Post by rainman on Nov 7, 2007 6:55:28 GMT -5
Live competition
By Mickey Furfari
For the Times West Virginian
MORGANTOWN— Coach Bob Huggins said Tuesday he hopes to learn a great deal about the West Virginia University men’s basketball team in Saturday night’s exhibition game against NAIA power Mountain State University.
That Beckley institution took a 2-0 record into Tuesday night’s game against the University of Cumberlands, another NAIA toughie from Kentucky.
“We probably need to play a game,” said Huggins, in his first year as head mentor at his alma mater. “We don’t have close to everything in. But I think we need to play somebody else.”
The game will begin at 7 p.m. Admission will be $10, and there will be open seating.
Huggins thinks the Cougars, coached by Bob Bolen, will do some things that the Mountaineers need work on. That should benefit WVU.
“We haven’t defended ball screens much, and they’re going to ball-screen a lot,” he said. “They’re a very good transition team, and we haven’t spent enough time on transition defenses.
“So that’s something that I think really is going to be tested. We’ve got to continue to rebound better, and they will be a challenge for us on that. They’re going to spread the floor. I think they’ll do a lot of things that we will have to defend.”
Huggins keeps saying that his staff has pretty much settled on seven players with whom he feels WVU can win this season. But he continues to search for three others he would like in the rotation.
That is, two dependable players for each of the five positions. He believes this would help competition in practice as well as in actual games.
Huggins also is looking for more consistency in all play phases, particularly rebounding.
“All of us have got to be more consistent,” he said. “We probably are not as consistent as we need to be, and we need to make sure each player does things right.”
His reasoning is that it’s a long season and there could be sickness as well as injuries, necessitating replacements who know what to do.
“We’ve got so many young guys,” Huggins reiterated. “We’ve got just four upperclassmen. Young guys aren’t as consistent as the older guys. They don’t know as much.
“People try to do things they haven’t seen before and get confused, where older guys have seen a lot of things. It’s just a matter of we’re so young. Seven freshmen in last year’s class, that’s more than half our team.
“That makes it difficult.”
The WVU men will open the regular season on Friday, Nov. 16, against Arkansas-Monticello in the Legends Classic Morgantown regional. The Mountaineers then will, play Prairie View A&M on Sunday, Nov. 18.
Win or lose, they then advance to the play Tennessee on Friday, Nov. 23, and either Texas or New Mexico State on Saturday, Nov. 24. in the Legends windup at Newark, N.J.
By Mickey Furfari
For the Times West Virginian
MORGANTOWN— Coach Bob Huggins said Tuesday he hopes to learn a great deal about the West Virginia University men’s basketball team in Saturday night’s exhibition game against NAIA power Mountain State University.
That Beckley institution took a 2-0 record into Tuesday night’s game against the University of Cumberlands, another NAIA toughie from Kentucky.
“We probably need to play a game,” said Huggins, in his first year as head mentor at his alma mater. “We don’t have close to everything in. But I think we need to play somebody else.”
The game will begin at 7 p.m. Admission will be $10, and there will be open seating.
Huggins thinks the Cougars, coached by Bob Bolen, will do some things that the Mountaineers need work on. That should benefit WVU.
“We haven’t defended ball screens much, and they’re going to ball-screen a lot,” he said. “They’re a very good transition team, and we haven’t spent enough time on transition defenses.
“So that’s something that I think really is going to be tested. We’ve got to continue to rebound better, and they will be a challenge for us on that. They’re going to spread the floor. I think they’ll do a lot of things that we will have to defend.”
Huggins keeps saying that his staff has pretty much settled on seven players with whom he feels WVU can win this season. But he continues to search for three others he would like in the rotation.
That is, two dependable players for each of the five positions. He believes this would help competition in practice as well as in actual games.
Huggins also is looking for more consistency in all play phases, particularly rebounding.
“All of us have got to be more consistent,” he said. “We probably are not as consistent as we need to be, and we need to make sure each player does things right.”
His reasoning is that it’s a long season and there could be sickness as well as injuries, necessitating replacements who know what to do.
“We’ve got so many young guys,” Huggins reiterated. “We’ve got just four upperclassmen. Young guys aren’t as consistent as the older guys. They don’t know as much.
“People try to do things they haven’t seen before and get confused, where older guys have seen a lot of things. It’s just a matter of we’re so young. Seven freshmen in last year’s class, that’s more than half our team.
“That makes it difficult.”
The WVU men will open the regular season on Friday, Nov. 16, against Arkansas-Monticello in the Legends Classic Morgantown regional. The Mountaineers then will, play Prairie View A&M on Sunday, Nov. 18.
Win or lose, they then advance to the play Tennessee on Friday, Nov. 23, and either Texas or New Mexico State on Saturday, Nov. 24. in the Legends windup at Newark, N.J.
