Coming off a loss and in your own house? No way to sugar coat it, this team screwed the pooch and needs to take a hard look at what it wants to be. Close to being an Ohio State where you flash in the pan, but fade when it matters.
19 points in the second half at home!?
- Thread starter The Bell Tolls for Thee
- Start date
This is really no different than anything we've seen for the past 10 years or so. Let's face it, Huggins has taken us as far as we can go under him.
Fans pushed this team as a national title contender final 4 team because of a hot start with a bunch of young mixed together players that had never been on the court together. If you thought was going to be the year or some great 31-0 record then you just found out the truth.
This is why the majority of the real fans in the know said 20 or less wins.
I'll cheer for him. You can leave until somebody else comes in. I bleed Blue and live gold.
With the Big 12 being 5 tournament teams this year rather than its usual 7+, the season is shaking out so that less than 20 wins would be underperforming even with a young team. I thought someone at the guard position would build off of last season and become a consistent contributor. Someone good at at least one thing we could depend on them to do game in and game out on the offensive end. And that's not unreasonable. After the awful year last year, expecting progress after over 20 games into this season is fair. Right now I'm worried that even next year WVU will be at a loss for a decent point to run an offense through.
Its amazing how many fans "in the know" suddenly "know" after not "knowing" for 2/3 of the season.
I haven't written hardly anything this season. Been doing a lot of reading of different people's views and perspectives and watched the games myself. I'm no basketball expert by any stretch - I admit that. Losing games is a part of it. Every team goes through it.
That being said, when the same problems manifest themselves not just game after game, but season after season, and nothing changes - then its time to start looking at making a change.
As the saying goes, the definition of lunacy is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results?
I haven't written hardly anything this season. Been doing a lot of reading of different people's views and perspectives and watched the games myself. I'm no basketball expert by any stretch - I admit that. Losing games is a part of it. Every team goes through it.
That being said, when the same problems manifest themselves not just game after game, but season after season, and nothing changes - then its time to start looking at making a change.
As the saying goes, the definition of lunacy is doing the same things over and over and expecting different results?
Here I am. 10 turnovers in the 2nd half destroyed WVU's lead and lost the game. Plus, the straight-line drives, one of two swords in Kansas' weaponry, never was stopped effectively. Huggins has complained about his players not staying between the basket and the dribbler all season. Tonight, it drove me and Huggins mad.
Overall, Huggins Heroes put up a good effort. Not good enough, though. But they did make Kansas' mountain look worse than our mountain.
18-6 and take down #1 Baylor on Saturday and all at once all the naysayers will climb back onto the bandwagon!
Does everything have to 100%? Since the 2009 and 2010 team, WVU has been inconsistent in half court offense and has looked bad more often than not during that time. That is 10 teams and multiple players. Is it unreasonable to think that maybe some of that is Huggins and not just a rash of players not executing? Pointing that out is not saying Huggins is a bad coach or it outweighs all the good he does, it's just being objective in that producing a team with consistent offensive production in the half court is an area where there is room for improvement. Turnovers and offensive rebounds to allow your team to make more shots to compensate for lower FG percentage has made WVU look good in some games, but also led to some ugly losses. If you feel that Huggins' recipe is the best WVU is likely to do with the ingredients available, I can understand that. However when the same flaw is present across multiple teams, at least some of that must fall on the coaches shoulders. Nothing is ever 100%, unless it's on this message board it seems.
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Bottom line. WVU hasn’t had a scorer that you get him the ball, he either gets a basket, an assist or gets fouled. Period.
DaShaun Butler was that one player and with the talent around him, look where WVU ended up. There is no one who has stepped up and can come close to filling that roll.
DaShaun Butler was that one player and with the talent around him, look where WVU ended up. There is no one who has stepped up and can come close to filling that roll.
THREE point guards had NINE turnovers and NO assists against Kansas. When WVU gets ball into the paint to the bigs the Mountaineers usually win. When they don't, WVU usually loses. 3 sophomores and 1 freshman started game.
Praise Huggins for going 18-6 with the youngest team in the Big 12 and one of the 5 youngest in college basketball. And in the Big 12, which routinely had 4 teams in the Top 25 this season!
On to #1 Baylor. Beat the Bears and the bandwagon will be crowded again!
