Wrapping up West VirginiaMorgantown, W. Va. -- When I received the final box score from the game today, I began perusing it as usual. My eyes stopped at the rebounding totals.
MU's total said 26. I assumed it was either an unofficial box or a typo, considering the Golden Eagles had 21 boards at halftime. Alas, it was right on the money.
I guess it's hard to rebound when you allow the opponent to shoot nearly 70% from the field in the second half, as MU did West Virginia.
Especially troubling for the Golden Eagles was how open Alex Ruoff - one of the Big East's top three-point shooters - was on three of his four makes on Sunday. Dominic James was in his face once, but to no avail.
"The defensive game plan, we played today like we just flew into town, didn't do any scouting, didn't do any film-watching, and we just came into play," coach Tom Crean said. "And it wasn't good enough. Very lethargic play, especially in the first half, not the energy that we're accustomed to playing with, and we certainly could have played a lot better, no doubt about it."
I asked Crean later if he'd have to make any drastic changes in practice, like putting the rebounding bubbles on both rims and so forth. He said that he'd already had the bubbles up in the past week, and no, he wouldn't overreact to the poor performance.
"It's not like you look at it and say, ‘OK, we've got to make a bunch of changes. It all comes down to communication," he said. "So much of your energy is derived from that communication because we're making plays. For example, we had 51 deflections on Thursday and we had 29 today - 13 in the second half - and that's not good enough. We're trying to win a basketball game. The deflections are a barometer of active defense, and when you've got low deflections odds are pretty good that you're going to have a high shooting percentage for the opponent."
-- Crean noted that his team's been most effective when he's been able to keep Dominic James, Jerel McNeal and Wesley Matthews under 30 minutes per game.
James wound up playing 35 - a season high - McNeal 30 despite still battling the flu, and Matthews 28, mostly because he didn't feel as though his reserves were up to the challenge.
"We ended up having to play Dominic too many minutes because I never felt comfortable with a second defender on Ruoff as much, and that's got to change," he said. "Our bench did not even hold the fort today, with the exception of Ousmane. We've got to be much better. We've got to continue to be able to be deep. I don't want to go to a short bench, but we've got to be a lot better than we were today."
-- Crean offered an interesting statistic on Lazar Hayward: in 42 minutes of Big East play, he's grabbed one offensive rebound.
"He's got to pick it up, especially in the rebounding department, and we're expecting a lot more out of him," he said. "He's got one offensive rebound in the Big East. That's not good enough for a guy playing the 4 spot."
-- The Golden Eagles put together a run of 12-0 in the first half and 15-4 early in the second half, but couldn't sustain the momentum either time.
"Runs 80% of the time come from great defense, and there was a stretch where we were playing excellent defense," Crean said. "But then we lost the ability to keep the run going because our defense went down."
-- Considering he'd rarely ever used it at Cincinnati, West Virginia coach Bob Huggins said after the game that his primary objective in using the triangle-and-two and 1-3-1 zone defenses - imagine that, Huggins playing zone! - was to cut off the driving lanes to the basket for MU.
He added he sought the advice of a few coaches in employing it, most notably Southern California coach Tim Floyd.
-- Dan Fitzgerald took his first three shots from inside the three-point arc this season, making one. He had been 12 for 24 from three-point range on the year coming in, and didn't attempt one against the Mountaineers.
-- The crowd and atmosphere wasn't nearly as intense as it was two seasons ago in that shootout MU lost. The arena wasn't close to being full, either.
-- Having seen Huggins plenty during his Conference USA days at Cincinnati, I'd say he's got three, maybe four guys who could have played for the Bearcats - Ruoff, Joe Alexander, Da'Sean Butler and Darris Nichols. Alexander and Butler stood out in particular because of their extraordinary athleticism and length.
-- Crean called West Virginia center Jamie Smalligan one of the best screeners in the Big East. He then noted that his Golden Eagles didn't even set 20-25 good screens in the game. Normally he expects about double that amount.
http://blogs.jsonline.com/muhoops/archive/2008/01/06/wrapping-up-west-virginia.aspx