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

Filling in some blanks

March 4, 2013 by Mike Casazza

I think we thought the three single games were givens as part of contracts. I think we can make sense of WVU’s non-conference schedule, too.

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History!

by Mike Casazza

“I’ve been embarrassed since the first game,” Huggins said, referring to the 34-point loss at Gonzaga, the worst loss in his career. “Go back and look. I don’t get beat like that. My guys played so hard and competed so hard that whenever we got beat, we never got beat like that. Ever.”

I went back and looked. It’s not good. This team does and is doing things a Bob Huggins team hasn’t done.

‘I don’t even remember the first half’

March 2, 2013 by Mike Casazza

The words of Eron Harris are a shame, because the above happened before the first half and served as the Kansas introduction, and also telling. So bad was the second half that the Mountaineers were lowered to overlook a first half that wasn’t all that in the first place.

WVU introduced itself to 16,300 inside the Allen Fieldhouse with a forgettable performance.

“There’s always something you can do to stop a run,” Harris said. “But can you do it? Can you, as a team, come together and get the stops you need? To this point, we’ve proved we can’t.”

WVU v. Kansas: Heed will be paid

by Mike Casazza

You are not looking live inside Allen Fieldhouse, affectionately known as the Phog in honor of Forrest Allen, who was affectionately known as Phog. That and the Father of Basketball Coaching. The latter didn’t have quite the appeal.

Welcome to the Father of Basketball Coaching Fieldhouse!

Allen hung up three of those five banners. And, hey, to those who dare follow him, no pressure. He’s just the Father of Basketball Coaching. Anything short of reinventing the game is just a touch underwhelming.

The tradition he initiated and a long list of coaches, players and teams have enhanced is sprinkled all over this place. Every walk, be it to a restroom or a concession stand or the parking lot, features some reminder of what basketball is for this place … and what Kansas is for basketball.

Just a neat place with a great vibe, wonderful fans and very good teams. In short, the Phog has been sold out for 195 straight games — and we’re talking about 16,300 seats. The Jayhawks had a 33-game home winning streak snapped against Oklahoma State in January, but retains a 65-game non-conference winning streak. We could go on and on, but the point is that this is a great place to play and a tough place to play because the teams have been so good through the years.

Hats off to all of them.

That’s what they’re handing out to fans today. T-shirts are lame, folks.

And as for the rest of the day …

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And now Robert Gillespie’s eyes wander

March 1, 2013 by Mike Casazza

(Done deal. Gillespie to Tennessee.)

It’s March 1, four days from Dana Holgorsen pre-spring football luncheon and nine days before spring practice, and WVU’s head football coach might lose a fifth assistant coach here soon.

Following the departures of Steve Dunlap (still at the university, by the way) and Daron Roberts by Holgorsen’s designs and Jake Spavital and Bill Bedenbaugh by the desires of another school, Holgorsen may soon see Robert Gillespie whistle Dixie down to Knoxville and the University Tennessee.

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Friday Feedback

by Mike Casazza

Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which needs scuba gear as it continues to ponder the depths of WVU’s sinking season. I know and have come to accept that many of you have finalized WVU’s season, while others maintain hope for more games and continued development in some sort of postseason bid.

I, on the third hand, am water, flowing right along with this, which is to say WVU’s fortunes look exceedingly bleak. At two games under .500 now, the Mountaineers need to win out to enter the Big 12 Tournament above .500. Once there, a win has to follow to guarantee an above-.500 finish — and that’s probably a necessity for the NIT because of the recent history of NIT selections.

That said, three straight wins, to match the season’s longest winning streak, on the road against Kansas and Oklahoma and then home against Iowa State. seems like a long shot. By now you should know the Mountaineers are not adept at long shots.

So, CBI you say. The more people I talk to, the more I believe WVU won’t pursue that. So you’ve got at least four and maybe five games left this season before what I think will be a few changes.

But that’s still down the road a piece and deprives Deniz Kilicli and Matt Humphrey and Dom Rutledge their finality, to say nothing of the players who might also leave as well — and I’m not being cryptic, but I think we’re being foolish to have watched the past three or four games and believe every underclassman is coming back, or will be brought back, next season.

And say what you will about some players, but a few of these Mountaineers are still trying.

It’s personnel and philosophy. Huggins ditched “pouters” Wednesday and introduced yet another version of offense. We saw screens and handoffs and presentation that put the Baylor defense in conflict. On the whole, it worked, particularly for Eron Harris. It might have been a winning idea if WVU could make shots, of which they had plenty.

It was all a ploy to weaken the common defense against the Mountaineers and they’ll need that again tomorrow at Kansas and Jeff Withey.

“We tried to get our bigs away from the rim,” guard Juwan Staten said. “When we post our bigs, teams tend to sink their bigs down in there. When we’re running motion, their bigs tend to slack off our bigs and sit in the paint.

“We tried to get a lot of movement and involve their bigs in a lot of pick-and-rolls, a lot of dribble handoffs to get them away from the rim. We got some movement and got some dribble-drives and open shots.”

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, keep kicking. (Special thanks to SPD for ruling that one accidental.)

WVU79 said:

Huggins was asked a question (that he didn’t really answer) about if he had anyone who could make a play off the dribble. After watching this team for most of the season, I haven’t seen anyone that has that offensive talent. How in the world can other teams find these type of players and WVU can’t?
With the current roster of such poor shooters, low basketball IQ, and generally bad overall play; the other teams in the B12 have to be confident that no matter how the 1st half goes, they are never in danger of losing the game.
The 2012-13 team will be remembered as the greatest example of how not to play basketball. The future is not bright if WVU doesn’t somehow find some players that can shoot and dish the ball in an effective manner.
In addition, as others have posted in previous threads Huggins must curb his outbursts. This has got to be used against him in recruiting circles. Based on this year’s team, the opponents are winning the better players and leaving the coffee grounds for Huggins.

