Saturday Rundown: Basketball Woes

It’s been pretty lean for a couple of weeks here at the Mountain Top. Hopefully we can get back into the swing of things soon. But that said, I want to get back into men’s basketball again for today.

Has Huggins lost this team? Listening to his post-game comments from Villanova, I think there’s a good possibility. It sounds like the team has simply stopped responding to his coaching. The team is so enamored with shooting that it seems their self-confidence and self-worth are completely tied to the jump shot.  WVU wins when the shots are falling, but not for that reason alone. When the shots are falling, our guys are doing the other things you need to do to win. Namely, they are playing hard on the defensive end, protecting the ball and crashing the boards as much as they can. A bad shooting night leads to mental lapses, turnovers and bad rebounding.

Here are the numbers to hash this out, for Big East games this season:

Game      	FG%	 3%    	 RM   	TO    OFG%	Res 

Marquette	 	 48	 50	 +8	11	42	  W 

Syracuse	 	 48	 38	 -5	11	42	  W 

St. John's	 43	 42	 -7	 7	40	  W 

@ South Florida	 38	 30	 +1	 6	45	  W 

@ Providence	 51	 54	 +9	12	44	  W 

Rutgers		 42	 29	 +6	 4	47	  W 

Seton Hall	 54	 46	+25	13	42	  W 

@ Notre Dame	 32	 20	-13	 9	48	  L 

@ Louisville	 36	 24	 -2	12	41	  L 

Georgetown	 39	 43	 -7	 6	47	  L 

Cincinnati	 20	  5	-15	 8	48	  L 

@ Pitt		 36	 47	 -5	 8	40	  L 

@ Villanova	 36	 10	  0	13	47	  L   

So it’s probably not much of a surprise that WVU’s six conference losses all involved the Mountaineers shooting under 40% while their opponents shoot upwards of that mark. However, look at how much rebounding margin especially is effected by shooting percentage and 3-point percentage. It’s almost a linear relationship. Why do we quit rebounding when we can’t hit our shots? This team quits every time it gets down by more than a couple buckets. I think in that sense, Huggins has lost this team.

I still think WVU could win 3 or 4 of it’s last 5 conference games. We’ve already beaten Providence and St. John’s once, so winning those again would be no surprise. Pitt will be coming into a hornet’s nest at the Coliseum, losing track of their Big East title hopes, and they needed the Oakland Miracle to beat us in Peterson. I don’t think anyone is giving us much of a chance at Connecticut, and this team doesn’t seem to embrace an underdog role, so I kind of expect them to fold up like a tent in that game. DePaul on the road is a game this team should win, but who knows what to expect from these Mountaineers on the road? They could play another Villanova game there.

That leaves us at 21-10, 10-8 in the conference and probably a #8 seed in the conference tourney. I don’t see the heart of a team that makes a lot of noise in Madison Square Garden. They could win one there, but they’d have to win at least two to guarantee an NCAA spot. So I think we’re looking at an NIT bid. However, give these guys two or three home games in the NIT and they could go far. If Huggins can get this team to buy in just a little bit, we could be primed for another NIT run. That is where I think we’re at right now. We will see tonight against Providence if this team has any fight left in them whatsoever, or if they’re a bunch of whipped puppies.

Tags: West Virginia, Big East, Bob Huggins, field goal percentage, rebound margin