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

Number crunch

January 27, 2015 by Mike Casazza
rivalslist

That right there is the list of players committed to West Virginia’s 2015 recruiting class following a major weekend with a lot of visitors on campus. (h/t Rivals.com for having the only list I could fit into the blog). That list grew by one when offensive lineman Rob Dowdy, only one of the top prospects in all of Ohio, pledged following his weekend visit. It figures to grow and shrink some more. Khalil Lewis, for example, is looking around. He might sign gold and blue. He might not. Other kids there might get flipped at the last second. WVU might win in the 11th hour and flip some other kids. A few players, running backs and receivers probably most notable among them, will wait until signing day, or darn close, to pick between a final list of schools. And then there’s always a surprise, and Ryan Dorchester wants so badly to fly a B-52 in under the radar.

Let’s not forget, either, that quarterbacks Chris Chugunov and Davis Sills are already enrolled and will sign on signing day, and junior college defensive end Larry Jefferson and junior college cornerback Rasul Douglas have signed letters of intent (Jefferson is already enrolled). They’re not included on that list of 17 players. So WVU is at 21 (ish?) as I type.

Twenty-one is a really healthy number for WVU. And 21 is a potentially problematic number for WVU. Remember, last season was the first time Dana Holgorsen’s program hit its head on the scholarship ceiling. It handed out all 85. True, some were, for lack of a better word, solids to a kid who had put in the work and earned some relief during his senior season, but WVU was close and WVU remains close.

Here’s why…

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A little bit of everything

January 26, 2015 by Mike Casazza

Fun game Saturday at the Coliseum, and one West Virginia labeled a “must-win,” not because the Mountaineers are in a bad place or in any real postseason peril, but mostly because it was a “mustn’t-lose.”

“We have three losses this year and two came at home,” said point guard Juwan Staten, who rebounded from two poor games last week with 18 points and 12 assists against the Horned Frogs. “We really want to win the league and we really want to do something special. You have to win your home games and steal some on the road. We let some games get away here, which is why we had to protect our home from here on out.”

The Mountaineers (16-3, 4-2 Big 12) are now tied for third place in the Big 12 thanks in part to No. 9 Iowa State (14-4, 4-2) losing Saturday at Texas Tech. WVU can make a move toward the top this week when it plays at second-place Kansas State (12-8, 5-2) at 8 p.m. Tuesday on ESPN2 and then plays host to Texas Tech (11-9, 1-6) at noon this Saturday on ESPNU.

WVU dropped to No. 24 in the RPI during its week between games and jumped to No. 17 Sunday. It could have been worse with a loss to the Horned Frogs, who squandered multiple chances to win the game in regulation and overtime, and missed 6 of 12 free throws in the final 8:15 of the game.

“Honestly,” Staten said, “I’m not even thinking about if that happens. I’m glad it happened the way it happened.”

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WVU v. TCU: Round 2, Part I

January 24, 2015 by Mike Casazza
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You are looking live at the Mountaineer Manics TCU edition of the Musings. You’re probably here today because this thing is somehow sold out. If so, or if not, feel free to play along for 40 minutes.

This is also West Virginia’s first rematch in Big 12 play — that it happens against one of the weaker teams in the first half of the conference schedule is something … and that’s something we’ll get to at a later date — but expect TCU will be better today than it was 21 days ago. The Horned Frogs actually handled the Mountaineers press fairly well in the first half before WVU adjusted and did a few things differently and ultimately prevailed.

(Aside: Shield your eyes at times today. TCU can really guard, and WVU presses, but neither team can shoot it and both teams play a brand of defense that puts scoring at a premium. The over/under is 132.5, and if that hits the over, it’s because of WVU turning over the Horned Frogs a lot, you’d have to think. There’s a see saw to monitor between the week off being good for restoring shooting and inviting rust.)

But Trent Johnson is no dummy — coach of the year in three separate conferences — and he has guys this season who enable him to do more things he believes he can and wants to do. There will be some changes on both sides, subtle and not so, because teams scout and self-scout, and the deeper one team gets into a season the more awareness it has of itself and the opposition thanks to a more broad body of work.

In short, this is when things start to get really interesting and when a team is really tested.