Harris has flashed that ability, but no one suspected he’d be the leading scorer this season. Staten can score off the bounce a little bit, but he hasn’t been consistently available. Hinds can definitely score off the bounce, but he hasn’t advanced much as a player. There are no easy scores on the roster, which is what makes you believe there will be changes to that roster.

Rugger said:

Coffee Grounds have filed a defamation suit.

Moving on.

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‘Taking a shot you can’t make isn’t helping any’

February 28, 2013 by Mike Casazza

That’s the story according to Juwan Staten, he of Wednesday night’s last-second 3-point attempt that was blocked by a 6-foot-2 opponent, he of the two-plus years without a 3-point basket.

And that’s the story of WVU’s season to date, one that now has six losses by five or fewer points and as many losses when leading by nine or more points.

“We got caught in a hole,” Noreen said. “They switched it. I set a high screen probably a couple steps inside halfcourt and they covered it. Some said (Staten) should have gone to the basket. Some said I should have re-screened so they’d switch back and maybe I could pop open for a 3, but we didn’t do either and we got stuck with a bad shot.”

Guess who’s back!

by Mike Casazza

You remember Richard from Michigan, yes? Well, he’s back with more for Greg Hunter and, for some reason I’ve yet to explain, for me. Do enjoy all three pages right here.

… then there’s this WVU v. Baylor game to discuss

by Mike Casazza

Quietly and without the attention here that it deserves, Mike Carey is up to his old tricks. His women’s team has adapted to and overcome injury to play at a high level and likely earn inclusion in the NCAA Tournament. All this during that transition season in the Big 12 that’s had the same variables the men have had to deal with at the same time.

The Mountaineers guard like crazy, when at their best, and have put themselves in good position by playing really nicely away from home. At home? That’s another story.

I just can’t wait to see the selection show when they’re the No. 10 seed in College Park with a second-round date against Maryland.

But before that, WVU gets to play host Saturday to Baylor and Ms. Griner, indisputably one of the most dynamic forces the game as seen. What, Mike Carey worry?

“She might set an NCAA record, most blocks ever during the game. I don’t care. We’re taking it to her,” Carey promised. “We’re just hoping somebody will call a foul … at least a couple. So we’re not going to back down. We’re going to attack. She’s the best player in the country; they’re the best team. We’re going to come out and play hard, there’s no doubt in my mind.”

WVU v. Baylor: Here we go again

February 27, 2013 by Mike Casazza

So that happened just about one basketball year ago. Up by 11 points at halftime against a top-10 team benching three starters for the first half and then up 15 in the second half at home before a sellout crowd, WU lost to Marquette before Bob Huggins went deep in the postgame.

Remember that? Remember how eye-opening that was? We’d never seen something quite like it. It made us ask questions about how far a coach can go, whether for motivation or out of desperation.

Well, it’s happened on some scale, what, five or six or 10 times this season and as recently as Saturday. What’s striking is not that we have back-to-back seasons with the same rhetoric as much as it is that we have back-to-back seasons with the things that inspire such rhetoric.

Following that loss a year ago — by the way, read that and tell me it didn’t happen this year — Huggins said, among so many things:

“What I feel like is going in there for three hours and just running the absolute you-know-what out of them and making them stand there and take charges and making them dive on the floor, but you can’t do it this time of the year,” Huggins said. “I didn’t do it because everyone says, ‘Well, they’re freshmen.’ Well, they’re freshmen that don’t win. That’s what they are.”

Following Saturday’s loss, Huggins said, among so many things:

“We can’t run a set because I have guys who have been here – and this is year two – and don’t know what they’re doing,” said Coach Bob Huggins, who recruited the players and vowed to fix it after the season. “It’s totally inexcusable. They don’t have any idea what they’re doing.

“I can’t call a set unless I have certain guys on floor who know what they’re doing. I can’t make substitutions, I can’t run a set because we’re going to have one guy standing somewhere he’s not supposed to stand and screw everything up. I can’t run a set after timeouts. It’s inexcusable, totally inexcusable.”

We were one Travis Ford dance to the broadcast table away from undeniable deja vu.

And yet here we are tonight, late in a season producing games desperate for a defining quality, with something almost as obtuse. There’s a little bit of meaning up for grabs.

If the Mountaineers win tonight, they’re tied with Baylor for sixth place in the Big 12 Conference standings. WVU, of course, was predicted to finish in sixth in the preseason coaches poll.

More importantly — and there’s dual significance here — is that a top-six finish keeps a team from playing on the first day of the Big 12 Tournament. The No. 6 seed would play a second-day game against the No. 3 seed.

That’s neat, right? Shortens the path to the Big 12 title! Three wins instead of four, which would be serendipity for a team that hasn’t won more than three in a row all season.

Then again, a top-six finish removes the likelihood of a first-day win against one of the bottom-four teams. And wins are paramount for the Mountaineers in order to get to NIT eligibility. The Mountaineers are, in practicality, better off going 1-1 with a win against, say, TCU and a loss to Kansas than they are going 0-1 with a loss against Oklahoma State. True, WVU has to go to the tournament above .500, but you get my point.

Now, is top-six realistic? Well, Baylor has lost three in a row after beating WVU and really, really needs this game if it is to entertain any chance of a NCAA bid. We live in a world where losing to WVU in the Coliseum is a “bad loss.”

The Bears then play host to Kansas State, play at Texas and play host to Kansas. That’s not simple. WVU follows with back-to-back road games (!) against Kansas and Oklahoma before closing out at home against Iowa State. Teams playing back-to-back road games in Big 12 play are 13-19.

Someone’s going to win this one first. Let’s see who …

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