Archive for January, 2012

Not really a whole lot of positives for West Virginia to take from its 72-66 loss to Pittsburgh on Big Monday.

It’s the first time in the Bob Huggins era that the team has lost three games in a row, and the first since the 2005-06 season under John Beilein.

• Monday was WVU’s fourth-straight loss to Pittsburgh. Huggins is now just 3-7 in the Backyard Brawl.
• Here’s a positive! Kevin Jones did what has just become something normal for him, finishing with 21 points and 13 rebounds. He now has ten 20-10 games this season and that matches the total that WVU had in the first four years of Bob Huggins’ tenure at the school.
• KJ had his 8th 20-point game in a row and pulled double-digit rebounds for the 15th time this year. It was his 15th double-double of the year (27th in his career).
• All seven of Truck Bryant’s shots Monday came from beyond the arc. It’s the first time since Nov. 21, 2010 against Minnesota that Bryant never took a shot inside the 3-point line. There is a difference this time though: In that Minnesota game, he only played 10 minutes and Truck played 39 minutes Monday.
• Bryant had a career-high seven assists against the Panthers.
• The Mountaineers were 20-24 from the free throw line Monday night. That ties their best FT percentage of the year (they also shot 83.3 percent vs. Miami (Fla.)).
• Just because I love to talk about how much of a difference he has made for Pittsburgh: With yesterday’s win, Pittsburgh is 9-3 with Tray Woodall in the lineup this season and 5-6 without him. He had 24 last night.

There’s never a dull weekend in the Big East Conference.

WVU continued its current slide, losing its second game in a row but head coach Bob Huggins doesn’t know if it should’ve ended the way it did. Down two with the final seconds of the game ticking off the clock, junior forward Deniz Kilicli appeared to have the game-tying bucket thanks to (what looked like) an obvious goaltending call on Syracuse sophomore Baye Moussa Keita.

But it wasn’t called. They called it a block, WVU got the ball back and Kevin Jones missed a last-second three to win the game to give the Orange a win.

Huggins, who is always great from some good quotes, had this to say on his postgame radio interview:

“Inexcusable. Our kids played their hearts out. We should be in overtime.”

• WVU has Pitt tonight in the Backyard Brawl. A loss would give the Mountaineers their first three-game losing streak since 2007 (Huggins’ first season). Mike Casazza of the Charleston Daily Mail put into perspective just how rare of a situation it is and how Huggins and some of the players think they will be able to handle the adversity following the tough loss.
• One more WVU tidbit, from the Interwebs. CBSSports.com kept West Virginia in its Top 25 (and one) as the “and one,” at No. 26 following losses to St. John’s and Syracuse.
• UConn got freshman point guard Ryan Boatright back after being held out for the second time this season due to an investigation by the NCAA. His return didn’t prove to be as big as it thought, though, as the Huskies lost to Notre Dame, 50-48. After missing three games, Boatright played 30 minutes and scored six points with two assists. His lawyer fired back at the NCAA for the way it handled the situation and released confidential information from the case.
• Off the topic of the Big East but on topic of the NCAA, New York Times Op-Ed columnist Joe Nocera wrote another fantastic piece on the flawed system that is the NCAA. After writing about Boatright last week, he tackled the case of Harvard women’s basketball player Temi Fagbenle.
• Back to the Big East now … Pitt continued to get back on track since it got Tray Woodall back in the lineup. After beating Providence Wednesday for their first Big East win, the Panthers took down No. 10 Georgetown Saturday. Woodall missed 11 games due to injury and Pitt has won two of three since his return. It is averaging more than 76 points per game with him and just a little more than 66 per game without him.
• After beating WVU Wednesday night, St. John’s almost pulled off a big upset over No. 6 Duke in Cameron Indoor Stadium (which, if you haven’t heard, can’t get students to come to games anymore). Although Duke came away with the end, it sounded different in the postgame news conferences.
• A couple other interesting results: No. 18 Marquette was able to find a way to beat Villanova Saturday, and Cincinnati lost its third straight (this time to Rutgers). I can only assume Mr. Cronin isn’t too happy with where his team is heading right now after playing so well after the suspensions from the fight against Xavier earlier in the year.

Dunk of the Weekend:

Syracuse sophomore Dion Waiters had a monster dunk against WVU Saturday, check it out …

For TV fans:

Not related to Big East, WVU or college basketball at all really, but this is a fun thing to check out for hoops junkies who love 90’s television as well (like me).

I wrote about WVU forward Kevin Jones this morning in The Daily Athenaeum.

