Welcome to the Friday Feedback, on the eve of what is being presented by many as a make-or-break game for West Virginia. It’s Notre Dame and the Mountaineers in the first of three remaining home games against ranked teams. Soft bubble or not, WVU needs wins, and for teams like that wins at home are really no different than road wins — they’re good to have.
WVU has won the past two in the series in the Coliseum and Notre Dame, for a time, wasn’t very good on the road. The Irish started 3-3 in the Big East with losses at Syracuse, Marquette and St. John’s. Hey, the Mountaineers have lost to the same teams and two of those were on the road. It is there where a similiarity between the two teams takes shape.
Notre Dame, picked to finish seventh in the Big East and now No. 8 in the country, is defined by who isn’t on this team and doubts projected on the Irish have inspired those who remain. WVU was picked to finish fifth in the Big East and, like Notre Dame, had to replace important parts. The Mountaineers were also motivated to replace missing parts, but have struggled with the replacement process.
So get a look of Notre Dame led by Ben Hansbrough and his — as described by Coach Mike Brey — “borderline craziness” against WVU in one of the final chapters of what — as described by Coach Bob Huggins — “hasn’t been the most storybook year.”
“In all honesty, what’s affected us is losing our entire freshman class,” WVU Coach Bob Huggins said. “You take away two guards and the length the other guys had and we can’t do the things we really anticipated doing when you sit down and try to prepare for the season.
“That’s hurt us more than anything. You’re going to lose guys. We all knew Devin was going to leave. Da’Sean was a senior. Wells was a senior. You plan for that. What affected us was losing the new guys.”
Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, don’t have a cow.
Foul Shot said:
Seems like we see the same refs, game after game, year after year.
And, they continually seem to tick us all off.
But, the refs don’t decide the game – unless it is a missed goal tending call at the end of the G-town game a couple of years ago. I dont think I’ll ever forget that one.
Hoping to get the next game against Depaul and then to make a strong stretch drive.
Still, 20 wins always seems to be the magic number to get into the Big Dance – still hoping we can get there.
Don’t fixate on 20 wins. It’s not a magic number anymore. If I heard it correctly, the selection committee’s mock selection this week predicted WVU to finish ninth in the Big East. That doesn’t sound like 20 wins to me. But WVU was in the field. The SOS and RPI are too healthy. In the past 16 years, no team with a top 21 RPI has been left out of the field. Right now, WVU is No. 23.
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