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

Chat recap

February 24, 2011 by Mike Casazza

Transctipt up and humming right here. Live blog for tonight’s game coming up later in the day. See you then.

The ins and outs of WVU’s road record

by Mike Casazza
(Reminder: Ask Me About WVU Sports … at 1 pm. See previous post for link.)

It’s still fairly impressive that Bob Huggins has 97 wins in 136 games as West Virginia’s coach and even more brow-arching to see 51 of those victories have come away from the Coliseum. He’s played 34 of 68 Big East games on the road and is 17-17 — and the win total already matches what Gale Catlett did in his seven seasons in the Big East.

Ah, but that 17-17 is a little misleading. A litte.

Continue reading…

Ask Me About WVU Sports …

February 23, 2011 by Mike Casazza

The chat is back tomorrow at 1 p.m. with a special pre-Petersen Events Center edition. If you cannot attend, drop questions in the queue or in the comments RIGHT NOW. If you can attend, or if you want to review the transcript when we’re through, here is your link.

Whatever the case, you think about chat.

Do Truck and Joe hold the keys to KJ’s scoring?

by Mike Casazza

Mazzulla and Bryant play Mr. Inside and Mr. Outside and combine for 40 points with a list of layups and 3-pointers. The defense has to guard against the drive and the jumper. Notre Dame plays it honest. It cannot scheme or shade toward one for fear the other gets opportunities.

And if not them, then someone else.

Wouldn’t you know it? The Mountaineers figure it out and go 13-for-16 to start the second half and finish 14-for-26. Along the way that day, Kevin Jones makes two 3s, scores on two offensive rebounds and finishes with 14 points and 10 rebounds. Probably not a coincidence.

Mazzulla’s constant assertion and Bryant’s accuracy made things easier on Jones when things hadn’t been coming so easily for him.

“I don’t know why, but I guess sometimes when somebody is scoring or taking a lot of shots, you’re looking at them instead of being aggressive yourself,” Jones said. “For the most part (Saturday) everyone was aggressive and I think that’s why we weren’t going into scoring droughts.”

As tough as it had been for WVU to get Mazzulla and Bryant scoring at once, it’s been more unusual to have Jones producing with them. Saturday marked just the third time they’ve all scored in double figures – and the first time since the 68-64 win against Purdue. WVU is 3-0 when its starting guards and best all-around player are in double figures.

“It’s not necessarily hard for us,” Mazzulla said. “We just didn’t force anything. Everything played into itself. I don’t think we took too many ill-advised shots (Saturday). The shots the three of took were good shots. If you take good shots, the percentages of making them go up.”

And what’s bad gets worse

by Mike Casazza

Trouble in the Coliseum. The 19th-ranked WVU women’s team lost again last night, this time at home to No. 8 Notre Dame, and fell to 1oth place in the Big East standings.

Things got interesting afterward.

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Guarding the unpredictable WVU

February 22, 2011 by Mike Casazza

Interesting note from The Daily Athenaeum. Truck Bryant’s 25 points Saturday made him the team’s fifth different leading scorer the past five games. Might seem trivial and inconsequential. Might also be a key to the way this team progresses.

In fact, down the stretch of the season, and especially in tournament play when there is less time to prepare for opponents, the Mountaineers may be better off.

How do opposing teams prepare for WVU’s balanced scoring? Who do opposing teams key on stopping?

The Irish attempted to shut down all passing lanes to Kevin Jones on Saturday.

Yet, doing so only opened up room for Joe Mazzulla to drive to the bucket, which then allowed Bryant to get open for outside shots.

No player on this year’s team can come close to being able to score in multiple ways like Butler could.

But if each player played his own small role in the offense like the Mountaineers did Saturday, this team has potential to be dangerous.

Your move, Dalton Pepper!

Truck tows himself from slump, if only for a game

by Mike Casazza

We’ve seen Truck Bryant have some bad games and some bad stretches of games as a freshman, as a sophomore and now as a junior. The one that he — depending on how you look at it — ended or took a break from Saturday is the freshest in our minds, but it’s been the hardest to watch and the hardest to understand.