And now I’m going to channel my inner-Bob Huggins by talking about how special KJ is and just how important he is to this year’s West Virginia team.

Without Jones, this team would be lucky to have half the wins it has up to this point.

It’s a testament to how hard he’s worked since he made the decision to return for his senior year instead of entering the NBA draft. He would’ve been a second-round pick if he would’ve left early after his disappointing junior year.

But now he’s in position to be recognized as one of the best players in the country.

Coaches and players have talked a lot about how KJ deserves to be one of the people considered for National Player of the Year this season but where exactly does he stand in that race right now?

Let’s take a look …

To do this, we’ll play a little game called “Blind Resume.”

This game is usually used around March to determine which team should get in the NCAA tournament but hopefully it’ll work just as well to determine who should win National Player of the Year.

In this, we’re going to use the following stats: Team record, minutes per game (MPG), points per game (PPG), rebounds per game (RPG), assists per game (APG), 20-point games (20 pt.), and double-doubles

PLAYER 1
Record	MPG	PPG	RPG	APG	20 pt.	Double-double
19-2	31.1	23.5	8.5	1.3	15	7

PLAYER 2
Record	MPG	PPG	RPG	APG	20 pt.	Double-double
18-3	27.8	17.3	9.3	1	6	9

PLAYER 3
Record	MPG	PPG	RPG	APG	20 pt.	Double-double
15-6	37.6	20.9	11.6	1.3	13	14

PLAYER 4
Record	MPG	PPG	RPG	APG	20 pt.	Double-double
17-3	30.8	17.8	12	1.7	6	14

——

OK, so looking at the records might give it away but here are who the players are …

Player 1: Doug McDermott, Creighton

Player 2: Jared Sullinger, Ohio State

Player 3: Kevin Jones, West Virginia

Player 4: Thomas Robinson, Kansas

So, where does KJ stack up against some of the nation’s best? What do you think?

You can leave comments here or send me a tweet to my account (@Carvelli3) or The Daily Athenaeum’s (@DailyAthenaeum) with the hashtag #KJforPOY.

It’s only been a little more than a year, but things are quite different for the West Virginia football program and head coach Dana Holgorsen.

Last December, the Mountaineers suffered a 23-7 loss to North Carolina State in the Champs Sports Bowl. A day later, Holgorsen (who had been hired as WVU’s offensive coordinator and head coach-in-waiting a week earlier) helped lead Oklahoma State to a 36-10 win over Arizona in the Alamo Bowl.

It was one of WVU Athletic Director Oliver Luck’s first major personnel decisions since he was hired in June of 2010, and with the final minutes ticking off the clock in the Mountaineers’ 70-33 Orange Bowl victory over Clemson, you could sense that he was extremely happy with the decision that he made.

“This is a very big stage in a BCS game and to be able to win the Big East to get here is just a validation for all the great work that Dana and our coaches and our players have put in this year,” he said.

“He’s done a marvelous job. Results matter in athletics and we won the Big East Conference, we’re in a bowl game scoring 70 points and that’s all very positive. It’s an indication of what he can do as we move forward into the Big 12.”

It was obvious this season that Holgorsen’s team had something different than the West Virginia teams of the last few seasons. The players brought it up multiple times throughout the season, and Luck echoed those sentiments at the end of the Orange Bowl.

The attitude for this team was completely different.

“What Dana’s brought to this team more than anything – even more than his offensive wizardry – is an edge,” Luck said. “That edge allowed us to win close games this year. This team believed in itself to win those games, and I think part of that is because it believed in its coach.”

And Luck said a win in the Orange Bowl, it doesn’t just help the notoriety of the West Virginia football program. It brings benefits to the entire University.

“It’s just like it was when we won the Fiesta Bowl against Oklahoma. When you come in and play in a BCS and put out a performance like this and beat a quality opponent, it’s pretty special,” he said. “It helps across the board with recruiting, with fundraising and on the academic front. It gives us great exposure for the University.

“It’s all positive.”

I’m usually the type of person who counts down the days until the weekend, but there’s something different about this weekend that has me even more excited for it to get here than usual.

And no, it’s not because this little guy is going to be making a trip to the Coliseum Saturday afternoon.

Some of the nation’s top high school basketball players will be heading to Morgantown from all over the East coast this weekend to take part in the 2012 Mountaineer Shootout at University High School.

I will be covering it for the second year in a row, and after getting to see what it was like last season, I can’t wait to get back to cover it again starting Friday night. Last year, prestigious programs like Oak Hill Academy (VA) made the trip to Morgantown and players like Quinn Cook (freshman PG at Duke), Omar Calhoun (will be playing at UConn next season) and current West Virginia freshman point guard Gary Browne – among many more – took part in the festivities a year ago.

