My fiver on WVU's loss to Marquette's fighting Shakas last night down South...
1. Now we know. Well, we were all pondering what may happen if we stop turning teams over at a record-setting clip. We found out. 47-24 happened. We came out hot, forcing turnovers, hitting shots, and we once again forced double-digit turnovers in a half, with Marquette suffering 11 at the break. Then, Huggs essentially shut it down for the second half. The Press was non-existent, we stayed in our aggressive trapping half-court defense which serves up dunks and open threes like your local Hampton Inn serves up stale pastries at a continental breakfast. We finished the game forcing only 13 TOs, +3 overall, while being -5 in rebounding margin vs. a fairly bad rebounding team. We have the bodies to press. We may need to do it to muck up these games. Kobe Johnson and Dimon Carrigan are perfectly suited for it. The more we play in the half court, the worse off we are.
2. Kur Kuath was a game changer. We saddled Kuath with a couple early fouls, and he sat pretty much the entire first half. Then, that dude came out with a vengeance in the second. He would not stop dunking on our heads, and his three blocked shots also affected our guys down low on their attempts near the rim. We were not going to the tin with authority, almost looking around to ensure Kuath wasn't nearby. 8 points on 4/4 shooting, 5 rebounds, 3 blocked shots and I thought he was a major factor on both ends of the floor during our second half meltdown.
3. 19 three point attempts and just 9 combined three-point attempts between Taz Sherman and Sean McNeil is just not enough. We seem to be once again falling in love with the mid-to-long range jumper, and we obviously had a terrible night with shots at the rim, making a reported 5 of 18 I believe. Unfortunately our half court offense is not producing open looks for our shooters, and it's devolving into one-on-one scenarios where one of our three guards are forced to try to take the defender off of the bounce. When Malik Curry has 9 shot attempts- producing 6 points & Jalen Bridges has only 6 shot attempts - producing 11 points, something is wrong. We are not trying any pick and roll with Isaiah Cottrell, who would be perfectly suited for a pick and pop type of play with Taz or McNeil. . Our best offense is coming off of forced turnovers. All things point toward the need to press.
4. Thought a key sequence which has been lost in the sauce and fog of that horrific second half was at the 17:50 mark. Jalen Bridges knocked down a trey to give us a 50-37 lead. We kind of lolly-gagged back down on defense, not pressing, and instead trying to trap at half court. This led to a wide open Justin Lewis from Marquette on the wing and he drained a response "3" to pull within 10. From that point forward, Marquette would score on 7 of their next 9 possessions, while we had five consecutive one-and-done missed shot possessions. Momentum was swinging wildly in Shaka's favor, and Huggs just let the team play through it. We thankfully hit a media timeout at the 13 minute mark, but we were now down 1. Huggs drew up a nice play out of the TO and got Taz an open jumper, which he canned to put us back up one. But, the damage was done. In retrospect, I would've loved to see Huggs go into the press full bore after makes when we were up 13 and/or call a timeout to blunt Marquette's run.
5. 7 Seniors vs. 7 Freshman. Not sure what type of team Shaka will have this year. They are off to a great start, obviously. It's impressive, given the fact Marquette is featuring 7 freshmen. WVU, meanwhile, features 7 Seniors, 4 of which are of the super Senior variety. With this type of Senior leadership, you hope that we can avoid the second half meltdowns which have seemingly haunted our program for years - off the top of my head thinking of the two Kansas games at the Phog where we blew double-digit second half leads, and the home game vs. Kentucky where we blew an 18-point lead. However, our Seniors and this team as a whole, are learning to play as a cohesive system with Malik Curry, Pauly Paulicap, Dimon Carrigan and Isaiah Cottrell all logging their first significant playing time with our veterans. They're still feeling each other out. And it doesn't help that what we're trying to do is hard, damn hard, to play the deny-man, trapping defense we play and to essentially have "one-on-one" be our fallback offensive attack. Taz and Sean both played 38 minutes last night. They're carrying a lot of water, and they most likely were not even close to 70-80% late in the game. Our newcomers - Kobe Johnson in particular - are going to need to be more involved and mesh together to be able to (1) stop runs of opposition when momentum swings wildly like last night and (2) allow Taz and Sean the luxury of rest during games without the wheels falling off. Tough loss last night. We can do better, and I think we will learn from it.
