My Fiver on WVU's victory over the Knights in the Coliseum Tuesday night...
1. Pump up the Volume. Not gonna lie, I'm typically a high 3-point shot volume guy. Give me more volume on those any day. But Tuesday night, UCF just killed themselves with bad three-point shot after bad three-point shot. They were not falling, and we could simply stand back and let them fire brick after brick, so long as we did a good job cleaning the glass. UCF goes 9-38 from "3", while WVU goes 7-14. And WVU wins the rebounding battle 42-36, holding UCF to 13 offensive rebounds on 47 missed shots (27.6%).
2. I enjoyed this one. Hated that we went down to Orlando and let UCF have their way with us last month. Thought we were soft and weak in that game. Jesse Edwards made a huge difference. In our 1st game Ibrahima Diallo from UCF had 14 points, 12 rebounds, 4 blocks and 1 steal in 22 minutes. In this one, with Jesse Edwards out there, Diallo had 3 points, 4 rebounds, 2 blocks in 16 minutes. Meanwhile, Edwards goes for 15 points, 10 rebounds, 2 blocks, 1 assist, 1 steal in 31 minutes. Big difference.
3. Boy, have we tightened our rotations. Our starters - Kerr Kriisa, Kobe Johnson, Raquon Battle, Quinn Slazinski and Edwards all played 30 minutes+. Noah Farrakhan had 14 minutes off the bench, Josiah Harris had 11, and otherwise, Akok Akok had just 8 and Pat Suemnick 6. That's it.
4. Raquon Battle goes for 24 points, 5 rebounds, 2 blocks on 7-15 shooting, going 2-3 from "3" and a neat 8-8 from the line. This is the guy we're going to need if we're going to make any sort of noise in the Big 12 Tournament, our only possible avenue to the Tournament. We're going to need Battle to be Superman, and let Edwards compliment him inside in the PnR game with Kriisa. That said, Raquon needs to stop lying on the floor after no-calls on the offensive end. Twice he laid down while we played 4x5 on the other end. I'm sure he was hurting, but he wasn't injured. Get up, get back, fight through it.
5. Coaching Search. I'm going to echo what @burgheer said to me the other day...whomever we hire, it's going to be nice to enter the modern basketball era and it will be an upgrade from not only what we're experiencing this year (obviously), but also what we're endured since Bob Huggins abandoned Press Virginia. It will. We have some good, viable candidates out there, and guys like Dusty May, Pat Kelsey, Ben McCollum, Josh Schertz, Mark Byington, Will Wade, Nicco Medved, Kyle Smith, Bucky McMillan...they would all bring a viable, fun, and good basketball product to Morgantown. Days of seeing how many power forwards we can fit in the paint are over. Days of "just gotta make shots Tone" are behind us. Days of seeing Jimmy Bell playing ball-denial defense on a forward 30 feet from the basket are in the rear view.
We will be hit with an instant shot in the arm once the hire is announced. Some will groan and moan for a minute. But, en masse, the naming of the new coach, the naming of the staff, the leak of names of players who may be joining...it's all going to be chicken soup for the Mountaineer soul. We'll learn about the coach, his systems on "O" and "D", how he operates, how he plans to tackle the Portal and NIL. It's going to give everyone in the Athletic Administration, and our fans, a bit of jump in their step. It's not far.
1. Pump up the Volume. Not gonna lie, I'm typically a high 3-point shot volume guy. Give me more volume on those any day. But Tuesday night, UCF just killed themselves with bad three-point shot after bad three-point shot. They were not falling, and we could simply stand back and let them fire brick after brick, so long as we did a good job cleaning the glass. UCF goes 9-38 from "3", while WVU goes 7-14. And WVU wins the rebounding battle 42-36, holding UCF to 13 offensive rebounds on 47 missed shots (27.6%).
2. I enjoyed this one. Hated that we went down to Orlando and let UCF have their way with us last month. Thought we were soft and weak in that game. Jesse Edwards made a huge difference. In our 1st game Ibrahima Diallo from UCF had 14 points, 12 rebounds, 4 blocks and 1 steal in 22 minutes. In this one, with Jesse Edwards out there, Diallo had 3 points, 4 rebounds, 2 blocks in 16 minutes. Meanwhile, Edwards goes for 15 points, 10 rebounds, 2 blocks, 1 assist, 1 steal in 31 minutes. Big difference.
3. Boy, have we tightened our rotations. Our starters - Kerr Kriisa, Kobe Johnson, Raquon Battle, Quinn Slazinski and Edwards all played 30 minutes+. Noah Farrakhan had 14 minutes off the bench, Josiah Harris had 11, and otherwise, Akok Akok had just 8 and Pat Suemnick 6. That's it.
4. Raquon Battle goes for 24 points, 5 rebounds, 2 blocks on 7-15 shooting, going 2-3 from "3" and a neat 8-8 from the line. This is the guy we're going to need if we're going to make any sort of noise in the Big 12 Tournament, our only possible avenue to the Tournament. We're going to need Battle to be Superman, and let Edwards compliment him inside in the PnR game with Kriisa. That said, Raquon needs to stop lying on the floor after no-calls on the offensive end. Twice he laid down while we played 4x5 on the other end. I'm sure he was hurting, but he wasn't injured. Get up, get back, fight through it.
5. Coaching Search. I'm going to echo what @burgheer said to me the other day...whomever we hire, it's going to be nice to enter the modern basketball era and it will be an upgrade from not only what we're experiencing this year (obviously), but also what we're endured since Bob Huggins abandoned Press Virginia. It will. We have some good, viable candidates out there, and guys like Dusty May, Pat Kelsey, Ben McCollum, Josh Schertz, Mark Byington, Will Wade, Nicco Medved, Kyle Smith, Bucky McMillan...they would all bring a viable, fun, and good basketball product to Morgantown. Days of seeing how many power forwards we can fit in the paint are over. Days of "just gotta make shots Tone" are behind us. Days of seeing Jimmy Bell playing ball-denial defense on a forward 30 feet from the basket are in the rear view.
We will be hit with an instant shot in the arm once the hire is announced. Some will groan and moan for a minute. But, en masse, the naming of the new coach, the naming of the staff, the leak of names of players who may be joining...it's all going to be chicken soup for the Mountaineer soul. We'll learn about the coach, his systems on "O" and "D", how he operates, how he plans to tackle the Portal and NIL. It's going to give everyone in the Athletic Administration, and our fans, a bit of jump in their step. It's not far.