With schools like Huntington Prep (WV) and the Tilton School (NH) coming to town, this year’s Shootout will have no shortage of talent, that’s for sure.

So let’s take a look at the schedule and some of the top players who will be taking the court at UHS this weekend.

Friday, Jan. 20

4:30 p.m. – St. Mary’s Ryken (MD) vs. South Shore (NY)

6 p.m. – Bishop Kearney (NY) vs. Huntington Prep (WV)

8 p.m. – Tilton School (NH) vs. Villa Angela-St. Joseph (OH)

9:30 p.m. – Withrow (OH) vs. Arlington Country Day (FL)

Saturday, Jan. 21

11 a.m. – Bishop Kearney (NY) vs. University (WV)

12:30 p.m. – St. Mary’s Ryken (MD) vs. Magnolia (WV)

6:30 p.m. – Withrow (OH) vs. Morgantown (WV)

8 – Villa Angela-St. Joseph (OH) vs. Huntington Prep (WV)

9:30 p.m. – Tilton School (NH) vs. Arlington Country Day (FL)

——–

TOP FIVE PLAYERS TO WATCH (all rankings come from ESPNU.com)

The highest-rated recruit of West Virginia head coach Bob Huggins’ next recruiting class, Macon will be in Morgantown this weekend.

His coach at Huntington, Rob Fulford, coached junior forward Deniz Kilicli (as well as Noah Cottrill) in high school at Mountain State Academy in Beckley, W.Va. and called Macon a mix of Kilicli and WVU senior Kevin Jones. At 6-foot-8, 210 pounds, Macon runs the floor well for a big guy and is an extremely athletic post player that the Mountaineers will be able to use next season when it loses Jones to graduation.

Macon has already signed his National Letter of Intent to play at WVU next year.

 

Huntington Prep (WV) F Andrew Wiggins (No. 1 prospect in 2014 class, considering Florida State & Kentucky)

It’s not very often that you get to say you’re going to get to watch the best player in the country.

But that’s exactly what fans might get to say when they watch Huntington Prep (WV) sophomore forward Andrew Wiggins play this weekend.

As I said, he’s ONLY A SOPHOMORE, but he has already been touted as the next big superstar in high school basketball and has been called “the Canadian LeBron James.”

That’s pretty high praise for a kid who will be turning 17 in about a month.

Wiggins has an incredibly smooth offensive game and can get to the rim just about whenever he wants to. When he gets into the paint, just wish defenders good luck trying to stop him.

I could go on, but I’ll just let the tape talk for me.

 

Tilton School (NH) C Nerlens Noel (No. 2 prospect in 2013 class, considering UConn, Georgetown, Kentucky, Kansas and Florida)

And Wiggins won’t be the only player in Morgantown this weekend ranked in the top five of his recruiting class.

The Tilton School (NH) will bring in an extremely talented team led by junior center Nerlens Noel. Standing at 6-foot-10 with a remarkable 7-foot-3 wingspan, Noel is one of the most feared shot blockers in the country and has the ability to alter any shot.

While he’s a game changer on the defensive end of the floor, his offensive game has gotten better since the AAU circuit and he’s extremely fun to watch play.

 

Tilton School (NH) G Wayne Selden (No. 10 prospect in 2014 class, considering WEST VIRGINIA, Kentucky, UConn, Pitt, Missouri)

Noel’s Tipton School teammate Wayne Selden is a player Mountaineer fans should definitely keep an eye on this weekend.

The 6-foot-5 sophomore guard has an offer from West Virginia and, although he’s just a sophomore, might be the most talented guard to take the floor at University High.

He can slash, get to the rim with ease and shoot it really well from the perimeter. He’d really be a good fit in a WVU uniform in a couple years for Bob Huggins. With Selden and Noel, the Tipton School’s two games this weekend (much like Huntington Prep’s) are definitely must-see basketball.

 

Arlington Country Day (FL) G Torian Graham (No. 38 prospect in 2012 class, considering North Carolina St., Xavier, Villanova, Baylor, Arizona)

Graham is the highest-rated recruit in the senior class who will be here this weekend and he plays alongside of fellow senior Jordan Goodman (considering Georgetown, Rutgers, West Virginia, Kansas State and Texas Tech).

He’s an athletic guard who has started to become more and more of a scorer as his high school career as gone on.

The form on his jumper is a little unorthodox but it works and for a smaller guard (6-foot-4), he can play above the rim.

