National signing day is two weeks away, and West Virginia is hard at work with two new assistant coaches, no contract extension for the head coach and — again! — no Saturday home basketball games in January. That’s not insignificant, given the recruiting calendar. The Mountaineers are busy keeping kids committed and, as of now, trying to finalize one or two big names and re-finalize (?) another.
On Monday, voters in the coaches’ and media polls pushed WVU into the top 10 for the first time in a long time. The coaches have WVU at No. 7. I’m in the media, so I only concern myself with the Associated Press poll, and the No. 6 ranking bestowed upon the Mountaineers is the best since WVU finished the 2010 regular season in the same spot. (That’s also the last time WVU was a top-10 team.)
Things went swimmingly from there, if I remember correctly.
Who knows where it goes from here, but the thought is the Mountaineers will be just fine, Saturday’s loss notwithstanding.
WVU plays host to Texas, which has won two in a row and might be getting cozy in life without Cam Ridley. But win at home, which is supposed to happen, and go to Texas Tech Saturday and again ply well on the road and, well, the top 10 is not a safe place this season. I guess it’s silly to assume WVU will simply go unscathed, but if that is the outcome, there’s bound to be some movement in the top 5.
The Mountaineers haven’t been higher than No. 5 — they were there in 2010 — since 1962.
But let’s not go that far back today. Let’s not even go back to 2010. I want to take you to the — the — lowest point I’ve encountered covering WVU basketball.
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The West Virginia football team announced its annual awards Sunday, and it was arresting. Gone are the offensive, defensive and special teams MVP picks. Gone are two of the four just-named team captains and both of the / double checks / Ed Pastilong award winners. (Aside: What fun we could have defining the Ed PAstilong award.) On their way are two team captains and the offensive and defensive scout team MVPs, who I think are the only two players from the scout team I ever mentioned this season — because it was hard to resist all the whispers.
And before you get too caught up on how different things will look next season …
2016 #NFLPABowl head shots are in. Biggest surprise? A clean-shaven @WVUfootball punter @NickOtoole91 #BusinessTrip pic.twitter.com/mMvKPhuQGW
— NFLPA Bowl Game (@NFLPABowl) January 18, 2016
Quite a season so far for Mike Carey, and he hasn’t even put together the mandatory Watch Out! winning streak. But in December, he became the school’s winningest women’s basketball coach. Earlier this month, he welcomed a granddaughter into his life. On Saturday night, he won the 600th game of his men’s and women’s coaching career.
He was positively Carey afterward.
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West Virginia’s basketball team beat No. 1 Kansas last Tuesday and someone handed Jon Holton, and we were all distracted. Well, not all of us, because the rifle team was focused.
After a six-week break that bridged the changing semesters, the three-time defending national champs went out Tuesday, polished their No. 1 ranking, beat No. 5 Alaska-Fairbanks and — oh, that’s right — set an NCAA record for aggregate score.
“It was a special day,” coach Jon Hammond said. “We had a great performance and a lot of super individual efforts, but overall, we had a really good team performance. I think they were really focused on the right things today.“They weren’t focused on the score or the outcome of the match. They were able just go in and work on their performances, and it was an all-around team effort to produce that kind of result.”
I never covered it here, and I was kicking myself. How often are you gonna see an NCAA record, Mike?
Twice, is the answer. At least. WVU did it again Sunday.
“Today was another incredible performance from the team,” coach Jon Hammond noted. “I don’t know if any of us thought that a 4740 score was possible. I am really proud of the team with how hard they have worked and how hard they have focused since they came back from break.“Ultimately, it was another true team performance. We did have some more personal bests, but everyone shot incredibly well. It was a great team effort, and for the team to set a new national record in both air rifle and smallbore is another incredible result.”A trio of Mountaineers set career-high scores in smallbore, with senior Meelis Kiisk (198 kneeling, 200 prone, 192 standing), senior Michael Bamsey (196 kneeling, 199 prone, 193 standing) and freshman William Anti (192 kneeling, 198 prone, 194 kneeling) each shooting a 590, 588 and 584 mark, respectively.“Will (Anti) had an incredible performance in smallbore for a career-high, and Meelis (Kiisk) shot an incredible 590 in smallbore,” Hammond stated. “590 is an incredibly hard score to shoot, but he was inching closer and closer to that mark just like all the others are.”
Fun exercise: Say WVU didn’t win Tuesday. Just lost a home game to the No. 1-ranked team in the country instead. The Mountaineers then go to No. 2 and lose by two points on a tip-in. It’s a very different story right now, is it not? WVU would be 3-2 in the league and 0-3 against teams with a pulse, never mind a number next to their names, and you’d be right to wonder about certain things … though with certain limitations. You’d avoid extremes, I think.
But WVU did win Tuesday and that puts Saturday’s result in a different light, but the Mountaineers are not without their issues. Free-throw shooting finally cost them. The half-court offense waned after halftime. The bench has outscored the starters in each of the past two games, and the starting five scored just 10 baskets in both. Devin Williams has not been up to his standards since the start of conference play, and foul trouble has haunted him. Daxter Miles is over his ankle injury but under a dark cloud, and Bob Huggins cooled Miles off Saturday when the sophomore took some shots the head coach did not like.
I know, I know. It’s the about the nitpickiest assessment, and it feels like whining about the sun at the beach, but revert to the beginning. WVU’s not ludicrously far — ie, one home win against No. 1 — from being in a very different role, so don’t let that one win overshadow the team’s vulnerabilities. In the first three conference games, the Mountaineers didn’t do a lot of elite-level stuff, and that would include press, but they did do a number of very good to great things. The combination was enough, and WVU overwhelmed those teams.
Remember, that was their strength, and that was important. But thanks to a variety of strengths and contributors, the Mountaineers are going to win some of those games, and they’re going to be the better team on many nights.
