Post by elp525 on May 10, 2011 5:07:38 GMT -5
May 9, 2011
By Dave Hickman
The Charleston Gazette
MORGANTOWN - Bob Huggins would likely never admit to as much, but until Sunday night his 2011-12 West Virginia basketball team was a disaster waiting to happen.
Not that it would have happened, mind you.
There's a reason, after all, that Huggins has coached 691 college basketball victories. There's a reason that in 26 years as a head coach on the Division I level he has coached 23 of those teams to at least 20 wins. There is a reason why since he hit the big time at Cincinnati 21 years ago his teams have never failed to make the postseason and why in 18 of his last 19 years on the bench his teams have been in the NCAA tournament.
It's because Huggins, even when circumstances would seem to indicate otherwise, always finds a way to take what he has and make it into something pretty good.
But let's face it, that theory would have been tested again next season had Kevin Jones decided not to return for his senior season.
In a nutshell, here's the down side of what Huggins would have had to work with had Jones bolted. He would have had one senior (Truck Bryant), two juniors (Deniz Kilicli and Dalton Pepper) and a redshirt freshman (Kevin Noreen, who on Monday was granted his medical hardship after a knee injury cut last year short) as the only players on his roster with any real college basketball experience. Three of those have never been anything more than role players, and the fourth, Bryant, is, well, Bryant, a roller coaster waiting for the next peak or valley.
It would have been imperative that at least one of the seven newcomers arriving this summer - six freshmen and a junior college transfer - be in the starting lineup right away. Not that that's a bad thing. It happens all the time. It could very well happen at WVU next season anyway. But you'd like to be able to do that by choice and not necessity.
In short, this would have been the kind of group of inexperienced and developing players that Big East teams feast on, quite frankly. It would have been Rutgers.
Now, of course, one player doesn't change all of that. But he does affect all of that in ways that are, quite frankly, incalculable.
So in that same nutshell, here's the up side of what Huggins now has to work with now that Jones has decided that the NBA draft is not for him this year. He now has five returnees that he can put on the floor the first day of practice who know what they're doing. The seven newcomers? They have players to watch at every spot on the floor who are versed in Huggins' ways, which are not always easy to master.
That's a far cry from the most significant contribution Jones will make to next year's team, however. In fact, the biggest contribution is debatable. Will it simply be the presence of the best and most experienced player on the floor for a team that just lost five seniors, or is it having the calm, collective presence of the selfless Jones simply in the program at all?
Chances are, it's a combination of both.
Of course, the other thing that Huggins has going for him next season has nothing to do with Jones, but his presence there will be a boost, too. In August the Mountaineers will tour Italy and play a handful of exhibition games, which is a built-in extra practice period - both prior to the trip and during it - for a team that is going to need all the practice it can get.
And that's just another opportunity for a team that will have more newcomers than veterans to learn from both Huggins and Jones.
By Dave Hickman
The Charleston Gazette
MORGANTOWN - Bob Huggins would likely never admit to as much, but until Sunday night his 2011-12 West Virginia basketball team was a disaster waiting to happen.
Not that it would have happened, mind you.
There's a reason, after all, that Huggins has coached 691 college basketball victories. There's a reason that in 26 years as a head coach on the Division I level he has coached 23 of those teams to at least 20 wins. There is a reason why since he hit the big time at Cincinnati 21 years ago his teams have never failed to make the postseason and why in 18 of his last 19 years on the bench his teams have been in the NCAA tournament.
It's because Huggins, even when circumstances would seem to indicate otherwise, always finds a way to take what he has and make it into something pretty good.
But let's face it, that theory would have been tested again next season had Kevin Jones decided not to return for his senior season.
In a nutshell, here's the down side of what Huggins would have had to work with had Jones bolted. He would have had one senior (Truck Bryant), two juniors (Deniz Kilicli and Dalton Pepper) and a redshirt freshman (Kevin Noreen, who on Monday was granted his medical hardship after a knee injury cut last year short) as the only players on his roster with any real college basketball experience. Three of those have never been anything more than role players, and the fourth, Bryant, is, well, Bryant, a roller coaster waiting for the next peak or valley.
It would have been imperative that at least one of the seven newcomers arriving this summer - six freshmen and a junior college transfer - be in the starting lineup right away. Not that that's a bad thing. It happens all the time. It could very well happen at WVU next season anyway. But you'd like to be able to do that by choice and not necessity.
In short, this would have been the kind of group of inexperienced and developing players that Big East teams feast on, quite frankly. It would have been Rutgers.
Now, of course, one player doesn't change all of that. But he does affect all of that in ways that are, quite frankly, incalculable.
So in that same nutshell, here's the up side of what Huggins now has to work with now that Jones has decided that the NBA draft is not for him this year. He now has five returnees that he can put on the floor the first day of practice who know what they're doing. The seven newcomers? They have players to watch at every spot on the floor who are versed in Huggins' ways, which are not always easy to master.
That's a far cry from the most significant contribution Jones will make to next year's team, however. In fact, the biggest contribution is debatable. Will it simply be the presence of the best and most experienced player on the floor for a team that just lost five seniors, or is it having the calm, collective presence of the selfless Jones simply in the program at all?
Chances are, it's a combination of both.
Of course, the other thing that Huggins has going for him next season has nothing to do with Jones, but his presence there will be a boost, too. In August the Mountaineers will tour Italy and play a handful of exhibition games, which is a built-in extra practice period - both prior to the trip and during it - for a team that is going to need all the practice it can get.
And that's just another opportunity for a team that will have more newcomers than veterans to learn from both Huggins and Jones.