 

OTHERS TO WATCH:

Arlington Country Day (FL): F Junior Etou

Bishop Kearney (NY): C Chinoso Obokoh

Huntington Prep (WV): G Javontae Hawkins, F Negus Webster-Chan, F Stefan Jankovic, G Xavier Rathan-Mayes

Morgantown (WV): F Nathan Adrian

South Shore (NY): F Shamiek Shephard, G Terrence Samuel, G Doudmy Saint Hilaire

Tilton School (NH): F Georges Niang, C Goodluck Okonoboh

Withrow (OH): F Devin Williams

One of the most puzzling things about this West Virginia team this season has been freshman forward Keaton Miles. A talented, highly touted recruit out of the prestigious Lincoln High School in Dallas, Miles was really the only freshman who received a lot of minutes who hadn’t started showing a lot of progress.

Of all the full-time starters in the nation (players who had started every game their team has played), Miles came into Saturday’s game against the Scarlet Knights averaging the second-fewest minutes per game in the country (13.7).

Miles passed that mark in the first half against Rutgers and played a career-high 29 minutes. He had his best game in a Mountaineer uniform, scoring six points and grabbing four rebounds while dishing out a team season-high seven assists (tying freshman PG Jabarie Hinds’ mark he set twice this season).

For what it’s worth: the Mountaineers are 9-1 when Miles plays more than 15 minutes in a game and they’ve won all three games Miles scored more than five points in.

After having a Plus/Minus (WVU’s points scored minus opponent’s points scored while Miles was on the floor) of -6 in West Virginia’s last three games, he finished +38 against the Scarlet Knights Saturday.

When he was in high school, I got to see about four or five of Miles’ games on TV and was extremely impressed. He was comfortable on offense and defense and made a big impact every game. That wasn’t the case so far this year.

Was it hard for Miles to stay positive when he was struggling? Yes, of course it was. It would be for any freshman.

But what got him to where he could have a game like he did Saturday, and what will help him continue that throughout the rest of the season?

“(Seniors Kevin Jones and Truck Bryant) just tell me, ‘Keaton, you have to go out there and play. Just play your game. We know you can play. We’ve seen you play.’ Even when I was down and I didn’t believe in myself, they believed in me,” Miles said after the game.

——

Quick Hitters:

• West Virginia forced 19 turnovers against Rutgers. The Mountaineers are now 12-0 when they force 15 or more turnovers in a game.
• With is “quiet” 24 points and 14 rebounds, Kevin Jones recorded his third-straight 20-point game. It was the first time in his career he was able to accomplish that feat.
• Jones had 12 career double-doubles entering this season, Saturday was his 12th of his senior year.
• More KJ stats! Jones is the only player in the nation who averages more than 20 points and more than 10 rebounds per game. West Virginia is 6-1 when he goes for at least 20 and 10 and the only game it lost was to No. 4 Baylor (15-0 this season).
• WVU is 7-1 when Truck Bryant makes more than three 3-pointers in a game.
• The Mountaineers are 9-1 at the Coliseum now. They’re beating opponents by an average of 15.3 points per game at home.
• West Virginia is 7-1 when it scores 80 or more points in a game (once again, the only loss was to Baylor).
• The win over Rutgers was WVU’s 6th win by 20 or more points of the season. The Mountaineers have won 46 games by at least 20 points since Bob Huggins became the school’s head coach.
• West Virginia’s next game is against Marshall in the Capital Classic. The series has been closer than you think. Although WVU has won eight against Marshall since 2000, the average margin of victory for the Mountaineers is just a little bit over three points (3.16) and the Herd is coming off a four-point win last season.
• As of Sunday night, the Mountaineers are No. 12 in the RPI and Marshall is No. 33, which makes the game a quality NCAA tournament resume win when the end of the season comes around.

14 of the Big East’s 16 teams are in action this weekend.

Friday night, in typical Big East basketball fashion, No. 24 Seton Hall fell to South Florida to give the Pirates its first loss as a ranked team since Feb. 4, 2001 when they suffered a 70-64 loss to Rutgers.

With seven more games on the slate Saturday and Sunday, it looks like it could be shaping up to be yet another exciting weekend of basketball in the Big East.