WVU isn’t going to win a lot of beauty pageants. Rock fights? Sure. The Kansas game was different. Many things came together at the optimal time and the Mountaineers looked good in evening gowns. But in Norman, Okla., WVU was an ordinary rebounding team, an average offensive team, self-endangering with turnovers and fickle with momentum. That combination was enough to do them in — in a game they still nearly won.
I feel like it’s important to close on that, that the Mountaineers still nearly won. They didn’t take down Nos. 1 and 2 in succession, but consider that they’ve gone through two tricky stretches this season — at Virginia Tech, Kansas State and TCU in seven days, vs. Nos. 1 and 2 in five days — and counts one loss. WVU has the look of a top-10 team and has a number of ways to stay there.
But when one or more eludes the Mountaineers, trouble can find them, as was the case Saturday.
You are looking live at the Lloyd Noble Center, site of the latest Big 12 prize fight. They have towels!
I picked up a copy of The Oklahoman this morning. And then I read it. There’s a useful story about Oklahoma’s starting lineup, the core of which will start for the 84th straight time today, but there isn’t a mention of what’s on the line today.
If the Sooners win, they’re No. 1. True, they were kinda sorta No. 1 two weeks ago, when the coaches had them up top and above Kansas and the Associated Press had it the other way around, but that was fleeting and foiled by a loss to the Jayhawks. A triumph today most certainly clinches both top spots.
The last time Oklahoma was No. 1 in the AP was 1990.
Segue!
That’s the last time a team beat two top-two teams in succession, a feat WVU has a chance to match today. It should be noted, though, that the Sooners beat No. 1 in back-to-back games that season.
The Mountaineers can make a case for No. 1 today, and they’ll surely get a bunch of votes if they do indeed prevail. But No. 5 North Carolina and No. 6 Villanova have already won today and No. 7 Xavier is on its way. No. 10 SMU, which has a postseason ban today and isn’t ranked in the coaches’ poll, plays tomorrow at sub-.500 Tulane.
As you may already know, all four of those teams are above WVU in the RPI and have a better strength of schedule rating, but none of them have achieved anything like what the Mountaineers might do, and that could be enough to give the school its first No. 1 ranking since March of 1958.
The focus, as you might expect, is somewhere else.
No team has beaten Nos. 1 and 2 in back-to-back games since Kansas in 1989. A year later, Oklahoma, of all teams, beat No. 1-ranked teams in consecutive contests. The last team to even have a shot at one or the other was Missouri in 1997.
“Honestly,” Huggins reiterated, “I haven’t paid a whole lot of attention. I did my radio show [Thursday] and they had the Michigan State-Iowa game on, and Iowa beat Michigan State, but we spend our time on us. When we don’t have other things to do, we’re watching film more than watching what goes on around the country.”
If nothing else, Huggins confessed a win puts his team in a better position to win the conference — or at least contend for the title deep into the schedule — and that would address the ultimate goal of securing a high seed for the NCAA Tournament.
WVU already has a win against the Jayhawks. A victory today gives the Mountaineers a two-game lead on the Sooners in the standings, and Oklahoma, picked second in the Big 12’s preseason coaches poll, plays at WVU on Feb. 20, three days after playing at Texas Tech. Kansas won at Texas Tech Saturday and couldn’t pull off a win at the Coliseum three days later.
“Obviously, you want to win all of them that you can,” Huggins said. “I just think in this league it’s very difficult to go to Ames [Iowa State] and win. Well, Baylor’s done that. Does that give them an advantage? Probably, in some regard.
“But it’s hard to go to Texas Tech and win, and Kansas has gone to Texas Tech and won. I think at first we were the only one that had a road win, and we had two. Then after the next round of games, a lot of the away teams won.”
We’re all winners today.
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It’s been a volatile week in college basketball. No. 1 Kanas, No. 3 Maryland, No. 4 Michigan State, No. 8 Miami and No. 9 Duke have already lost. No. 5 North Carolina plays North Carolina State tomorrow, No. 6 Villanova is at Georgetown, No. 7 Xavier is at Marquette and No. 10 SMU — college’s lone unbeaten — is at Tulane.
Missing from that top 10? No. 2 Oklahoma, which plays host to No. 11 West Virginia, which on Tuesday became the fourth team to beat a No. 1 this season.
It’s not often a team plays Nos. 1 and 2 in a season, never mind in succession, and the feat of beating both in a row 1is more rare. It hasn’t happened since 1990. I don’t want to say who it was, but I’ll give you a hint: The team’s uniforms were crimson and cream. Yet it’s there for the Mountaineers, who are already a Big 12 contender and can stake a claim for something greater.
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Say hello to new offensive coordinator Joe Wickline! | https://t.co/kVzVYqqrNi #HailWV pic.twitter.com/XOPVwL4NEr
— WVU Football (@WVUfootball) January 14, 2016
Dad’s from Fayetteville, mom’s from Kirk. Joe Wickline will make $425,000 this season and $450,000 next season.
The NCAA’s Division I council voted 7-2 yesterday to deregulate conference championship football games, meaning a league doesn’t need to have at least 12 teams or divisions to conduct one.
(Aside: Dissenters were the American, of course, and the ACC. The latter is interesting, to me at least, because the ACC had been trying to re-work the rules with regard to divisions. You had to pit division winners against one another in a title game, but clearly the Big 12 wouldn’t have divisions with a 10-team league.
The ACC, we believe, then wondered if there might be a way to better enhance its championship game outside of pitting the Atlantic and Coastal division winners against one another. Perhaps it’s nay vote is irrelevant. Perhaps not.)
So, hey, the Big 12 title game is coming back! It’s not? Well, expansion is tabled for now! That’s not necessarily true, either? What gives?
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