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

And here’s what Bob Huggins has nightmares about

February 27, 2012 by Mike Casazza

His defense, which is to say, his identity, ranks 15th in the 16-team Big East Conference. Fifteenth! Only DePaul is worse, and that’s a little surprising, too, because the Blue Demons should have talent and Oliver Purnell was long regarded as a pretty good defensive coach.

Anyhow, those two teams play one another tomorrow night and DePaul is allowing more than 76 points per game, which means we could see 200 points and 12 missed shots.

Then again …

Continue reading…

Here’s what tackles and QBs have nightmares about

by Mike Casazza

For a projected 3-4 outside linebacker, hell, for a receiver, 4.43 seconds in the 40-yard dash is immense. Looks like Mr. Irvin has shaken up the projections early on today.

Bob Huggins undoes that top button, undresses team

February 25, 2012 by Mike Casazza

And there you have it, the manifestation of frustrations you were destined to witness if you covered Friday’s brutal West Virginia loss to No. 10 Marquette.

The second half produced a collapse that, while not really unfamiliar and definitely not unexpected, nevertheless sent Bob Huggins one giant leap closer to the ledge — and he’s been gaining ground for a while now.

Analytically, bluntly, calmly, derisively — I can go through the alphabet here … I’ve even got one for X … “xerophytically” — Huggins described the mounting frustrations in his 10-minute mostly-monologue with the team. One 3 minute, 53 second extrapolation will be explored below.

If you’re worried about how this might be digested by the freshmen, know that 1) Huggins is beyond caring now 2) some of those freshmen aren’t guaranteed to be coming back. Pretty sure there can be no questioning either condition after watching and listening to him.

Huggins called a player a coward. He vowed not to get into basketball socialism. He picked on players who watch and vowed to rid the team of players who cannot play. He aimed at Deniz Kilicli and Aaron Brown. He started slowly and with both reason and patience, but then got going when he’d finally pushed the boulder to the top of the mountain.

Justin Jackson: “Coach, with these young guys defensively –“

Bob Huggins: “They suck.”

Jackson: “Has that been the hardest transition for them?”

Huggins: “The hardest transition, Justin, is that you have to play every play. You can’t take plays off. You can’t stand and stare at the ball. I mean, the reality is there’s a whole bunch of them that we ought to take the price the season tickets out of their scholarship because they’ve stood and watched the whole near. They never participated. They’ve never …

“I’ve been doing this 30 years, man. People who have seen my teams play, we never got outmanned the way we got outmanned today. We’ve never been outmanned. We’ve never — we don’t get to loose balls. We have a situation where we throw the ball away, which we do a lot, so we ought to have a lot of practice at it. They’re going down and one of our guys  — you know, I don’t know really what happened because I’m looking to make sure that we got guys following the play and that, you know, somebody doesn’t grab the ball that’s not supposed to grab the ball and take it out of bounds against the press — and we had a guy just stop, man. He’s the one who threw it away. He stops. And they run by us and miss the layup and they tip it in. I’ve never had that.

“I’ve never had a guy get out of the way and not take a charge. I’ve never had that. I don’t get it, man. I just don’t. I despise cowards. I despise cowards. Somebody who, somebody who has an opportunity to play at the highest level of major college basketball who’s afraid to step in front of a guy and take a charge? I mean, that’s, to me, that’s just, I can’t, I can’t fathom that. I can’t fathom accepting a scholarship and not, and not compete.

“I told them on the radio this is as frustrated as I’ve been since my first year at Walsh College, when I went home and asked my wife, ‘Do you think I can sell insurance? Because I can’t do this.’ I can’t lose like this. It just eats me up. I can’t do it. And these guys seemingly, it doesn’t seem to bother them much.

“And, you know, we end up short on numbers, you know. Now you’re trying to survive, you’re trying to win, you know, enough games that, you know, K.J. gets to finish his career the way he should, because what I feel like is going in there for three hours and just running the absolute you-kn0w-what out of them and make them stand there and take charges and make them dive on the floor, but you can’t do it this time of the year.