This is also the time of the season the past few years when we’ve asked Bob Huggins and the coach has talked to his players about what the Mountaineers have to do to get into the NCAA tournament. Really, ever since the Final Four team, the story line late in the season — or in the case of two seasons ago, before it fell apart — was how many wins the team needed, where those wins had to come on the schedule and where losses absolutely could not occur.

This is not that. Barring something completely unforeseen, the Mountaineers will be back in the NCAA tournament this season — and they know that.

“It’s on the board,” Huggins said. “They walk in every day it’s on the board. The RPI, everyone’s RPI that we’ve played, what the RPI is for everyone we’re going to play. So they know. They know what’s at stake. They know what’s coming. They understand we go to Texas and lose, we go from 13 to 22.

“That’s not saying RPI is everything. I think it’s the most tangible thing we can do to make them understand.”

Huggins, who puts his hands on strength of schedule, too, said the board has been on display since the first game of the season, and the numbers started floating and the players started following them immediately upon surviving Monmouth (remember that?).

But there’s something new to this group about sort of knowing it’s in, and I think that’ll be interesting to follow. Remember, WVU made a push last season and knew it was driving toward the tournament and it used that as motivation. Then it went south and I think the letdown knowing the tournament was slipping away was too tall for them to reach out and grab and control again.

These guys aren’t talking about how many wins they need to get in and who they have to beat.

“There have been a lot of years we’ve talked about seeding,” Huggins said. “We talked about seeding in 2010. I thought really after we won the Big East tournament we’d be a 1-seed. I thing we ended up being the last 2.”

True, which seems absurd now as it did then, but WVU is having conversations and taking aim higher than merely making the tournament.

“The older guys understand,” Huggins said. “If after three games or whatever you look and see where the RPI is, and you hear them saying, ‘We need to do this to get the RPI down,’ it helps.”

Help me help you in the live post.

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Friday Feedback

January 23, 2015 by Mike Casazza

Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which, sorry to report, isn’t going to get into that story about the four players. I wrote a couple paragraphs about it, and they say all that needs to be said. Cited, possession, pre-trial diversion, charges dismissed. This is not to say it doesn’t matter. It’s four on-scholarship players who strayed from the responsibility that comes with privilege. I know that, you know that and I’m pretty sure they know that and will be reminded of that quite often in the near and distant future.

It’s news. I don’t think it’s headline news. I don’t think it’s something you bury, either. But there have been worse — far worse — things to happen to that roster this season and they got the coverage they deserved. I think this will, too.

So let’s move on…and perhaps we can even tie that to this. The four-year scholarship deal isn’t getting a lot of play even though student-athletes are now guaranteed a scholarship as long as they choose to stay at their school of choice for four/five years. (In case you didn’t know, the old scholarship model was a series of one-year pacts … and some places made their numbers, be they 13 or 85 scholarships, work by deciding not to renew replaceable players. No more. WVU wasn’t really for or against the idea that passed last week, but the Mountaineers didn’t see the need for it, either.

“It’s not a dramatic change in the sense that we have not taken anybody’s aid away since Dana’s been here based on athletic performance,” WVU’s Ryan Dorchester said. “I don’t think anybody would dispute that. It’s not a huge change from our perspective. I guess it gives a kid a little more security when it comes to the long term, but it’s still the same deal for us.

“If you’re academically ineligible or if you do something unlawful, those are situations where you can be removed from the team and your aid can be terminated. But for athletic or performance reasons, we haven’t done that. I think it’s important and I think it’s good, but for us, it was kind of like that anyways — just not on paper, which it is now. I guess maybe it’s kind of like Office Space. You just fix the glitch.”

The NCAA has been glitch fixing for a while now, and, since we’re in the season, we’ve long thought many of these student-athlete welfare initiatives would become recruiting tactics. Your stipends for cost of attendance will vary and thus be used as leverage. Further down the road, the you might see sports eliminated or the support dwindle noticeably, and some coach at some more affluent school will get in a recruit’s ear and whisper. Some leagues were going to offer multi-year full rides, and that would have been important to those programs, but that’s going to be the norm moving forward. Some of the other permissive legislation — like medical insurance, later education, etc. — will be used similarly.

This is the first signing day since the deregulation of eating and all the possibilities we thought that would provide.

