67-62

I'm not going to go into a great deal of stats about this game, other than to say what I have said about the Mountaineers all year long. When we win the battle of the turnovers, we usually win. One exception being the Pitt loss earlier this year. Pitt had 17 turnovers and WVU 6 last night.

Joe Herber tried to make me look like a genius last night, at least for the first 5 minutes. I, of course did my best to make myself look like an idiot earlier that evening (read the comments).

It could be that we will see Pitt again very soon. Getting that first round bye was huge. We really need to make it to the finals of the Big East tournament to secure a low seed for the NCAA tournament.

Pitt Preview

Ok, I just have to say that until I started going over to the Pitt Sports Blather I didn't know that West Virginians were referred to as Hoopies. But, apparently we are. It's a reference to wearing barrels secured with metal hoops in lieu of clothes. No photo's readily available from Google. Don't hold it against him, though. I'm sure we've all been called worse.
How does WVU win this game? If I was coach B, the first thing I would do is to clear everyone out, and let Joe Herber take his man to the basket. I can't say that I have seen anyone able to guard him one-on-one all year. No one talks about this, but I would draft him before Gansey or Pittsnogle. I think he has the most complete game of anyone on the team. He started every game for WVU since his first as a freshman. He's 6'6", and can run the offence from the point. He has a plethora of moves around the basket, including being just as good with the lefty as the righty. If WVU had a little more size on their team, he would be matched up against the oppositions shooting guard on most nights, and people would see the matchup problems he can create. He averages 4.6 assists per game and 1.7 turnovers per game. If they do nothing else, WVU must guard against the hero complex, and not take a 3 just because they think they are "feeling it".
If I'm Pitt, I wouldn't do anything different than the last game. They completely took us out of our game. It's rare to get the same result twice in one season against the same team. I expect Pitt to follow the same game plan, and change only if we are able to defeat it. How does Pitt react when things aren't working? We'll see....

Paying Respects to the Original Couch Burner!

Morgantown's own, Don Knotts passed away Friday night of respitory and pulmonary complications. No one with a heart can say he didn't make them laugh their ass off at least once. All anyone really has to say to me is "Nip It!", and I get a big grin on my face! Rest in peace Don.

At least I was right about the margin!

Hey, I'm real happy for the win! But, I fully expected to see an offensive clinic today. Do I have the "everyone knows we are coming this year" blues? Could be! Sometimes teams that play a lot of close games durning the regular season flourish in the post season. Sometime they find out they were just lucky.
Up next is Pitt. Hopefully the defense won't pull a Toro !

Louisville Preview

First off, I want to welcome any and all Louisville fans. Hopefully I speak for WVU and the Big East when I say we are glad to have you! I want to give a hat tip to Butch for putting up a link to my blog as well.
So, how do I think the game is going to turn out? Well, I haven't watched a great deal of Louisville's games this year, but when I did, I saw a team that could work the ball inside, and could kick it out for a three. Looking at the schedule, the worst loss of the year was to UConn/a hot Syracuse team. Over the last 7 games, they have turned the ball over 86 times or 12.3 per game. Over the same period WVU has turned the ball over 55 times or 7.9 per game. Louisville averages 35 rebounds per game and WVU 28. Louisville is 2-6 on the road and WVU is 11-2 at home. WVU's worst loss of the year was to (damn them) Kentucky. I say damn them for not finishing out the year. I'm sure Louisville fans say damn them for a different reason! Hehehe.
So, both teams have been at least close in every game if you look at the final scores. I can't speak as to the momentum of each game. Both teams have been less than spectacular over their last seven games. WVU has dropped games against decent competition that they would have won earlier in the year. Louisville is in a position to still pull out an NCAA bid with wins in it's last three games despite a sub par record against top 25 teams. It was about this time last year that WVU found out that they were starting the wrong guy at center. Could the same be true for Louisville? WVU has finally had a chance to take a couple days off before this game. The time for excuses is over. For WVU it's time to start building momentum for the tournament. My pick, WVU 85-81.

Bounce Back

I really had my doubts we would be able to go into Georgetown and win. You could see why in the first half, DunkDunkDunkDunkDunk3-pointerstealDunkDunkDunk. I will go ahead and say that if no one declares early for Georgetown, they will be national champs next year if not this year. So, yeah, this was a huge win! I was impressed with our ability to get inside on Georgetown. The three pointer was a decoy tonight. 6 for 22. I was glad to see it. I think they will have to prove that they can win taking it to the basket a few more times before teams will have to think stop the drive first. Then they will be dangerous like when they beat Oklahoma and Villinova earlier in the season.

It's a long season, and with only 7 players that see significant time, you have to expect some ups and downs. The ups are a whole lot funner. We'll see how we finish out the season. Good challenges abound!


Feb 14 at Seton Hall 7:30 pm
Feb 18 Connecticut 3:45 pm
Feb 20 at Syracuse 7 pm
Feb 25 Louisville 1:30 pm
Feb 27 Pitt 7 pm
Mar 4 at Cincinnati Noon
Mar 8-11 at Big Championships (New York, N.Y.) TBA
All times Eastern

The Pitt Loss

Ok, first of all, congrats to Pitt. They played the better game, and deserved to win. Painful to say? Yup! But, that's the way it goes. We played awful. Our two biggest names didn't get it done. The one good thing I can take from the game is that we couldn't possibly play any worse than we did. Also, I got my first real chance to see Alex Ruoff play. I think the kid has some potential. He played good defense, and hit the three when he was open. At the end of this great season, we are going to say goodbye to 5 seniors that have turned this program completely around. No matter what happens the rest of the year, I can say that this group of seniors has taken WVU basketball from the bottom of the Big East to one of the best programs in America. Off the top of my head, I can not think of a program that went from 8-20 to the Elite Eight in four years. While capturing the imagination of the college basketball world.
Losing so much senior leadership could be devastating. I hope that everyone remembers how it was before they got here. When this new group of players takes over next year, they most likely won't go to the NCAA tournament. They will have a lot of tough, and probably some embarrassing losses. Just like this senior class had when they were freshmen. Having a program that reloads instead of rebuilds takes time. I just want to enjoy watching them grow like I enjoyed this senior class.