Welcome to the Friday Feedback, which will attempt to take the toboggan down the mountain and to the nation’s capital this afternoon. And does no one want to stay on this toboggan with me? The way people are bailing has me developing a complex. I’ll survive.
One wonders about your basketball team, though. Saturday offers another difficult road test against a Georgetown team that’s had a similar slip. The Hoyas were ranked No. 9 and 11-1 in non-conference play. They then had three games in a Wednesday-Saturday-Monday span and lost on the road against Notre Dame and St. John’s to begin and end that stretch.
If the Mountaineers are going to make a move, they must do it with some road wins. And that won’t be easy because, thus far, it hasn’t been easy.
The Mountaineers are 2-2 on the road with large leads and close final scores involved in each. They led at Miami by 13 points with 12 minutes to play, but lost 79-76. They trailed by 12 in the first half against Duquesne in Pittsburgh’s new Consol Center and won 64-61 after the Dukes missed two free throws that would have tied the score with nine seconds to go.
WVU trailed 9-0 early against Marquette and was down 11 in the first half. A rally produced a lead in the second half before a botched series of possessions on offense and defense in the final 90 seconds led to a 79-74 loss. DePaul trailed by 14 points in the second half Tuesday, but tied the score late and had a chance to win the game on its final possession.
After every occasion, the Mountaineers have made mention of poor play and doing things they don’t normally do, which is characteristic of the road experience.
“It’s got a lot to do with familiarity, it’s got a lot to do with confidence,” Huggins said. “I think people play with a lot more confidence at home. I think a lot of times on the road, when a couple things don’t go your way, you lose your confidence and don’t play as freely as you would at home.”
I might be alone — again! — on this, or there may be just a few people along for the ride, but I do think WVU is developing something. Yes, it was a loss, but the Marquette game was more encouraging than discouraging. The game at DePaul has been tough for the Mountaineers even when they’ve been good. What happened — big lead, big slip — wasn’t all that surprising.
If the majority of the minutes find their way to the same five or six players and the rotations settle and guys embrace the do-what-you-do mentality, it can work. They do miss the personalities of Da’Sean and Devin, though. That’s a very big reason the road has been so tough and things like that are not easily replaced.
Onto the Feedback. As always, comments appear as posted. In other words, carry a big stick. (Not a proud moment for the city.)
The Artist Formerly Known as EER96 said:
I hope I am wrong, but I don’t see this team winning 20 games. They are in real trouble of not making the tournament this year.
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