Post by elp525 on Mar 12, 2011 7:38:06 GMT -5
March 11, 2011
By Dave Hickman
The Charleston Gazette
MORGANTOWN - Does West Virginia's basketball team this season have trouble living with success?
There's not an overwhelming amount of evidence to support the contention, but it is difficult to deny that at times there seems to be proof of it.
The Mountaineers' performance in Wednesday night's 67-61 loss to Marquette in their opening game of the Big East tournament was the most recent example. Not the loss, mind you, but the performance.
Losing to the Golden Eagles is not shameful. Marquette is an NCAA tournament team that was fighting for its postseason life at the time. West Virginia might have lost even had it played well.
The Mountaineers didn't play well, though, and that's the point here. They were plagued by turnovers and defensive breakdowns, the kind of things that indicate effort deficiencies rather than a mere bad day at the office.
And it's not the first time.
Go back through WVU's losses this season and, for the most part, they were to good teams that were playing well. Eight of the losses in what is to date a 20-11 season were to teams that will be in the NCAA tournament.
But three of those losses (two of them to NCAA tournament teams) stand out as what one would consider surprises - St. John's at home in late December, Marshall in Charleston in January and the loss at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday.
Why were they surprising? Because at each point in the season, West Virginia appeared to be reaching its potential.
The loss to St. John's came after huge second halves in wins over Robert Morris and Duquesne, and a rather convincing victory over a Cleveland State team that was undefeated at the time and ranked No. 1 in one of those mid-major polls.
The humbling defeat at the hands of Marshall ended a four-game winning streak and was preceded by a rousing win over then-No. 8 Purdue.
The loss to Marquette earlier this week was in the wake of four wins in five games, three of them against Top 25 teams.
Granted, all three of those teams had something going for them. But St. John's winning at the Coliseum? Marshall leading by 24? And Marquette beating a team that was 7-2 in its last three Big East tournaments?
Perhaps not coincidentally, two of those three losses - Marshall and Marquette - came just after the Mountaineers had cracked the Associated Press Top 25. In fact, West Virginia was ranked in four AP polls this season -those released on Jan. 17, Jan. 31, Feb. 7 and March 7. On all but one occasion (a win over Seton Hall on Feb. 2), the Mountaineers lost their next game.
As an unranked team, WVU is 17-7 this season. Playing as a ranked team, the Mountaineers are 3-4.
Sure, there's some happenstance involved there - the quality of the competition and home vs. road games that were simply next up when those rankings came - but is there more to it than just that? Is this the type of team that perhaps gets to feeling a little too good about itself when things are going right and forgets what got it there?
"It kind of seems that way,'' forward Kevin Jones said when presented with the theory after the loss to Marquette. "When things are going good, we seem to relax.''
Fortunately for this team, the opposite also seems true. When things aren't going so well is when West Virginia usually gets down to business. The loss to St. John's was a wake-up call and, over the next five games, WVU went 4-1, losing only in a rather well-played game at Marquette and capped by the win over Purdue. The loss to Marshall was followed by a 3-1 run in which the only defeat was on a last-second shot at Louisville.
And when West Virginia then went 2-4 (there were really no upsets there, just losses to great teams) to fall out of the rankings and seemingly put its NCAA tournament life on the line, next came that 4-1 finish.
The bottom line, perhaps, is that if this team tends to relax when things are going well, it also has a habit of recognizing when things aren't so rosy and doing something about it.
Thanks to the loss to Marquette, things aren't all that rosy right now. But with the NCAA tournament beginning next week, perhaps that's a good thing.
"Now it's one-and-done,'' Jones said. "Maybe that's just what we need, more motivation.''
By Dave Hickman
The Charleston Gazette
MORGANTOWN - Does West Virginia's basketball team this season have trouble living with success?
There's not an overwhelming amount of evidence to support the contention, but it is difficult to deny that at times there seems to be proof of it.
The Mountaineers' performance in Wednesday night's 67-61 loss to Marquette in their opening game of the Big East tournament was the most recent example. Not the loss, mind you, but the performance.
Losing to the Golden Eagles is not shameful. Marquette is an NCAA tournament team that was fighting for its postseason life at the time. West Virginia might have lost even had it played well.
The Mountaineers didn't play well, though, and that's the point here. They were plagued by turnovers and defensive breakdowns, the kind of things that indicate effort deficiencies rather than a mere bad day at the office.
And it's not the first time.
Go back through WVU's losses this season and, for the most part, they were to good teams that were playing well. Eight of the losses in what is to date a 20-11 season were to teams that will be in the NCAA tournament.
But three of those losses (two of them to NCAA tournament teams) stand out as what one would consider surprises - St. John's at home in late December, Marshall in Charleston in January and the loss at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday.
Why were they surprising? Because at each point in the season, West Virginia appeared to be reaching its potential.
The loss to St. John's came after huge second halves in wins over Robert Morris and Duquesne, and a rather convincing victory over a Cleveland State team that was undefeated at the time and ranked No. 1 in one of those mid-major polls.
The humbling defeat at the hands of Marshall ended a four-game winning streak and was preceded by a rousing win over then-No. 8 Purdue.
The loss to Marquette earlier this week was in the wake of four wins in five games, three of them against Top 25 teams.
Granted, all three of those teams had something going for them. But St. John's winning at the Coliseum? Marshall leading by 24? And Marquette beating a team that was 7-2 in its last three Big East tournaments?
Perhaps not coincidentally, two of those three losses - Marshall and Marquette - came just after the Mountaineers had cracked the Associated Press Top 25. In fact, West Virginia was ranked in four AP polls this season -those released on Jan. 17, Jan. 31, Feb. 7 and March 7. On all but one occasion (a win over Seton Hall on Feb. 2), the Mountaineers lost their next game.
As an unranked team, WVU is 17-7 this season. Playing as a ranked team, the Mountaineers are 3-4.
Sure, there's some happenstance involved there - the quality of the competition and home vs. road games that were simply next up when those rankings came - but is there more to it than just that? Is this the type of team that perhaps gets to feeling a little too good about itself when things are going right and forgets what got it there?
"It kind of seems that way,'' forward Kevin Jones said when presented with the theory after the loss to Marquette. "When things are going good, we seem to relax.''
Fortunately for this team, the opposite also seems true. When things aren't going so well is when West Virginia usually gets down to business. The loss to St. John's was a wake-up call and, over the next five games, WVU went 4-1, losing only in a rather well-played game at Marquette and capped by the win over Purdue. The loss to Marshall was followed by a 3-1 run in which the only defeat was on a last-second shot at Louisville.
And when West Virginia then went 2-4 (there were really no upsets there, just losses to great teams) to fall out of the rankings and seemingly put its NCAA tournament life on the line, next came that 4-1 finish.
The bottom line, perhaps, is that if this team tends to relax when things are going well, it also has a habit of recognizing when things aren't so rosy and doing something about it.
Thanks to the loss to Marquette, things aren't all that rosy right now. But with the NCAA tournament beginning next week, perhaps that's a good thing.
"Now it's one-and-done,'' Jones said. "Maybe that's just what we need, more motivation.''
