West Virginia 2, New Jersey 0

West Virginia downed Seton Hall, 89-68. I saw and heard none of it. But I bet it was great. This is where I will look at the box score and pretend to know what happened.

Looks like Huggins was able to clear the benches as 12 different Mountaineer players scored in the game. Where was Cam Thoroughman? He almost single-handedly helps us beat Providence then he can’t get on the court in garbage time against Rutgers or Seton Hall? Maybe it’s an injury thing but I haven’t seen it mentioned anywhere.

Jeremy Hazell scored 30 for the Pirates so I guess he was lighting somebody up. WVU again came close to having a better 3-point percentage (.458) than free throw percentage (.462). Wellington Smith with 6 blocks, when did he suddenly become a stud blocking machine? John Flowers was getting quality minutes earlier on and now he’s kind of faded away completely, what’s the deal there? Ted Talkington was heard from for the first time in weeks. All in all, a pretty good day for the Mountaineers but as I said after the Rutgers game, let’s temper our enthusiasm until we get another real test. Playing at suddenly-alive Villanova this week should do.

Saturday Rundown: Dwight Yoakam, Football Rule Changes

First off, as I predicted a couple weeks ago, WVU gets the short end of the stick in regards to the Gridiron Bash scheduling. Dwight Yoakam will take the stage and forever go down in history as the first music act in concert at Mountaineer Field.

Now, I have nothing against country music or even Dwight Yoakam for that matter, he had some great hits a few years back. However, while every other school gets artists that are current hit-makers. WVU gets a guy that hasn’t had a hit this decade. Yoakam’s newest CD is a Buck Owens tribute album, which I’m sure is a name a lot of people also aren’t familiar with. Tennessee and Kentucky were able to land current country hit artists Taylor Swift, Dierks Bentley and Montgomery Gentry. Utah will host Maroon 5, Rutgers will host Fall Out Boy, West Virginia will host Dwight freakin’ Yoakam. Damn.

The NCAA is trying to shorten our college football games again (so they can insert more commercials!) The Wizard of Odds has the rundown on the rule changes. I say, why try to shorten the games? I only get 12 games a year, maybe 13 if you count in a bowl game. I don’t want them to be shorter. If anything, I want them to be longer. My only problem with televised long games is when a game goes over its allotted time slot and cuts off coverage of another game I wanted to watch. But you’ll never be able to remedy that, given the possibility of overtime, a long game stoppage for an injured player, or any other plethora of things that could go wrong. And there are games I have attended in person where I just wanted it to be over because I was either sun-burnt, dehydrated and ready to pass out from heat exhaustion, or cold, wet, and numb from the neck down. But that’s what makes college football great. But television wants to make college more like the NFL. After all, look at the boatload of cash that they make from the NFL. So what if there are 20 commercial breaks in a quarter. The part that really burns me on NFL games is the touchdown, extra point, commercial, kickoff, commercial, ensuing play sequence. Why not just have one really long break before the kickoff?

Anyway, the rules changes include a 40-second NFL-style play clock. This could actually benefit WVU, if the ball gets marked for play they could have more time to line up in formation and make changes to the play, or run more motion as it sounds like Jeff Mullen wants to do with our offense. The coach gets an extra replay challenge if the first one is upheld. I didn’t realize that wasn’t the case already, I’m fine with that one. No more sideline warning, it automatically goes to a 5-yard penalty. I love that one. It’s been getting worse and worse with players and coaches crowding up on the sidelines for years. I’m glad they’re doing something about that.

Horse-collar tackles will now involve a 15-yard penalty. Fantastic! How many times was Pat White horse-collared in the past three seasons? Out of bounds on a kickoff will give the receiving team a chance to take the ball at the 40. I think that’s too much of a penalty for college kickers.

All in all I’m tired of the rules getting tinkered with every year. It’s never anything major, but how can you consistently compare teams from year-to-year when they are playing with (slightly) different rule sets? Just look at how popular college football is across the board in this decade, there’s really nothing broken that the NCAA needs to fix. Well, at least not in this regard.

No News: WVU tops Rutgers

Seriously, what else is new? A lot of WVU fans are calling the revival of our basketball team after they squashed Rutgers at home 81-63. Guys, this is Rutgers. We just beat the worst team in our conference on our home court. Getting excited over those wins is something we did in the Gale Catlett days. Sidebar: Anyone remember the so-dubbed “Fairmont Fat-Ass” Rashad Kent?

WVU hasn’t lost to the Scarlet Knights on the basketball court or the gridiron for nearly four years, the last loss coming in March of 04 in the NIT at Piscataway. A Rutgers team has not won in Morgantown since 1997. So let’s not get carried away with this win. If it build confidence for Joe Alexander and Wellington Smith, fine, but I’m not crowning anybody based on an 18-point win over Rutgers.

WVU vs. The State of New Jersey Part II happens Sunday at 2 p.m. Don’t expect too much excitement over that game either.

