Women’s basketball looks like the 11th-best team for most of the second half. Excellent defensive effort (24 points, 35 percent shooting allowed) and sharp shooting (8-for-13 from 3-point range, 3-for-3 from freshman Taylor Palmer) to run away with 80-49 win. Up next the Sluggin’ Hugginses for a 9:30 p.m. tip.
The Kicking Nikki’s defeat Morehead State, 2-0, thanks to two first-half goals by Bri Rodriguez. The Raring Careys now lead Loyola (Md.) 31-25 at the half and trailed briefly late in the first half.
I’m not sure I’ve seen a sloppier game. The teams have combined for 29 turnovers (19 for Loyola) and 22 baskets (14 for WVU). The Mountaineers are 1-for-12 from 3-point range and the make by Bianca Jarrett was a bank. Fortunately for the 11th-best team in America, Madina Ali showed up and brought 13 points with her.
Fighting Kramers find themselves down 10 points in the first set, rally to sweep St. John’s.
WVU 1, Rest of NCAA 0 with six events left this weekend.
At present, the soccer match is tied nil-nil but a spy reports the Kicking Nikkis are “dominating play.”
Welcome to the Friday Feedback which is tied for second in the Big East now. Last night was a good night for everyone in the Big East exept Pitt and the actual Big East. UConn’s victory — or is it Pitt’s loss? — brought the conference race back into play.
The Panthers have one loss in Big East play and everyone else has at least two and now USF, WVU and Cincinnati can suddenly take control. Each has a game left against the Panthers, thus can deal them their second loss and win the head-to-head tie-breaker should Pitt and one of those three end up as the only, say, 5-2 teams in Big East play. The tie-breakers when three or more teams are involved get more complicated — there are mini-leagues and BCS rankings to consider — but the point is this is all very fluid right now.
And Sunday morning, either WVU or Cincinnati will wake up with a chance to win this thing. Big weekend at WVU with volleyball, women’s soccer in the NCAA Tournament, women’s basketball and men’s basketball as well as that suddenly significant football game that may or may not feature a little more of the option.
Onto the Feedback. As always, comment appear as posted. In other words, get some rest.
Jeff in Akron said:
This from ESPN, “The previous Michigan record for total points wasn’t nearly as dramatic, beating West Virginia 130-0 in 1904″.
Apparently, Michigan has been abusing WVU for over 100 years, who new?
P-Rod was also quoted as saying, “It has been a good week for Michigan football”. Apparently, the NCAA adding a year of probation and his defense giving up 65 points in a game is a good week.
It makes you wonder what P-Rod considers a bad week, or even a mediocre week.
Give it time.
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Vince Skolny is still doing his thing and making a nice little profit from T-shirt sales — though I’m very interested to see if any of these garments turn up Saturday. What I was also interested in seeing was if WVU’s chief fundraiser, the Mountaineer Athletic Club, would accept the donation of 25 percent of the profit Skolny promised.
The MAC says it will decline.
Just something to think about and, of course, “talk about” in our 2 p.m. chat today.
The results of the “total self-evaluation” are in and they are super duper double top secret confidential lest they fall in the hands of the evil and effusive media, which then has a duty to report the discoveries in what’s tantamount to football espionage.
And, believe it or not, I get that. I can even get behind that. No sense in telling us anything that Cincinnati could easily read about and prepare for this week.
What Double 0 Stewart will admit is everyone at WVU is “pleased with some things we’re doing and some we’re not.” Read into that what you will — and really, that’s all we can do — but the Mountaineers believe they’ll be better Saturday because they’ve added to and removed from the repertoire in all three phases.
Offense, of course, is the focus and Stewart hinted toward a new trend.
“I want to be a little more aggressive in some play-calling,” he said.
Stewart suggested he and Mullen found they could be more aggressive in some areas because some players in some situations were better able to handle their responsibility than previously expected.
That caused “a couple” light bulbs to come on, Stewart said.
“Sometimes in protection we help certain linemen on certain plays,” he said. “Maybe that guy can handle it himself. Then we can get a (running) back in the flat. That pulls a linebacker out and opens a hole. We saw some things that can help.”
I’m not even sure what to say about this, other than it ended up in my inbox in response to yesterday’s note that Bill Stewart has coached 10 games and won eight against coaches who have since been fired.
No truth to the rumor this will be sent to the football office of every upcoming opponent.
Be there. Or drop questions in the comments here or in the queue, which is open now.
Bill Stewart will not be following along, though, because the chat will be on the Internet and he does not know much about this Internet.
Hertzel asked: “There seems to be an awful lot of interest these days on the Internet about your job security and future. Do you pay any attention to that?”
And Stew responded: “It is on the Internet? Are you talking about that message boards or what?”
Stewart paused for a moment and then continued.
“I don’t blog, I don’t know that,” he said. “If I don’t know it, it certainly hasn’t bothered me. I just don’t have that much time to give to that. I have no comment because I really don’t know what you are saying. I am sure there are a lot of things being said. That’s the right of Americans. We have the right to our opinion.”
To very little fanfare, today is the first day of the early signing period for college basketball. It’s expected five players will sign and send their National Letter-of-Intent to WVU today: Ohio center Pat Forsythe, Texas forward Keaton Miles, Michigan forward Tommie McCune, Philadelphia forward Aaron Brown and New York guard Jabarie Hinds.
WVU can’t officially announce the signings until it receives the LOI, so it’s likely the news will come out tomorrow.
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Bill Stewart gets a lot of grief for the sometimes meandering manner of his press conferences. Sometimes we get confused trying to follow along and sort sense from nonsense. Quite often, there’s a good point lost in translation.
Fortunately, there’s value in Decoding Bill Stewart. This week, WVU’s head coach returns from an open week and is asked about the double standards placed upon quarterbacks in this era. Stewart comes to the defense of sophomore Geno Smith and reminds everyone it’s still early and the future is bright, but that Smith also embodies the ability and the potential of four of the school’s greatest to play his position.
From Tuesday’s press conference
Question: “Do you think maybe that the media, maybe we put quarterbacks into two categories, in two canisters too much — a running quarterback and a throwing quarterback1 — and guys can just be quarterbacks and that’s what Geno is?”
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