Where have the Mountaineers improved, how is life in the Big 12 different this time around and a Jonathan Holton quip at the end!
Also, today’s Scoop & Score podcast is ready to believe you.
Good morning. I’m dusting off some stuff in the Tier 4 Studio this morning, cracking my knuckles and flipping through my thesaurus after a much appreciated fortnight away from the occupation. We’re unfettered and unfiltered through the end of the basketball season now, one that picks up this weekend with the start of Big 12 play.
WVU begins with a tricky double on the road against much improved TCU (9-3) Saturday and Tubby Smith-led Texas Tech (8-5) Monday. The Mountaineers (8-5) need, what, no fewer than 10 wins, some of them noisy, the rest of the way to return to the NCAA Tournament? Or is the NIT a more realistic pursuit?
We’ll cover than and the rest of the Big 12 at 9 a.m. on Scoop & Score with Travis Hines of the Ames Tribune, who’ll also decipher Iowa State’s stunning success so far. And with five nights left in the bowl season, we’ll take a look at the winners and the losers of the first 12 days.
Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which wants to share with you a Christmas story. One time last basketball season, I pulled a Mitch Martin and caught an earlier flight home from a basketball game and didn’t tell my wife. I came home and, much like in Old School, was terrified by what I wound my wife to be doing: She was watching and laughing uproariously to a Madea movie.
I was shook.
Needless to say, I did not join her when she and a friend went to see “A Madea Christmas.” And I was similarly inspired when I found out she’d decorated the Tier 4 studio with the above. It’s so unnerving that I can’t go to work for two weeks, so this is it from me until the WVU v. TCU preview Jan. 3 — and we’re not going to make that joke so many of you want to make right now, OK?
We’ll make it sing around here, though. I’m not leaving the continent this time and I’ll poke around, maybe drop in, possibly do something if the situation calls for it. But, man, two weeks is a long time and the distance makes one sad on the holiday. We’re sort of familial here in that we don’t ever really see one another, we don’t talk in person, we use the computer to communicate, we argue, we have that one relative we can’t stand, but we are who we are and for good or for bad there’s nothing we can do about it.
I propose this: Use the comments to share your holiday stories this year. Photos (you can email them to me), anecdotes, stories, recipes, etc. This way, we’re all sort of together and hanging out, but I can also look at my sister in the thick of some shenanigans, refer to this blog and say “This is not what normal people do…”
Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, aim for the stars.
Mack said:
I looked like a newby. Here was my pregame pointers for my wife, who was new to this game:
– Strongest cheerleader is one of the highlights of the game (didn’t happen)
– Gary Browne is probably the worst shooter on the team (he didn’t miss a shot)
– Eron Harris is the best player on the team (he barely made a shot)
(At least my description of the Marshall fans was spot on. They were making excuses about the refs before the game even started. “We’re going to have to be 20 points better than WVU for the refs to give us a chance.” See guys… no one likes people who claim the refs stole the game from them).
My thoughts on the half court shot: For some reason, WVU’s bench sat out on the floor almost directly underneath the basket (Marshall’s does the same thing). The girl seemed to look up and think “There’s no way I’m making this and there’s a 90% chance I’m going to drill someone from WVU in the face with my errant shot. Screw it, I’m just going to roll the thing toward the basket.” Even if Da’Sean Butler was taking the half court shot, he would’ve been very wary of the WVU entourage being perched so precariously close to the basket.
Difficult to believe you were mistaken, but the Gary Browne Revival is stirring. That’s fooling a lot of people, except Gonzaga. He was a pretty mediocre player last season. He’s a great shooter all of a sudden, he’s not turning it over and lately he’s not fouling. Those were three big weaknesses last season, but things a kid can fix. WVU usually has a nice stretch when Staten and Browne play together. A year ago, you wouldn’t have done that.
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So a little more about that direction WVU’s defense might take next season. Moving Karl Joseph, perhaps the most productive player the past two seasons, from free safety to spur might fix the biggest problem last season, but it sets off a chain reaction at cornerback and free safety.
And that might be a problem that puts this idea on the shelf.
It would behoove you to be good in the secondary in the Big 12, something you need not tell Keith Patterson. Change isn’t always best. But Patterson is scheming as he’s recruiting and he might get to experimenting in the spring. I’m curious, though, where you see this going.