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Hardest job in college sports?

February 21, 2011 by Mike Casazza

Compliance boss in the SEC? Men’s hockey coach at Alabama-Huntsville? The University of Hawaii’s travel coordinator? Mike Locksley’s receiver’s coach?

How about a vote for Larry Harrison?

Oh, he’s not going to win. He’s not going to get a lot of sympathy for being the associate head basketball coach at WVU. Yet have you seen him put himself and his fine clothing at risk lately? Harrison is the man who stands before Bob Huggins and holds his boss back when Huggins gets T’d up and would like to give that official a piece of his mind.

That’s not a job a lot of people would like, but it’s a job few others are as fit for as is Harrison. The bond between he and Huggins is strong enough to withstand time and distance.

Harrison, with Huggins on his resume, left him in 2000 to take the head coaching job at Hartford, and so he physically was not with Huggins during the roughest of his times that began in 2002 with a heart attack where he nearly died in the Pittsburgh airport and then went through a DUI arrest in which a sobering video of his roadside stop was aired nationally, a Huggins’ collapse in Cincinnati when President Dr. Nancy Zimpher forced him to resign.

But as they say, he was only a phone call away.

“When you get in situations like that, just a phone call, just let him know that if he needs anything, you’re there for him,” Harrison said. “Huggs, like a lot of us, will appreciate the phone call. But sometimes, you have to figure it out yourself.”

And that is what Huggins really is, Harrison indicated, a person who must find his own way.

“He’s a thinker,” Harrison said. “He handles things internally, and he doesn’t show a lot of emotion as far as personal stuff is. He does internalize a lot. Maybe that’s why we get along so well; we both internalize a lot of things.”

Jim Boeheim, via John Beilein, delivers a little perspective

by Mike Casazza

What strikes me about Bob Huggins and his management of postgame assessments is how often, and effectively, he evokes a basic premise: His team did/didn’t make shots. I guess it’s a little perplexing for me, relative to what I do, because it makes for similar stories.

But darn if it isn’t legit, right?

It’s fundamental to a point, particularly in the Big East. A game is a game. It’s not a season, no matter how good or how bad.

Certain performances may be applied to trends, but too often a season is said to be made or broken by one result. The loss to Syracuse didn’t end the season because the Mountaineers haven’t shot well since the Purdue game. Saturday WVU snapped a four-game losing streak against ranked teams by beating No. 8 Notre Dame. How it happened seemed a bigger deal than that it happened.

What does any of it change, though? Very little. And it’s worth noting today.

Continue reading…

PING! is in the air … or is it?

by Mike Casazza

WVU’s baseball team went 2-1 in the Big East/Big Ten Challenge over the weekend — and probably feels like it should have won Saturday to be 3-0 this morning. Sunday’s win was a good one, though, in that the Mountaineers recovered from letting another lead slip away late and that it went this way in the bottom of the ninth: walk, sacrifice bunt, two-out single, 5-4 win.

The weekend’s scores? Try 5-0, 3-2 and 5-4. Not exactly what you think of when you do take time to think about college baseball. Might want to get used to it, though. The NCAA is mandating new, deadened bats this season and it’s going to change the game.

In explaining the new standards in August, the NCAA pointed to the rise in offensive numbers. Home runs rose from 0.64 per game in 2007 to 0.84, 0.96 and 0.94 the following three seasons. Runs per game went from 6.1 in 2007 to 6.57, 6.88 and 6.98.

“We may have to recruit different,” Van Zant said. “Speed is at a premium. That would probably be the biggest thing for position players. Hawley Field used to be a small ballpark and then we backed it up, but we have these new bats.

“When we had the live bats, we went through what everyone called ‘Gorilla Ball’ in college baseball. The ball flew off the bat and we tried to recruit bashers.

“If you’ve got the 6-foot-5, 240-pound guy who crushes it and it’s not a home run, then you might just go with a smaller guy.”