The Sock 'Em, Bust 'Em Board Because that's our custom

Away they go

March 13, 2017 by Mike Casazza

Snow. In March. Of course. Maybe this is what Team Travel should have expected, but this is now what West Virginia wanted. That’s moving travel plans up 24 hours. That’s the team, the band, the cheerleaders and the administrators. That’s travel and lodging and meals. It might mean finding a one-off hotel with certain specifications (whirlpool, meeting space, vacancies, so on and so forth) and finding a one-off place to practice. It might also mean just adding a night to the front of whatever hotel the NCAA set aside and adding a practice to the front of whatever gym the Mountaineers were using. But 11th hour stuff is no fun right now.

And pity WVU’s travel coordinator. The women’s selection show is tonight, though there remains a possibility those Mountaineers are playing at home.

I, too, am leaving today rather than drive into the teeth of a biting storm tomorrow. Not what I wanted, either, because I’m going to have to move up all my plans and find a hotel with certain specifications (whirlpool, coffee bar, gym, so on and so forth) and get do everything I needed to do to get caught up personally and professional a day sooner than expected. And what will I do about meals?

Anyhow, I’m going to have to shorten things up here today, but I’ll hit it strong tomorrow. I promise. I mean, what else am I going to do? I’ll have the annual first-round opponent scouting report tomorrow as well as the bracket competition (and if somebody wanted to set that up for everybody here, I would not complain).

And to clarify the travel predicament with regard to Huggins being adamant WVU would fly and Huggins in a slightly different state crammed on a bus, the NCAA championship policy requires teams to drive to a site if its campus is within 350 miles. The NCAA in turn covers that cost. However, teams can chose to take that stipend and apply it to the cost of flying to the site, and the university pays the difference.

The Mountaineers, about 280 miles from Buffalo, were going to take the bus stipend and fly Tuesday. That’s not possible now, and there was no way to get the team in the air and to buffalo today. Busing was the smartest way — and it’s free!

Mean time, a bit about WVU and the other predicament the team finds itself in as the egg timer is turned upside down.

Bucknell isn’t likely to be up to speed on WVU, either. Think familiarity doesn’t matter? The last time WVU ventured outside of the Big 12, Texas A&M woke up in a 20-point hole in the second half of the Big 12-SEC Challenge at the Coliseum.

But the Mountaineers can’t even enjoy the alleged relief. Certain realities conspire against that comfort, beginning with the most obvious.

“SFA wasn’t familiar with us, either,” senior guard Tarik Phillip said.

SFA would be Stephen F. Austin, a team of Lumberjacks that went unbeaten throughout the Southland Conference’s regular season and conference tournament last year and proved it was underrated as a No. 14 seed by beating WVU in the first round of last year’s NCAA tournament.

That reminder reinforces the second reality following Saturday’s 80-74 loss to No. 23 Iowa State in the championship game of the Big 12 tournament. WVU is running out of time.

“I just don’t think we’re playing together as well as we used to as far as moving the ball on offense,” senior Nate Adrian said. “I’m not saying we don’t now, but — I don’t know. There’s a lot to it. It’s hard to explain.”

This isn’t about statistics, the ones that can explain things on their own, statistics like shooting percentages and scoring droughts. It’s about look, about feel, about how the Mountaineers (26-8) have lost their way and know it and still can’t seem to figure out the solution.

“We had a stretch where we played pretty good,” Huggins said. “Ball movement was really good. We really rebounded the ball. Pressure was so much better.”

That’s it for me today. Sorry for the late start and the quick exit. As I often find myself saying this season, I did not see this coming.