Post by cviller on Jan 16, 2009 10:33:42 GMT -5
Mountaineers turn their attention to South Florida
By Mike Casazza
Daily Mail sports writer
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- The mood, of course, was better Wednesday night for a West Virginia basketball team that avoided its first three-game losing streak in three years with a Capital Classic victory against Marshall in Charleston.
"Losing sucks, let me tell you," said WVU senior guard Alex Ruoff, who played all of eight minutes in a pair of three-game streaks as a freshman in 2005-06. "When you're not in practice, when you're in class thinking about what happened, you're just depressed.
"Then when you come to practice, all you think about is bouncing back and getting a win like this."
The excitement was tempered because Saturday the Mountaineers (12-4, 1-2 Big East) return to conference play, where they've lost two in a row, and play host to South Florida at noon (WCHS telecast) at the WVU Coliseum.
A limited number of tickets returned by USF are available.
"Winning is good for us, but we could have done things a little bit better and been a little cleaner because it was pretty sloppy," Ruoff said. "There are a lot of things we still need to work on. We allowed 53 points in the second half (to the Herd), and that's a problem.
"You can ask any coach in the country. We've got to concentrate on guarding the ball because they broke us down one-on-one in the second half and we didn't get the stops we needed."
WVU, which allowed Marquette to score 46 points in Saturday's second half, including 24 of the game's final 29, gave up 53 points and 53-percent shooting in the second half Wednesday.
Marshall was 13-for-24 from 2-point range and made seven layups.
"There were times you'd look around like, 'What's going on with the team?'" forward Da'Sean Butler said. "We've got a lot of young guys, but we have upperclassmen making mistakes, too. It's a matter of growing up and playing better basketball."
Most of those moments occurred in the second half when Marshall cut a 20-point lead in half and then got easy scores at the basket the final few minutes.
In the first half, though, the Mountaineers played spirited defense, held Marshall to 37.5 percent shooting and forced eight turnovers that were good for 11 points. WVU had five steals and deflected and discouraged several other passes.
"When we played Connecticut and Marquette, I was concerned about foul trouble," Coach Bob Huggins said. "I was concerned about Connecticut's size and Marquette's playing four guards, so we did some different things.
"(Assistant coach Larry Harrison) has been on me about, 'Let's go do what we do, Huggs. Let's go do what we do.' That's what we do. We try to take people out of what they want to do. When we play certain people, we'll have to make certain adjustments, but we need to play that way in stretches because it creates offense."
The Bulls (6-10, 1-3) lost at top-ranked Pitt Wednesday, 75-62. They've lost seven of 10 since the end of the first semester, which is when they hoped things would turn as transfers Mike Mercer and Gus Gilchrist became eligible.
Mercer, a guard from the University of Georgia, tore his right ACL in his fourth game and is out for the season. Gilchrist, a 6-foot-10 forward-center who was recruited by WVU, committed to Virginia Tech, enrolled at Maryland and transferred to USF, has started three games and averages 10.5 points and 4.5 rebounds.
Dominique Jones leads the team with 17.3 points per game and Jesus Verdejo is second at 14.4. Both shoot 37 percent from 3-point range. USF's third guard, Chris Howard, averages 6.8 points and has 66 assists, 34 turnovers and 15 steals.
"I really like their team," Huggins said. "Their perimeter guys are very good. They can stretch you out and play off the bounce. And like everyone else in the league, they're so much bigger than we are. We're going to have to do a great job keeping them off the glass."
Contact sportswriter Mike Casazza at mi...@dailymail.com or 304-319-1142. His blog is at blogs.dailymail.com/wvu.
By Mike Casazza
Daily Mail sports writer
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. -- The mood, of course, was better Wednesday night for a West Virginia basketball team that avoided its first three-game losing streak in three years with a Capital Classic victory against Marshall in Charleston.
"Losing sucks, let me tell you," said WVU senior guard Alex Ruoff, who played all of eight minutes in a pair of three-game streaks as a freshman in 2005-06. "When you're not in practice, when you're in class thinking about what happened, you're just depressed.
"Then when you come to practice, all you think about is bouncing back and getting a win like this."
The excitement was tempered because Saturday the Mountaineers (12-4, 1-2 Big East) return to conference play, where they've lost two in a row, and play host to South Florida at noon (WCHS telecast) at the WVU Coliseum.
A limited number of tickets returned by USF are available.
"Winning is good for us, but we could have done things a little bit better and been a little cleaner because it was pretty sloppy," Ruoff said. "There are a lot of things we still need to work on. We allowed 53 points in the second half (to the Herd), and that's a problem.
"You can ask any coach in the country. We've got to concentrate on guarding the ball because they broke us down one-on-one in the second half and we didn't get the stops we needed."
WVU, which allowed Marquette to score 46 points in Saturday's second half, including 24 of the game's final 29, gave up 53 points and 53-percent shooting in the second half Wednesday.
Marshall was 13-for-24 from 2-point range and made seven layups.
"There were times you'd look around like, 'What's going on with the team?'" forward Da'Sean Butler said. "We've got a lot of young guys, but we have upperclassmen making mistakes, too. It's a matter of growing up and playing better basketball."
Most of those moments occurred in the second half when Marshall cut a 20-point lead in half and then got easy scores at the basket the final few minutes.
In the first half, though, the Mountaineers played spirited defense, held Marshall to 37.5 percent shooting and forced eight turnovers that were good for 11 points. WVU had five steals and deflected and discouraged several other passes.
"When we played Connecticut and Marquette, I was concerned about foul trouble," Coach Bob Huggins said. "I was concerned about Connecticut's size and Marquette's playing four guards, so we did some different things.
"(Assistant coach Larry Harrison) has been on me about, 'Let's go do what we do, Huggs. Let's go do what we do.' That's what we do. We try to take people out of what they want to do. When we play certain people, we'll have to make certain adjustments, but we need to play that way in stretches because it creates offense."
The Bulls (6-10, 1-3) lost at top-ranked Pitt Wednesday, 75-62. They've lost seven of 10 since the end of the first semester, which is when they hoped things would turn as transfers Mike Mercer and Gus Gilchrist became eligible.
Mercer, a guard from the University of Georgia, tore his right ACL in his fourth game and is out for the season. Gilchrist, a 6-foot-10 forward-center who was recruited by WVU, committed to Virginia Tech, enrolled at Maryland and transferred to USF, has started three games and averages 10.5 points and 4.5 rebounds.
Dominique Jones leads the team with 17.3 points per game and Jesus Verdejo is second at 14.4. Both shoot 37 percent from 3-point range. USF's third guard, Chris Howard, averages 6.8 points and has 66 assists, 34 turnovers and 15 steals.
"I really like their team," Huggins said. "Their perimeter guys are very good. They can stretch you out and play off the bounce. And like everyone else in the league, they're so much bigger than we are. We're going to have to do a great job keeping them off the glass."
Contact sportswriter Mike Casazza at mi...@dailymail.com or 304-319-1142. His blog is at blogs.dailymail.com/wvu.