Starting defense for the opener is …?
Live at 9 a.m. with Christmas traditions, coaching carousel with Zach Barnett from FootballScoop.com and some WVU musings.
(Update: The podcast is right here.)
Oh, hey, a recruiting surprise.
I think.
I’ve been deeper into recruiting lately than before — I think WVU is going to re-design its defense through this recruiting class, and tomorrow I explain how and why — and though I knew Mr. Richardson to be a target, I was under the impression it would not happen.
Wisconsin’s loss is WVU’s gain, though, after a persuasive visis.
“They said they’re looking at me for a lockdown corner,” he told EerSports after the trip. “They said they felt like they couldn’t press as much as they wanted to, so they want me to lock down one side of the field. They want me to come in and take that side away.”
“Overall, I had a great visit,” he said. “It was really good there.”
After talking it over with his parents on Tuesday, Richardson decided that being a Mountaineer was the right move for him. According to his coach, Sherard Poteete, the visit – along with the coaching staff – made the difference.
“He fell in love with it during his visit,” said Poteete. “The staff did a great job recruiting him and made him feel at home. You got to tip your hat to the coaches for doing a great job.”
WVU now has two and maybe three cornerbacks coming in who could be able to play right away. Richardson signed today, the first day junior college kids can do so, and he’ll be on hand for spring practice. Jaylon Myers of Hutchinson (Kan.) Community College is committed (as I type this). WVU isn’t bringing in junior college players unless they can play right away. Dravon Henry of Aliquippa (Pa.) High might be good in a Daryl Worley kind of way, too.
That’s three cornerbacks brought in to play cornerback, as opposed to safeties moved to play cornerback, and that might be a sizable difference next season.
If nothing else, Brandon Watkins appeared at a most opportune moment Saturday. Kevin Noreen, he of the air balled layup, was allowed to play just seven minutes. Nathan Adrian, the freshman whose slide continues, played four minutes and favored his sprained ankle.
A decisive double-double in 27 minutes was what West Virginia needed against Marshall.
And it really did come out of nowhere. Watkins hadn’t been playing and had been challenged in practice to prove his worth. Just before the Capital Classic, Watkins started to answer some of the questions asked of him. Then Huggins, admittedly running out of options in a sad first half, asked Watkins to show him something
“It’s really good for us because we can actually say, ‘Oh, we have one other guy to help us,'” Browne said. “Now we need to keep him going and keep on him every day in practice and every time we play a game and say, ‘All right, you already did this once. You can do this again.'”
That’s interesting because Watkins is an interesting piece.
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Texas Bowl representatives attended two WVU games late in the season, presumably scouting the Mountaineers under the assumption a 4-5 team wouldn’t lose out and would find the means to win twice when closing at home against Texas, at Kansas and at home against Iowa State.
That didn’t happen and the Big 12 didn’t have enough bowl eligible teams to satisfy partnerships. That delivered the ACC’s Syracuse — the very reason the Pinstripe Bowl wanted as little to do with WVU as WVU wanted to do with the Pinstripe Bowl — to the Texas Bowl.
Ticket sales are, eh, they’re what you’d expect when you ask fans of and from Minnesota and fans of and from Syracuse to go to Houston two days after Christmas.
Then yesterday happened and Friend of the Program Troy Nunes is an Absolute Magicial did a wonderful thing for Houston area kids.
If you’re truly bummed out about not making a bowl trip and you miss the whimsical meaning of a trip or the pageantry of a bowl, well, not everyone has to feel that way.
Also, Mr. TNIAAM will join me in the final segment of Scoop & Score Thursday morning to discuss this and other Orange, ACC and 2012 Pinstripe matters.
Saturday night was a night of disappointments. The crowd at the Capital Classic again underwhelmed. The WiFi disappeared, which, personal feelings aside, is a shame because there are a ton of people with an interest in one team or both who would like to get intel from the game during or after it and they cannot.
I say this knowing how it makes me look, but the best live, blow-by-blow analysis came from people who were watching on television far, far away from the Civic Center and its one wireless router.
And is it me, or is Bob Huggins pouring water on this game?
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