“I didn’t do it because everyone said, ‘Well, they’re freshmen.’ Well, they’re freshmen that don’t win. That’s what they are.”

Video credit to the BlueGoldNews.com folks. I didn’t like the quality of my audio enough and it lacked the visual element. Watching the words really adds to this. Thanks, BGN.

WVU v. Marquette: Adios, seniors

February 24, 2012 by Mike Casazza

There’s your cover of tonight’s program and, sheesh, I’m feeling old. KJ and Truck play the first of their final two (regular season) home games tonight. I can remember trying to track down High School Senior Truck through his Rice coach like it was yesterday. I remember getting bombarded by Money Earnin’ folks telling me to buy what KJ was selling. And this is it. I’m always a fan of senior night ovations. Those ought to be good.

Continue reading…

Friday Feedback

by Mike Casazza

Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which has been guarding screens since 2007. It seems what I was going to use for the intro today is actually what everyone wants to discuss in greater depth. Bob Huggins has had, once again, some interesting stuff to say about his team and two things seems to be getting the most run:

“We’ve got two guys playing point guard who have never played point guard in their lives. Some days they’re OK. Other days they’re not OK.”

… and …

“We’re probably the most non-athletic team in the league.”

We’re going to get into greater detail and I risk circling back to the same series of explanations and defenses, so I’ll just lay out a few things here.

– If you ask, “Well, who recruited those non-athletic guys?” I think we all know the answer, and that includes Huggins. He knows where the buck stops. He says it without saying it. I think we can agree on one thing: Huggins is never cryptic.

– He’s saying the same things to his players, so it’s not double-talk.

– Don’t make too much of the “never played point guard” stuff. It’s like having a high school running back play slot receiver in college. The way Huggins uses his guards, the difference between a PG and a SG is minimal. And in college, Hinds and Browne would not be SGs. Huggins likes guards who can get at the rim and get easy baskets and a high school SG like Hinds can do that as a college PG.

This is not an apologist movement. There are problems we’ve seen for a while — ” … we went to St. John’s and it was the most uninspired I’ve ever seen a team play in my life,” Huggins said. “It’s been all downhill from there.” — and we can talk about all of them, but WVU still isn’t in a completely desolate position.

Wednesday was a bad night. Maybe just a bad half. If you continue to pursue the sunny disposition, Notre Dame isn’t a good matchup for WVU, especially at home. I can’t stand the “If the season ended today …” line because the season does not end today. If the season ended Jan. 21, WVU would have had a double-bye in the Big East Tournament and been a 5-seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Plus, things can change very fast with a win tonight. The game is sold out. It’s a 9 p.m. start, when the Coliseum is always frisky, and the people seem to genuinely dislike sleepless Buzz Williams. Could be a good one, except — and this is when the rain comes on the parade — Marquette is a bad, bad matchup for the Mountaineers.

The Golden Eagles have a bunch of different parts and lineups and Williams makes the most of them all. They move the ball well and play really well off the bounce, two issues for WVU and its overaggressive, underperforming defense. Worse yet Marquette plays harder than anyone in the league and WVU looked gassed Wednesday night. Hey, who wants to have some fun?

Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, act like you belong.

jtmountaineer said:

It says a lot about where we are in the season that my biggest wish, slightly above making the tournament, is for KJ to get 20 and 10 the rest of the way and secure BEPotY. I’d like him not to be a victim of the team’s downturn.

Yeah, that would be sad because I have no reservations saying he’s been the player of the year, but I know it’s tied to a team’s success, too. How closely? I don’t know. I’d say the runner-up is Marquette’s Darius Johnson-Odom, who is second in scoring and one of the best 3-point shooters in the league. He also plays for the second-place team that has won four straight and 11 of 12. See where I’m going?

Continue reading…

There’s something about Notre Dame losses

February 23, 2012 by Mike Casazza

Nothing about last night’s loss rested well with Bob Huggins and his players — but especially Huggins.

A line of losses and common elements taking a toll, he was in the locker room for about half an hour after the game and visibly spent once he emerged. What did he say? Sometimes you don’t ask because it’s private and the locker room is a sanctuary.

Other times, you don’t ask because you know.