Two-Sport Athletes

Apparently B-Stew (That’s what the cool kids get to call Bill Stewart now) is a way big fan of the two-sport athlete. Now that we know Richard Rod was holding these guys back, we are now seeing an influx of football players joining the other varsity on campus. First, it was Jarrett Brown joining Bob Huggins and the basketball team. Then rumors that fellow reserve QB Bradley Starks would do the same. Pat White may spend a stint this summer in the outfield for a minor league affiliate of the Anaheim Angels. And now the latest is kicker Pat McAfee joining coach Marlon LeBlanc and the nationally-ranked Mountaineer soccer team. But who says it has to stop there? We have found some other guys on the WVU roster that definitely will draw interest in other sports interests this off-season:

   

Ed Collington, John Holmes, and James Ingram have oddly enough decided to join the Ultimate Frisbee team.

 

Punter Scott Kozlowski will be pairs figure skating with Meg Bulger.

Wes Lyons is looking to try his hand at badminton, while Noel Devine will reportedly attempt to become a jockey in the Preakness Cup.

Tito Gonzales will take a cue from the Beijing Olympics and compete in jai-alai. 

Former WVU running back Jeremy Bruce will be training for the luge, and hopefully staying away from the ice luge.

and, finally Owen Schmitt will wrestle a bear. That’s cruelty to animals.

Saturday Rundown: Recruiting Fallout

Since I did a pretty poor job presenting anything for Signing Day, and with the basketball team having a much-needed weekend off, I thought I’d dedicate this week’s rundown to football recruiting.

First, you can check out the hometown puff pieces on some of our signees:

John Bassler and Jeff Braun - Carroll County Times

J.J. Dorsey - Winchester News

Tevita Finau - Maui News

Corey Freeman - Cleveland Plain Dealer

Josh Jenkins - Parkersburg News-Sentinel 

Joseph Madsen - News-Herald (Scroll down)

Jerome Swinton - Daytona Beach News-Journal

Tyler Urban - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Coley White - Mobile Register 

J.D. Woods - Naples News

Big East Basketball Prediction #3

Team of the Week: St. John’s - When we checked in on the Red Storm about 10 days ago, we pegged them at dead last to finish the season. This was based on a slow start and an unfavorable schedule. The Red Storm really improved their positioning this time around thanks to wins at South Florida and at Rutgers. While those teams aren’t exactly setting the conference on fire, St. John’s took care of business on the road and set themselves up to have a shot at making the Big East tourney with a couple breaks. Providence visits the Red Storm this week in another game that could be a confidence boost going down the stretch. Other climbers: Connecticut, Notre Dame, Louisville, Syracuse, Seton Hall.

The Biggest Loser: Pitt. This seems odd given the win over WVU that just gave the team a huge shot in the arm, but maybe we had the Panthers a little overrated to start out with. We certainly felt UConn was a winnable game for Pitt and had adjusted the standings accordingly. Now it just looks like the top tier of teams has passed up the Panthers just a bit and they may be playing their way out of a first-round Big East tournament bye. However, if the Panthers can use Ronald Ramon’s game-winner as a turning point and get contributions from a healthy Levance Fields, they won’t be down for long. Other decliners: Marquette, Villanova, DePaul, Providence, Rutgers, South Florida

Shake-Up Games This Week: Marquette at Notre Dame, Saturday. The projections love Notre Dame at home, so if the Eagles can pull out the upset they could launch back into the top four.  Seton Hall at Villanova, Saturday. Both teams are on losing streaks but the winner here solidifies their position while the loser is in danger of missing the conference tourney.

March Madness Candidates: I think most people agree right now on six strong NCAA squads: Georgetown, UConn, Notre Dame, Louisville, Pitt, and Marquette. West Virginia still sits at 22-9 but they would be firmly on the bubble with lack of a solid road win, much as it was a season ago. Syracuse at 18-13 would probably feel left out as well for the second straight year. Villanova and Seton Hall could make a case for the NIT, as could Cincinnati with at least one win in the Big East tourney.

Projected Standings:
1. Georgetown, 15-3* [25-4], LW: 1
2. Connecticut, 15-3* [26-5], LW: 3
3. Notre Dame, 14-4 [24-6], LW: 5
4. Louisville, 13-5 [23-8], LW: 6

5. Pittsburgh, 12-6* [24-7], LW: 2
6. Marquette, 12-6* [22-7], LW: 4
7. West Virginia, 11-7 [22-9], LW: 7
8. Cincinnati, 10-8 [15-15], LW: 8

9. Syracuse, 8-10 [18-13], LW: 10
10. Villanova, 7-11* [17-13], LW: 9
11. Seton Hall, 7-11* [17-14], LW: 12
12. DePaul, 6-12 [11-19], LW: 11

13. St. John’s, 5-13* [11-19], LW: 16
14. Providence, 5-13* [14-16], LW: 13
15. Rutgers, 3-15 [11-18], LW: 14
16. South Florida, 1-17 [10-21], LW: 15

 * - Tiebreaker applied