My Fiver on WVU's win over Colorado in Boulder Sunday afternoon...
1. My sincere hope for this squad, with all of the injuries & losing Tucker DeVries for the year, is just to get to the Dance. That would be a hell of a first season for Darian DeVries. If we get there with everyone healthy sans Stone and TD, both of whom I do not expect to see suit up this year, we can win a game or two. And in order to get there, I've looked at the schedule and determined that 4-4 in January, 4-4 in February with 2-1 in March before the Big 12 Tournament gets us in and safely off the play-in line. That would put us at 20-11, 11-9. My guess is that 19-12, 10-10 is also safe....but I'm going to be greedy and want to get to "20". All that said, that win in Boulder yesterday was big. We come into their place shorthanded, needing to play Jack Auer 7 minutes, and we get the "W". Now we're playing with House Money the rest of the week.
2. Kipp Kissinger. Can't stand watching basketball when KK has the whistle. He can't help himself. He gets wrapped up in the emotional swings of basketball games and you can just watch him calling the game tight in favor of the team who is down, especially if the trailing team is at home. If you recall the Big 12 Tournament game vs. UC in March where we had a 16-point 2nd half lead, KK called not one, not two, but three technical fouls on WVU en route to a big Cincy comeback win. It's hard to play defense when the whistle is so inconsistent from one half to the next, or from one possession to the next.
3. Joseph Yesufu. We're getting more from Yesufu than what I expected - and we need it. His and-1 to essentially ice the game was a thing of beauty against the press. The pass from Powell to Yesufu in stride was just perfect, and I still don't know how Yesufu got that one to fall against the taller defender. 18 points on 6-9 shooting with 3 rebounds and 2 steals for our one backup scholarship guard.
4. Great bounce-back game for Eduardo Andre with 12 points, 4 rebounds and 4 steals on 5-5 shooting from the floor. And at times he looked downright nimble, going up and under twice for the finish and the foul. The nice thing about his performance Sunday vs. his performance vs. AZ was that we had the pick-n-roll game working with Small again, where we got Andre moving downhill to the rim while Small penetrated. AZ did a good job blitzing the screens and taking that away.
5. Houston and Iowa State matchups. With a full roster - Tucker DeVries in the lineup - I would predict a 1-1 split for the rest of this week, and 2-0 would be on the menu. Without TD, without Tenner and with Hansberry still not back to himself (hasn't been the same since that F---ing Mercyhurst forward rolled him up), we are going to have an uphill battle in both of these matchups. We went to Kansas and won without TD and Hansberry, so anything is possible. But I will say this: I'm not at all ready to concede anything to these two programs. They should both be looking up at us, both on the hardwood and on the gridiron. I like the coaching hires we've made. Now, we need to put both our football and basketball rosters in a place where we can win, and win big. We're getting there.
1. My sincere hope for this squad, with all of the injuries & losing Tucker DeVries for the year, is just to get to the Dance. That would be a hell of a first season for Darian DeVries. If we get there with everyone healthy sans Stone and TD, both of whom I do not expect to see suit up this year, we can win a game or two. And in order to get there, I've looked at the schedule and determined that 4-4 in January, 4-4 in February with 2-1 in March before the Big 12 Tournament gets us in and safely off the play-in line. That would put us at 20-11, 11-9. My guess is that 19-12, 10-10 is also safe....but I'm going to be greedy and want to get to "20". All that said, that win in Boulder yesterday was big. We come into their place shorthanded, needing to play Jack Auer 7 minutes, and we get the "W". Now we're playing with House Money the rest of the week.
2. Kipp Kissinger. Can't stand watching basketball when KK has the whistle. He can't help himself. He gets wrapped up in the emotional swings of basketball games and you can just watch him calling the game tight in favor of the team who is down, especially if the trailing team is at home. If you recall the Big 12 Tournament game vs. UC in March where we had a 16-point 2nd half lead, KK called not one, not two, but three technical fouls on WVU en route to a big Cincy comeback win. It's hard to play defense when the whistle is so inconsistent from one half to the next, or from one possession to the next.
3. Joseph Yesufu. We're getting more from Yesufu than what I expected - and we need it. His and-1 to essentially ice the game was a thing of beauty against the press. The pass from Powell to Yesufu in stride was just perfect, and I still don't know how Yesufu got that one to fall against the taller defender. 18 points on 6-9 shooting with 3 rebounds and 2 steals for our one backup scholarship guard.
4. Great bounce-back game for Eduardo Andre with 12 points, 4 rebounds and 4 steals on 5-5 shooting from the floor. And at times he looked downright nimble, going up and under twice for the finish and the foul. The nice thing about his performance Sunday vs. his performance vs. AZ was that we had the pick-n-roll game working with Small again, where we got Andre moving downhill to the rim while Small penetrated. AZ did a good job blitzing the screens and taking that away.
5. Houston and Iowa State matchups. With a full roster - Tucker DeVries in the lineup - I would predict a 1-1 split for the rest of this week, and 2-0 would be on the menu. Without TD, without Tenner and with Hansberry still not back to himself (hasn't been the same since that F---ing Mercyhurst forward rolled him up), we are going to have an uphill battle in both of these matchups. We went to Kansas and won without TD and Hansberry, so anything is possible. But I will say this: I'm not at all ready to concede anything to these two programs. They should both be looking up at us, both on the hardwood and on the gridiron. I like the coaching hires we've made. Now, we need to put both our football and basketball rosters in a place where we can win, and win big. We're getting there.
