Belated Love For The Basketball Team

They most certainly deserve it, but I was out of town this weekend for a friends graduation and just haven't gotten around to it. The Mountaineers played the Dukes of Duquesne last Saturday night and lit it up from three point range on their way to a 85-54 win. The Mountaineers hit17 of 29 three point shots. The also registered a +24 on the Beilein scale, which is the measure of the difference between West Virginia's usual shortcomings in the rebounding department and their kick ass performance in the battle of turnovers. West Virginia lead the battle on the boards 26-16, and had 10 turnovers compared to Duquesne's 24.

The leaders of the team, Frank Young and Darius Nichols, had 18 and 9 points respectively. And combined to go 6-9 from the arc. The assassin in waiting, Alex Ruoff was 6-9 from three's, and had 8 assists with 2 turnovers.

Granted this wasn't a top 25 team, but West Virginia continues to exceed expectations for this season. If they are able to get 10 or more wins outside of the Big East, and go .500 in the Big East they could find themselves at least on the bubble for a bid in the tournament. And that would be an incredible accomplishment. At this time last year, the Mountaineers had already played several top 25 teams. But a lot more was expected of them.

West Virginia starts Big East play after three more games against directional universities. On December 30th UConn comes to Morgantown and we find out where we really are.