1. Now we know. Well, we were all pondering what may happen if we stop turning teams over at a record-setting clip. We found out. 47-24 happened. We came out hot, forcing turnovers, hitting shots, and we once again forced double-digit turnovers in a half, with Marquette suffering 11 at the break. Then, Huggs essentially shut it down for the second half. The Press was non-existent, we stayed in our aggressive trapping half-court defense which serves up dunks and open threes like your local Hampton Inn serves up stale pastries at a continental breakfast. We finished the game forcing only 13 TOs, +3 overall, while being -5 in rebounding margin vs. a fairly bad rebounding team. We have the bodies to press. We may need to do it to muck up these games. Kobe Johnson and Dimon Carrigan are perfectly suited for it. The more we play in the half court, the worse off we are.
2. Kur Kuath was a game changer. We saddled Kuath with a couple early fouls, and he sat pretty much the entire first half. Then, that dude came out with a vengeance in the second. He would not stop dunking on our heads, and his three blocked shots also affected our guys down low on their attempts near the rim. We were not going to the tin with authority, almost looking around to ensure Kuath wasn't nearby. 8 points on 4/4 shooting, 5 rebounds, 3 blocked shots and I thought he was a major factor on both ends of the floor during our second half meltdown.
3. 19 three point attempts and just 9 combined three-point attempts between Taz Sherman and Sean McNeil is just not enough. We seem to be once again falling in love with the mid-to-long range jumper, and we obviously had a terrible night with shots at the rim, making a reported 5 of 18 I believe. Unfortunately our half court offense is not producing open looks for our shooters, and it's devolving into one-on-one scenarios where one of our three guards are forced to try to take the defender off of the bounce. When Malik Curry has 9 shot attempts- producing 6 points & Jalen Bridges has only 6 shot attempts - producing 11 points, something is wrong. We are not trying any pick and roll with Isaiah Cottrell, who would be perfectly suited for a pick and pop type of play with Taz or McNeil. . Our best offense is coming off of forced turnovers. All things point toward the need to press.
4. Thought a key sequence which has been lost in the sauce and fog of that horrific second half was at the 17:50 mark. Jalen Bridges knocked down a trey to give us a 50-37 lead. We kind of lolly-gagged back down on defense, not pressing, and instead trying to trap at half court. This led to a wide open Justin Lewis from Marquette on the wing and he drained a response "3" to pull within 10. From that point forward, Marquette would score on 7 of their next 9 possessions, while we had five consecutive one-and-done missed shot possessions. Momentum was swinging wildly in Shaka's favor, and Huggs just let the team play through it. We thankfully hit a media timeout at the 13 minute mark, but we were now down 1. Huggs drew up a nice play out of the TO and got Taz an open jumper, which he canned to put us back up one. But, the damage was done. In retrospect, I would've loved to see Huggs go into the press full bore after makes when we were up 13 and/or call a timeout to blunt Marquette's run.
5. 7 Seniors vs. 7 Freshman. Not sure what type of team Shaka will have this year. They are off to a great start, obviously. It's impressive, given the fact Marquette is featuring 7 freshmen. WVU, meanwhile, features 7 Seniors, 4 of which are of the super Senior variety. With this type of Senior leadership, you hope that we can avoid the second half meltdowns which have seemingly haunted our program for years - off the top of my head thinking of the two Kansas games at the Phog where we blew double-digit second half leads, and the home game vs. Kentucky where we blew an 18-point lead. However, our Seniors and this team as a whole, are learning to play as a cohesive system with Malik Curry, Pauly Paulicap, Dimon Carrigan and Isaiah Cottrell all logging their first significant playing time with our veterans. They're still feeling each other out. And it doesn't help that what we're trying to do is hard, damn hard, to play the deny-man, trapping defense we play and to essentially have "one-on-one" be our fallback offensive attack. Taz and Sean both played 38 minutes last night. They're carrying a lot of water, and they most likely were not even close to 70-80% late in the game. Our newcomers - Kobe Johnson in particular - are going to need to be more involved and mesh together to be able to (1) stop runs of opposition when momentum swings wildly like last night and (2) allow Taz and Sean the luxury of rest during games without the wheels falling off. Tough loss last night. We can do better, and I think we will learn from it.