SCHEDULE:

No. 17 Connecticut vs. Notre Dame (Saturday at 11 a.m., ESPN2)

Villanova vs. Cincinnati (Saturday at Noon, ESPN3)

Pittsburgh vs. No. 25 Marquette (Saturday at 2 p.m., ESPNU)

Rutgers vs. West Virginia (Saturday at 2 p.m., ESPN3)

DePaul vs. No. 15 Louisville (Saturday at 4 p.m., ESPN3)

Providence vs. No. 1 Syracuse (Saturday at 6 p.m., ESPN3)

No. 11 Georgetown vs. St. John’s (Sunday at Noon, ESPN3)

——–

Game of the Week: No. 17 Connecticut vs. Notre Dame

A Connecticut team that, up until its win over West Virginia in Hartford earlier in the week, had been struggling to find leadership will be traveling to face a surging Notre Dame team Saturday afternoon.

After going just 8-5 in their out-of-conference schedule and looking like they would be struggling mightily with the loss of its best player, Tim Abromaitis, the Irish have won three of its first four Big East Conference games. The biggest of those wins came last Saturday in the form of a two-point win over then-No. 11 Louisville in the KFC Yum! Center.

While Notre Dame will clearly have its work cut out for it this weekend against arguably the most talented team it has faced up to this point in the season, if it can get good performances from sophomore guard Jerian Grant (who has scored 14 or more points in six straight games), this should be a very fun game to watch.

Possible Upset? DePaul at Louisville

Although it started the season 12-0, Louisville has suffered a tough slide, losing four of its last five games. The Cardinals are coming off of easily the worst loss of those four, a 90-59 dismantling at the hands of Providence (No. 120 in the RPI) and they now host a talented DePaul team that features two of the better young players in the conference.

Sophomores Cleveland Melvin and Brandon Young are averaging more than 35 points and nine rebounds per game.

It could be a long shot, but if Louisville comes out flat like it did against Providence and the Blue Demons can play up to their potential, this could possibly be one of the biggest Big East upsets of the season.

Team that needs to play well: Pittsburgh

The Panthers put on an abysmal display of basketball in their 62-39 loss to Rutgers. They made just 12 of 57 attempts from the field (21 percent) and have yet to win a Big East game this season.

If any team in this conference needs a win, it’s this one.

And a win over No. 25 Marquette could be just what Pitt head coach Jamie Dixon’s team would need to start getting back on track before the season gets even more ugly. Success against the Golden Eagles will start with the Panthers’ senior guard, Ashton Gibbs.

In 31 minutes against the Scarlet Knights, Gibbs scored a season-low eight points on 2-11 shooting. Pittsburgh needs Gibbs to play well if it wants to compete this year in the Big East.

Players to Watch: Cleveland Melvin (DePaul) and Maalik Wayns (Villanova)

Both DePaul and Villanova have the chance to score upsets this weekend.

We’ve already talked about the Blue Demons’ matchup against Louisville, and Villanova takes on Cincinnati.

Since its brawl with Xavier, Cincinnati has won eight out of nine games and beat Georgetown on the road Monday night.

Melvin and Wayns will probably be the two players who will be the biggest factors for their teams if they want to pull of these wins. at 6-foot-7, Melvin has an interesting mix of athleticism and can score and rebound with the best in the conference.

Wayns can score off the dribble and is averaging close to 17 points per game to go with 4.6 assists per game.

Today is Ray Gaddis’ birthday.

The former WVU defender has been very influential in making the West Virginia men’s soccer program one of the best in the country over the course of the last four years and he was rewarded for all of that work by getting selected in the second round of the MLS SuperDraft yesterday by the Philadelphia Union.

When I talked to Ray Thursday night and he told me his birthday was Friday, that got me thinking, could there really be a better birthday present than that?

Let’s think about it for a second: He’s worked hard practically for his entire life in the game of soccer with the goal of, one day, getting to play at the professional level. And then a day before your birthday that dream comes true and all of that hard work pays off.

That’s definitely pretty awesome, I think.

It was a treat covering Ray when I got to cover the men’s soccer team a year ago. He was a great guy to talk to and was fantastic to watch. He was easily one of the most electrifying players I’ve gotten to cover in my time at The DA (in any sport, including football and basketball) and made a huge impact in just about every game he played in a Mountaineer uniform.

When I talked to LeBlanc, we spoke about the impact that Gaddis had on the men’s soccer program as a whole.

“Everybody kind of looked at him and saw what he was doing from the right back position to impact our game,” LeBlanc said.

“Outside of the physical characteristics of what he can do from an athletic perspective, it’s the character intangibles that really set him apart from the great majority of people out there. He’s a very focused young man who’s going to work his socks off every day.”

Congratulations to Ray for getting drafted, and being the highest draft pick in WVU men’s soccer history. That’s quite an accomplishment.

And quite a birthday present, too.