Is West Virginia a must win game?

[Dawson Rental]

 Is West Virginia a must win game?

It sure is...... for West Virginia.

[4everwarriors]

How 'bout the ever important deflection stat?

[Dr. Blackheart]

It is a must win. It is a home game against a middle of the road Big East team. It  will be highly unlikely that we get to 10 Big East wins, if we lose this game. It is also a must win for West Virginia. Neither team is going to contend for the title. We are fighting to be one of the 8 bids the conference will get. Assume we lose to West Virginia and both teams finish 9-9. The home loss to West Virginia wll put them ahead of us in the NCAA selection committees eyes.

agree--we are both middling and Huggy will get the nod every time from a committee due to his record.  We are fighting with WVU over the same real estate.  I absolutely hate the home 10AM start on New Year's.  The fans better bring it--still drunk or not.  This is why god made bloody mary's   

[dsfire]

Rebounds per minute is as useful as looking at assits per minute...or any stat per minute for that matter....not very.  Otule has played 60 min more than Gardner this yr and averages more mpg.  A true measuring stick is to compare rebounds per 40 min...which is still subjective based on MU's, and opponents, shooting percentage, garbage time minutes, etc.  Either way, Garder averages 4.9 rebounds/40 min vs. Otule's 4.7....splittling hairs.  Both need work and both have great potential.

Rebounds per 40 is just rebounds per minute * 40, so the comparison is the same (though your numbers appear to be half of what they should be).  Usually you'd use dreb% and oreb% to compare two players tempo-free, but since these guys play on the same team tempo doesn't make much of a difference here.

As it stands, Gardner is doing a better job grabbing offense boards so far and Otule is doing a slightly better job on the defensive end.  Whether Gardner's offensive boards are coming off his misses and Otule's been successfully blocking out, I couldn't tell you.  Neither of them have been rebounding better than Jae so far.  My impression from watching the team rebound is that we've been doing a better job of attempting to block out since the Gonzaga game, but many times players will successfully block out under the hoop and then wait for the ball to come to them, leading to other players swooping in from outside to grab the board.  I felt like EWill has shown some promise for tracking down rebounds, but obviously his game has some other issues that keep him off the court.

[chren21]

I felt like EWill has shown some promise for tracking down rebounds, but obviously his game has some other issues that keep him off the court.

Take a look at the replay on espn3.com.  Fast forward to this part of the first half.

-1:58 left in first half..... Ewill in the game
-1:40 Ewill gets abused when he tries to box out.  Gives up offensive board, and easy put back.
-Ewill out of game.

I hope you have seen something I have missed in regards to ewill's rebounding so far this season.  His defense has been terrible too.

[dsfire]

Yeah, I didn't mean the Vandy game.  I thought it was the UW game but looking at the box score he got a 2 trillion in that game, so guess not.  I just meant I'd seen him being proactive about going after the ball... hopefully not just against Centenary. 

[Norm]

Take a look at the replay on espn3.com.  Fast forward to this part of the first half.

-1:58 left in first half..... Ewill in the game
-1:40 Ewill gets abused when he tries to box out.  Gives up offensive board, and easy put back.
-Ewill out of game.

I hope you have seen something I have missed in regards to ewill's rebounding so far this season.  His defense has been terrible too.

Wow, he goes in cold in the last 2 minutes of a half and gives up a rebound to a guy who is already in the flow of the game. Yep, he deserves to be yanked and never see the court again.

[79Warrior]

agree--we are both middling and Huggy will get the nod every time from a committee due to his record.  We are fighting with WVU over the same real estate.  I absolutely hate the home 10AM start on New Year's.  The fans better bring it--still drunk or not.  This is why god made bloody mary's   

good point. I think WVU gets a big break here. The BC will be pretty quiet.

[nomorebuycks]

Wow, he goes in cold in the last 2 minutes of a half and gives up a rebound to a guy who is already in the flow of the game. Yep, he deserves to be yanked and never see the court again.

Well, if Buzz told him "your only job is to rebound" and then he fails to that immediately, I can see why he was yanked.

[Spaniel with a Short Tail]

It's now officially a MUST WIN game because I'm getting up early to go and bringing 3 in gold with me! 

GO MARQUETTE!