Reality? The players on campus like it, and the ease of access is a major convenience. Walk-ons treasure the availability, to say nothing of being treated more like scholarship players now than ever before. The recruits? Hardly a factor at all, Dorchester said, when it comes to comparing one school’s training table to another and using that in the decision-making process.

“I would think we’d be pretty turned off if that was a big deal,” he said.

WELP! Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, have a code.

Rugger said:

Somewhere along the line Holton was conditioned to believe that pouting will get you out of a tough time. He’ll need to unlearn that before he can move forward. He’s clearly got the physical skills but he acts like Eron at 12.

With respect to Adrian, it seems that many of Huggs’ players develop confidence issues, perhaps from knowing they will get yanked at the first mistake. I’m not questioning Huggs’ methodologies, just an observation.

What happened to BillyD? Leprosy? Alien abduction? Extended Winter Break? Saving him for post-season?

Yeah, that Eron Harris comparison has merit. Holton carries fouls and misses and no-calls with him the same way … but I think he tries and wants more than Harris. That might be part of the problem, too. Every one of his teammates I’ve talked to said Holton wants to do something good so badly that he worries he’s letting everyone around him down when he doesn’t. More than anyone else on the team, he needs positive reinforcement because he sinks faster than anyone else. As for Adrian, I don’t know what to make of all of it except to say it’s a season-long slump with one 11-point deviation … when he was very good. But I watch him and I don’t see issues with effort or mental wherewithal. Confidence? Sure. But even when he’s not scoring, he’s trying to guard and defend and do something positive. Those things just aren’t happening. BillyDee has had problems acquiescing, so to speak. WVU really needs a scoring wing, no? 

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“…like trying to play chess outside a bee hive.”

January 22, 2015 by Mike Casazza

Damn. That’s no pinata, but that’s a good way to describe West Virginia’s press.

So is the rest of this story, one with a background tale and some deep statistics that combine to explain why the Mountaineers do what they do and why they are so successful at it.

“We tell our guys to take the ball out of the hands of the playmakers and let the guys who are not used to making plays make those guys handle the ball,” Harrison says.

Figuring out a pattern to when they’re going to trap, however, is almost impossible. They vary the kind of pressure to throw teams off. Sometimes they play full-court man-to-man. Sometimes they’ll employ a zone press.

The end result is most teams get sped up and don’t run their typical sets. The average possession for West Virginia opponents this season is 14.7 seconds, the shortest in the NCAA, according to kenpom.com.

“They do a great job of keeping you from running offense,” Oklahoma coach Lon Kruger said.

The turnovers have led to so many easy baskets that West Virginia is a competent offensive team, despite poor shooting.

The poor shooting is why Huggins wants to make sure his team gets more shots than his opponent.

It makes sense for a roster that oozes athleticism and quickness but isn’t overly skilled. Point guard Juwan Staten is the only top-50 recruit, according to Rivals.com, coming out of high school.

Sign me up

by Mike Casazza

We’ve been busy tracking changes within the NCAA the past several days, from the historic vote authorizing total cost of attendance and four-year scholarships — historic because of what happened, but also because student-athletes were represented in the process — to an apparent leaning toward an early signing period in college football.

Seems like we’ve been discussing and debating this for a long, long time now, but given the climate and how people are not only willing to change, but actively changing the rules to better accommodate the sport and its participants, this seems more likely than not. Now, this is not to say there are no opponents, because there are some. Stanford’s David Shaw is not “alone,” as he professed, and he draws up some valid talking points about the motivation for the rule as well as the way student-athletes can skirt the issue.

That said, he’s outnumbered and the 32 Division I conference commissioners will act on a recommendation made at last week’s NCAA meetings to usher in a Dec. 16 date. Some conferences had proposed earlier dates, but this one gained and maintained the most traction, and for good reason.

West Virginia, which supports the total cost of attendance as well as the four-year scholarship, even if the latter doesn’t seem like a big change from the program’s normal practice, is also in favor of the pre-Christmas date, as well as one other change.

Say a school plans to sign 25 players and 15 sign in the early period. Rather than spend the period between the end of the regular season and signing day working to keep all 25 in line, coaches instead worry about 10 — and truth be told, they can probably afford to look around a little more for kids who are wavering elsewhere or suddenly available.

