Post by elp525 on Oct 15, 2011 13:34:56 GMT -5
10/14/2011
Chip Fontanazza
Morgantown
Youthful exuberance was something WVU head coach Bob Huggins felt was missing from last year’s team and during Friday night’s Mountaineer Madness there was a lot of young energy around the Coliseum. A total of eight freshmen are on this year’s squad (six on scholarship) and they set the tone for the night.
As the freshmen were introduced to the Mountaineer faithful for the first time the energy and excitement in Coliseum picked up and the players put on a show for the fans during both the scrimmage and during the slam-dunk contest.
The night started off with the Bob Huggins look a like contest. The winner was Pete Clayton from Fairmont. As part of his prize he will be able to watch one of the Mountaineers’ practices, have dinner with the team and he was also a judge in the slam-dunk contest.
((Below are sights and sounds from Mountaineer Madness))
After that, both the men’s and women’s basketball teams were introduced to the crowd. All of the seniors talked about their trips to Europe over the summer and both Huggins and women’s head coach Mike Carey talked about the upcoming season and thanked the 6,000+ fans for attending.
“It’s just great to be here. It’s great to get started again,” Huggins told the crowd at the Coliseum. “We have a great bunch of guys. I think what we have this year that we didn’t have last year because of everything that happened, we kind of lost that youthful exuberance. Hopefully we don’t have too much of that now.”
“They’ve been good so far and I fully expect them to be good and we’ve got a great tradition to follow here and we just want to keep hanging banners,” continued Huggins.
Following the introductions, the slam-dunk competition took place between newcomers Keaton Miles, Aaric Murray, Juwan Staten and Tommie McCune. Murray won the competition with two impressive dunks in the finals. For his first dunk he jumped over Darryl “Truck” Bryant and for his second he slammed down an alley-oop pass from the stands.
The Mountaineers then scrimmaged for the crowd and showed off the fast, up-tempo style of play the team plans to run this season. The crowd and Huggins were so impressed with the team’s play they added five minutes to the scrimmage.
The night then closed out with Deniz Kilicli’s rendition of “Country Roads” on his guitar. After his performance Kilicli said he was very honored to have played the song.
((Below is an interview with Deniz Kilicli about playing County Roads))
“This is actually not just a sing, it’s like an anthem of West Virginia,” said Kilicli. “I’m proud to be able to play this song and God bless his sole John Denver, he’s great [and created] a great piece of music.”
“There aren’t many songs about West Virginia and you hear it everywhere,” continued Kilicli. “You can even hear it in Turkey. That’s how good of a song it is, but it means so much to the people in West Virginia. I’m really honored to be playing in front of that many people in West Virginia.”
The Mountaineers will open their season on November 4th with an exhibition against Northern Kentucky and the regular season will begin on November 11th against Oral Roberts. Continue to follow MetroNews for coverage of the Mountaineers all season long.
Chip Fontanazza
Morgantown
Youthful exuberance was something WVU head coach Bob Huggins felt was missing from last year’s team and during Friday night’s Mountaineer Madness there was a lot of young energy around the Coliseum. A total of eight freshmen are on this year’s squad (six on scholarship) and they set the tone for the night.
As the freshmen were introduced to the Mountaineer faithful for the first time the energy and excitement in Coliseum picked up and the players put on a show for the fans during both the scrimmage and during the slam-dunk contest.
The night started off with the Bob Huggins look a like contest. The winner was Pete Clayton from Fairmont. As part of his prize he will be able to watch one of the Mountaineers’ practices, have dinner with the team and he was also a judge in the slam-dunk contest.
((Below are sights and sounds from Mountaineer Madness))
After that, both the men’s and women’s basketball teams were introduced to the crowd. All of the seniors talked about their trips to Europe over the summer and both Huggins and women’s head coach Mike Carey talked about the upcoming season and thanked the 6,000+ fans for attending.
“It’s just great to be here. It’s great to get started again,” Huggins told the crowd at the Coliseum. “We have a great bunch of guys. I think what we have this year that we didn’t have last year because of everything that happened, we kind of lost that youthful exuberance. Hopefully we don’t have too much of that now.”
“They’ve been good so far and I fully expect them to be good and we’ve got a great tradition to follow here and we just want to keep hanging banners,” continued Huggins.
Following the introductions, the slam-dunk competition took place between newcomers Keaton Miles, Aaric Murray, Juwan Staten and Tommie McCune. Murray won the competition with two impressive dunks in the finals. For his first dunk he jumped over Darryl “Truck” Bryant and for his second he slammed down an alley-oop pass from the stands.
The Mountaineers then scrimmaged for the crowd and showed off the fast, up-tempo style of play the team plans to run this season. The crowd and Huggins were so impressed with the team’s play they added five minutes to the scrimmage.
The night then closed out with Deniz Kilicli’s rendition of “Country Roads” on his guitar. After his performance Kilicli said he was very honored to have played the song.
((Below is an interview with Deniz Kilicli about playing County Roads))
“This is actually not just a sing, it’s like an anthem of West Virginia,” said Kilicli. “I’m proud to be able to play this song and God bless his sole John Denver, he’s great [and created] a great piece of music.”
“There aren’t many songs about West Virginia and you hear it everywhere,” continued Kilicli. “You can even hear it in Turkey. That’s how good of a song it is, but it means so much to the people in West Virginia. I’m really honored to be playing in front of that many people in West Virginia.”
The Mountaineers will open their season on November 4th with an exhibition against Northern Kentucky and the regular season will begin on November 11th against Oral Roberts. Continue to follow MetroNews for coverage of the Mountaineers all season long.
