an offense in which players wait until Jones is in position, then shoot. I’m not sure there is a better way to get the ball to Jones.

I missed five straight games earlier this season because of football and vacation and the like and when I came back and saw WVU play Georgetown and then UConn, I was really surprised and impressed by how much better the team was at passing the ball inside to Jones. It was a skill the Mountaineers really worked at and it’s been kind of fun to watch them go through a pretty lengthy process on many possessions to get KJ open. That said, isn’t the offensive rebound the best assist? The shot either goes in (50-50, really) and then KJ is basically a 50-50 guy  under the basket. Either he gets  it or someone else does. If he gets he, he’s scoring.

Seoul Man said:

Huggins said as much in an interview: I can’t let KJ shoot too much because he’s our best/only rebounder. That’s an interesting insight into coaching calculus.

Well, darn if he isn’t right though. I need a long flight to figure this out, but I really wonder how many of KJ’s baskets are assisted. He has 193 baskets and 103 offensive rebounds. This is perhaps too tidy, but over/under 90 assisted baskets? I say under and maybe way under. Huggins has criticized his guys for not passing the ball, and to KJ especially. His team has 607 baskets and 352 assists. That’s 58 percent. John Beilein told me once a team that’s at two-thirds is pretty good, though he liked three-quarters or better because of his offense. Huggins doesn’t run the same offense, but there are shared principles and motion offense needs passers.

Sam said:

If too much offense runs through KJ, presumably teams collapse all 5 defenders upon him, as they can be reasonably certain that nobody else is going to shoot, and if they do, they aren’t going to make it. So instead, Huggins has to have his guys take shots that don’t fall, which allows Jones to get into position for the real offense, which is that which begins once the ball has caromed off the rim.

It is baffling to me that he’s having such an incredible season – and frankly, this is probably the best single-season performance by any Mountaineer basketball player – without being the focal point, without having an offense designed specifically to get him repeated touches. It’s unreal.

Couldn’t agree more. This is special stuff that you’re not going to see for a while and it’s difficult to appreciate because you’re probably like me and sometimes wonder “What if…?” It’s like the anti-Butler 2010 season. Da’Sean took his. KJ gets his.

Josh24601 said:

We’re way overdue in rightly acknowledging #5 as The Great Kevin Jones. Unless this season ends in a really improbable run deeeeep into the NCAA Tournament, KJ’s career will end up just a notch below Da’Sean’s, and Butler only had the third greatest career in school history; KJ’s is in the discussion to be in the top 15.

TGKJ? And top 15 … I’m thinking he’s on scholarship: Top 13. I smell a blog post on a travel day …

overtheSEC said:

Don’t hold your breath on the Big12 schedule. It’s not being released today. The deadline of Feb 1 was to release it to the TV partners, not the public. They’ve done the former and are delaying the latter.

Correct. From what I gather, the TV people have it and it’s a 10-team schedule. A few people are surprised a few other people were so adamant about this thing going public when, in reality, people should have known better. The funny thing about all of this is Headhunter Chuck Neinas was shrouded in mystery and defined by the things he wouldn’t say relative to his work assisting schools in finding coaches. Now he won’t stop talking.

pknocker40 said:

Right on, OtSEC – seems that maybe the B12 would like the lawsuit(s) to be settled before it releases the schedule. Otherwise it risks being added as a defendant by the Big East.

I’m glad we understand these things here. I really didn’t think it would happen. Now, true, I hoped it would, but  because, honestly, how awesome would that have been? And wouldn’t the Big East have to hurry one out with WVU on it as well? That would have been so fun.

Jeff in Akron said:

I thought it was interesting that I read somewhere (Ibelieve it was one of Mike’s twitter feeds) that DeForrest’s defense last year played the equivalent of three more games than Bama’s defense due to the pace that the Cowboy offense used.

I have to wonder if that was not a problem, and a reason, Casteel and Co. went west. DeForrest is used to running a defense that must defend against a team trying to keep up with a Holgorsen offense, and a Holgorsen offense that does what it does. For what it is worth, the video interview I watched of DeForrest was very positive. I’ve got a hunch we are going to like this guy.

I’ve heard lately that Casteel was conscious of his statistics this past season, which I never noticed before, but put that with this and, yes, that makes some sense. I’m not insinuating he was obsessed with where he ranked and got mad and left, but he does have a career to worry about and his professional trajectory is still arching up, or at least at a high point. I think his defense was good and made impact plays the final four games, but the season statistics aren’t all that great and some of that has to do with being on the field a lot (or a lot more than what we were used to). Would he risk another year or two of the same — reasonably good performances with uneven statistics that are affected by the offense? That offense is going to put you in some tough spots, for sure, and that’s not for everyone. It’s an acquired taste and WVU has acquired a guy who knows it.

glibglub said:

I like that name, the 7. It’s got cachet, baby. It’s got cachet up the yin-yang.

And yet, it didn’t last long …

Sheik Ybuti said:

It’s almost as if, independent of the secondary, they are a Seven Nation Army.

And if they catch it coming back their way, they’re gonna serve it to you. And that ain’t what you want to hear, but that’s what they’ll do.

overtheSEC said:

Have you all seen seen this epic Trooper Taylor pic yet from signing day?
http://cdn2.sbnation.com/photo_images/5425092/74074_Auburn_Signing_Day_Football.jpg

Chick-fil-A was closed. I didn’t know this until last week. Trooper and The Product were BFFs on Bowden’s staff at Tulane.

pknocker40 said:

I imagine this was worked out sometime before today, as the announcement came conveniently the day after LOI day. No such thing as coincidences, right?

That’s my rule. Mike Smith has been in Hawaii for a while now, I’m told, and I doubt very much the Jets let Smith come back two weeks after he left. I’d have to craft a conspiracy in which Smith got cold feet and changed his mind fast and this has been settled for a while. This way, Smith and Dana agreed to keep it quiet through signing day so Smith’s buddy wouldn’t be besmirched during the final few days of the recruiting cycle.

hershy112 said:

I like to picture Mike Smith in a tuxedo T-shirt, ’cause it says like, I wanna be formal but I’m here to party too.

Hawaiian print tuxedo T-shirt.

overtheSEC said:

Mike Smith’s approximate hours of fame among WVU fans: 280
Clemson – 33

Speaking of conspiracies, he won’t be paid by WVU. Was told yesterday he was in Hawaii on personal time.

rekterx said:

Offense too. Huh?

It’s a possibility, perhaps more so now than before.

Sheik Ybuti said:

All this stuff about recruiting and staff vacancies has confused me. Is it true that WVU actually hired two more defensive coaches before the deadline yesterday and asked them to grayshirt next January, giving us a total of 12 coaches beginning in August 2013? OL obviously has all the angles figured.

He’s a wizard!

Karl said:

I’m surprised the way this is all going down given the Orange Bowl. After a performance like that, I figured he’d have a pick of a pretty wide range of defensive coaches. You can win a lot of games if your offense scores 70. Lots of disorganization showing on the WVU sideline here.

Well, score 70 and attract coaches, as you say. Score 70 and get the other team’s DC fired. That team then needs a DC and outbids you for the one you wanted. Funny how this worked out.

The 25314 said:

Brady Ackerman thinks Mike Smith didn’t stay long.

Enjoy the weekend!