Continue reading…

WVU v. Notre Dame: Turn back the clock

February 22, 2012 by Mike Casazza

You are looking live at the box score from the last time WVU won at Notre Dame … and check out officials that night.

The Mountaineers are 1-11 here with 10 straight losses and some bad experiences along the way:

Feb. 21, 1999: WVU turns the ball over twice and wastes a four-point lead in final 43 seconds. Notre Dame’s Paul Rainey makes his first two free throws of the season with 20.1 seconds left for the final points of a 71-69 victory.

Feb. 2, 2000: Once down 17 points in the first half and later 11 in the second half, Notre Dame surges with a 15-0 run to win, 79-65.

Jan. 21, 2001: Chris Moss is ejected after his second technical foul and has to be restrained from going after officials. As he leaves the floor, Moss spits at taunting fans and accidentally hits some Notre Dame cheerleaders. WVU loses 78-61.

Feb. 20, 2002: Moss makes his return to South Bend and the Notre Dame students wear plastic shields and goggles. Chris Thomas has 26 points and 12 assists in a 89-76 victory.

Jan. 29, 2003: WVU gets outrebounded, 51-27, and the Fighting Irish finish with 22 offensive rebounds in a 88-69 win.

Jan. 7, 2004: Drew Schifino scores nine points and sits the final few minutes of a 63-52 loss. His NCAA-best streak of 48 games with at least 10 points comes to an end. Afterward, he makes the comments that ultimately contribute to his dismissal from team.

And all of that is preceded by Gordon Malone walking out on a game in 1996 … a game WVU won for its first Big East road win.

Continue reading…

Hey, another lawsuit?

by Mike Casazza

Florida State is posturing, bemoaning the significant slip in the quality of the opponent and the sizable loss of revenue that the Seminoles may soon seek to recover. Liquidated damages! And Florida State is backing up its position by saying it plans to play at Mountaineer Field in 2013.

The quote of note from Athletic Director Randy Spetman:

“It’s a difficult process, according to our legal office, that we’ve got to show that we lost so many season ticket sales, and that’ll be based on this game. That’ll be, I’m sure, a lawsuit that’ll be difficult to prove, if they don’t claim it was something else.

“But we’re going to gather that data and we think we stand do lose anywhere from $2 million to $2.5 million in season ticket sales and single-game ticket sales versus the difference between West Virginia (and FCS), especially when they did so well at the end of the season.”

Damn! You knew it was bad idea to win that Orange Bowl. Spetman said he compared the receipts from the Oklahoma (Big 12) game and the Charleston Southern (FCS) game last year and said the difference was in the $2-2.5 million range. Florida State figures losing WVU (Big 12) in favor of Savannah State (FCS) will equal a similar dip, so that’s the number Florida State could pursue if that’s what happens.

At stake tonight? Maybe the bid

by Mike Casazza

More fun with magic numbers as they relate to West Virginia and the NCAA Tournament: 9 > 10. The target keeps moving here, says Bob Huggins.

“I’m not sure if we’re 9-9 that we’re not OK,” Huggins said. “I’d feel a whole lot better with 10.”

Continue reading…

Juuuuust a bit outside. Tried the Senate and missed.

by Mike Casazza

Hey, nothing is every easy, which is why you wake up this morning and see this headline: “Plan for WVU baseball stadium hits snag.”

West Virginia University’s hope to build a Big 12-suitable baseball stadium using a tax-increment financing district came to an abrupt halt Tuesday evening when Commerce Department officials told lawmakers they hadn’t received any of the necessary documents needed to proceed.

The bill creating the district was on Tuesday morning’s Senate Government Organization Committee agenda. However, committee Chairman Herb Snyder decided not to bring the bill up for discussion.

When asked about the bill late Tuesday, Snyder said it is unlikely the bill will reappear in his committee this session.

“It’s just premature for the Legislature to pass the bill,” Snyder said. “The bill’s not going back on the agenda; it’s not ready for the Legislature.”

Rain delay. Doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Just means the parties involved didn’t go through the proper and required review process. So, unless some strings are pulled, the bill won’t be a part of this session.