But that’s a lot less traveling for coaches. It’s fewer days of seeing one prospect in the morning in Charlotte, one in the afternoon in Atlanta and one in the evening in Broward County. If the recruit in North Carolina and Florida signed in December, then the work that day goes to the player in Atlanta, but also to the future.

“I think some schools will save money, which matters, but it’s not like people won’t go out and recruit,” Dorchester said. “But coaches are not going to want to get on planes if they don’t have to. If they go on a home visit with a kid you’re targeting and the kid’s a senior, maybe you spend that night with him and spend the morning checking in on a bunch of juniors in the area.”

With that in mind, there’s a small change that ought to accompany the large one. The spring evaluation period lets coaches visit a school, check on grades, watch a track meet or a spring football practice and not much else. There can be no contact. Dorchester believes the evaluation period could be redefined.

“I think that could be changed to where you can have contact with rising juniors at that time,” Dorchester said. “It could be something as simple as, ‘Hey, you can talk to underclassmen just on campus.’ I think that would be good and I think that would be something coaches would welcome.”

Iowa State beat Kansas State …

January 21, 2015 by Mike Casazza

… and Bob Huggins was impressed by the another Big 12 battle. (Aside: Jameel McKay…)

I will now welcome your translations. I do know Huggins really likes Fred Hoiberg and the Mayor respects Huggins and all he’s done, so there’s nothing there to suggest this is an extension of the rivalry between these two teams. I think it’s great.

Meanwhile, the Cyclones, who needed circumstance to prompt them to throw a junk defense at WVU and won by a bucket, have now beaten 10-time defending league champion Kansas and then-first place Kansas State in the past five days. They’re 4-1 in the Big 12 with wins by 2, 2, 5 and 6 points and a loss by 1.

That’s how you’re going to win this league. Close games, escapes, survival in spite of the occasional blip (which might be a blowout).

Remember when you thought K-State was a gimme or two? Forget that. You know about Marcus Foster, but have you seen what statistical anomaly/grizzly bear Thomas Gipson is up to this season?

This is nuts. You’ve got people engaged in thoughtful conversations based on a seemingly crazy question: Is the Big 12 the best conference … ever?

“It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever been in,” said West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, who came to the Big 12 after helping guide the Mountaineers through annual Big East grinders. “You’ve got 10 really quality coaches and 10 teams who are obviously very good. In most leagues, you have an upper level and a lower level, and say we hope we can get these guys down here.”

That hasn’t been the case in the Big 12, which has six teams in the top 25 and if the season ended today, would have an excellent chance of sending eight of its 10 teams to the NCAA Tournament.

There are a million different metrics to measure the strength of a conference. If the season ended today, the Big 12 likely wouldn’t have a team boasting a top-two seed in any of the four brackets. Does that mean the 2009 Big East, with three No. 1 seeds, has a case as the better league?

What about the ACC back in 2004? Six of its nine teams went to the NCAA Tournament. That’s 67 percent. The Big 12 would need seven teams to make the tournament to top that percentage.

Additionally, all nine teams were inside KenPom.com’s top 100 that season. He gave it his unofficial nod as the best conference of all time, but where does the Big 12 belong?

Today, the Big 12 has seven teams in the top 24 of Pomeroy’s ranking (it is updated at least daily). TCU (No. 51), Kansas State (No. 85) and Texas Tech (No. 191) are the Big 12’s only teams outside the top 25.

“It’s one of the best conferences in the past 10 years,” Pomeroy said. “It’s hard to say it’s the best, but it’s in the top three or four.”

Coming attraction?

January 20, 2015 by Mike Casazza

Devin Williams said a lot after Saturday night’s loss, although it was only him and Gary Browne before Bob Huggins. Browne would have rather been about a hundred different places, and he was as disappointed in the defeat as he was determined not to let it happen again. Williams, though, was a little different.

I think if you ask the people covering the team, he’s a/the favorite to talk to. He’s honest. He’s not emotional. When he does dip into a cliche, it has purpose and a place. In short, his quotes have high utility, and his Texas postmortem was no different. WVU got a “collective ass whipping” that felt like “walking down the same road, man.” His coach, of course, had a slightly different take, not believing this year is like last year, and Browne was just mad enough to vow to make sure 77-50 wouldn’t happen again without ever getting into the history of the matchup and whatever frustrations may be attached to it.

Anyhow, Williams said something else without much other prompting that, on the surface, seems plausible if not realistic.

In its last six halves of basketball, each played against a ranked Big 12 team, No. 18 West Virginia has shot 36.1, 28.1, 40, 50, 28 and 20.7 percent from the floor.

Take a guess what three halves saw the Mountaineers staring at a 2-3 zone.

“I guess now we know what everyone’s going to be doing to us,” forward Devin Williams said after No. 17 Texas played its 2-3 for 40 minutes of a 77-50 win Saturday. “Eventually we have to figure it out or it might be the same result.”

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It’s Kevin White’s time

by Mike Casazza

Stop me if you’ve heard this before, but a WVU draft prospect has decided not to participate in this week’s Senior Bowl. Kevin White, who initially accepted an invitation, thought better of it, and that started to stimulate some Geno Smith parallels from two years ago.

This feels far different, though. Geno was arguably the top QB prospect in a draft that wasn’t particularly talent-laden on the QB side, so he was going to be probed and skewered. And though from start to finish he was projected to be anywhere from the No. 1 overall pick to an early second-round pick, he was never clearly one or the other and the most logical thought was a week-long audition at the Senior Bowl be good to him and for him. Even the No. 1 projections were based on him lighting up tests and combines and the like and the Chiefs sinking their future in him or hoping someone would trade for the opportunity to do so. Either way, Geno needed to do some convincing.

Then again, very rarely are the top picks subjecting themselves (read: stooping to) that exposure because they are thought to be, or think they are, better than in need of a stage to prove themselves. And we later found out skipping the Senior Bowl was at least bad advice and at most a source of conflict in his original camp.

White, it seems, is at best the top receiver  in a very good though not elite crop of prospects at his position and at worst a middle to late first-round pick. I haven’t seen him projected outside the first round, but I don’t know what mock draft to trust, especially before the Senior Bowl gets into action and opinions take root and grow.

Still, at the infancy of the process, you can tell opinions at the baseline vary — here’s one, and here’s one, and here’s one, and here’s one, and here’s one and here’s one — but that there’s a general theme: People like him. Every one of those teams has had eyes on White this season, some less often than others, some more excitedly than others.

And here’s the point, as well as the explanation for the title. Everything White did before merely got him to this favorable position, and he has much to do to push himself up or keep himself from sliding down. He’s out of sight this week, and if you look at the Senior Bowl rosters, perhaps you understand why: None of the 15 receivers are mentioned alongside White and his projections.

It would then stand to reason none are able to jump to a level where they could threaten White, though White now has to make sure he stands tall if they do, or that he won’t dip to their level.

Benny Reed gets his shot

by Mike Casazza

American Sniper is in the news for good and bad reasons, be they the award nominations and the reviews or the public reception and also the reviews, but let’s stand here and distance ourselves from all that. We do sports and WVU sports.

The actor who plays Bradley Cooper’s father also played quarterback for the Mountaineers.

“At the beginning of the film he’s beginning to shoot his first insurgent and he starts having flashbacks,” said Reed recently from his home in San Diego. “My role is to let the audience know how Chris Kyle came to be the man he is, how he got his values, his discipline and his work ethic.
“You see us deer hunting at the beginning and you see how he becomes such a good shooter because (his father) taught him how to shoot,” said Reed. “In the movie, you will see my character say, ‘You’ve got quite a gift.’ He’s got a natural gift anyway, but (his father) is training him to be a deer hunter.”
Another key scene in helping the audience better understand Kyle is a dinner discussion Wayne Kyle has with his young son explaining the three different types of people in the world, as he sees it.
“There are sheep, there are wolves and there are sheep dogs,” Reed, as Wayne Kyle, explained. “You are not going to be a sheep because they are followers and they can’t protect themselves. I’ll kick your %$# if you become a wolf because they prey on the weak and my character is trying to instill in him to become a sheep dog because they protect the flock and look out for others.”
Reed said playing Kyle’s father was easy to do because he had similar experiences while growing up in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
“There is a church scene and my character is a Deacon in the church and you are hearing a sermon,” said Reed. “You see the fire and brimstone type of service he listened to as a child – and I did too because I grew up in Oklahoma and it was a Baptist church I went to so it was kind of fire and brimstone also.”