Praise Huggins for going 18-6 with the youngest team in the Big 12 and one of the 5 youngest in college basketball. And in the Big 12, which routinely had 4 teams in the Top 25 this season!
On to #1 Baylor. Beat the Bears and the bandwagon will be crowded again!
CFE: You've gone from telling everybody how much you "love this team" of "Huggins' Heroes" that plays "pitbull defense" to making a lot of excuses, CFE. Be better.
If your not hitting shots the paint becomes crowded. Makes difficult to move. Need to make baskets to get them out of a zone.
Baylor plays primarily zone defense. WVU will have to hit those shots or lose again by 20.
So do I ...and have for seven decades...but there is truth to what folks are saying. Huggs has an uncanny ability to take a shooter recruit and turn him into a throw it and pray kind of guy.
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Careful. You can acknowledge that no one is perfect, but if you point out any specific shortcomings of a specific coach, you are guilty of hating that coach, always hating that coach, wanting that coach to be fired, and all of your postings and criticisms are to be dismissed because it is only blind hatred.
In a vacuum maybe. But I've recognized Huggins positives frequently and post just as often after wins as compared to losses. This season you are scarce when say crushing Texas by 40 even the day after, but during a loss you are there to point out the negatives. And unlike you, I'm not advocating WVU replace Huggins like he is an easily expendable coach.
What makes you think they were shooters before they came here? Huggins is the guy. You don't like it leave.
By critique do you mean criticize or comment in general? I know there are plenty of posters who only post after losses likely for catharsis, but since this comment is a reply to my post I'm guessing its directed at me. I've posted plenty on this board after wins including critiquing sloppy wins such as the Oklahoma State game. So is your point that fans should be just as critical of the team when they win as when they lose? Seems odd to give equal attention to what went wrong after things overall go right versus when things overall go, well, wrong.
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Why does Huggins seem to hate zone defense so much? He used to use the 1-3-1 on occasion but I can't remember the last time I saw it used. You also can't be good at something you never practice. Syracuse and other schools utilize it almost exclusively. I wouldn't mind seeing it more often than we do.
Well we could name at least a couple of jc players who could light it up before they became part time hardwood divers at wvu. Two other points...no one said huggs isn't the guy...but he is trending backwards in stayup with the game. And so when you have nothing remotely interesting to say you grab onto the juvenile just leave defense lol. Thought you were better than that. Oh well learn something everyday.
Allen it's is painful to read - but I suggest it's true. We have two of the top JUCO scorers from last year and they are
not helping us. It seems the system we run doesn't open up good shooters.
I agree. You cannot win games in major college basketball if you don't have quality perimeter play or good shooters. I thought we'd get more out of McCabe, Haley and Matthews. I think McCabe lost his confidence. Matthews looks timid. To be fair, Haley is playing well but you'd expect more consistency. The strengths of us are still great defense, rebounding and our front court play. However, if no one is knocking down shots consistently it makes it easy to defend(Oscar & Culver) us. We become every one-two dimensional.
Seems you're the one being juvenile. Attacking a God fearing reporter and flinging attacking names toward other posters who support Bob Huggins and this team.
Yes they should be here pointing out all the poor play and coaching that happened after the wins as well. I mean heck all the couch coaches seem to know all.
So you're saying a win means everything went right? Not always.
It's been said a sloppy win is better than a pretty loss. These guys go on a 3 game losing streak and people **** the bed and toss blame first at the players and then coaches back and forth. Nobody knows 100% of what this team is going through.
If WVU had won the 49-48 the last 2 games would you be here asking for players to leave and coaches to step down.
I put my trust in the guy that wins on avg 22 to 23 games a year.
But WVU didn't win the last 2. And after games like the OSU game I said exactly that the offensive play must get better if WVU is to have a chance against the real meat of the schedule. Yet WVU hasn't and it has been a trend that unless WVU is generating offense through turnovers and second chance points, our Mountaineers are lucky to get 55 points in a game.
We are 18-7 because of defense and rebounding. Our best win is TTU in Morgantown because we can't generate enough offense to beat say Kansas despite the defense keeping the game in reach. The lack of offense has been the biggest weakness that kept every decent WVU team of the last 10 from getting a conference title or making a deep NCAA run. Those are just the facts. Some of us just see that trend as perhaps being systemic and not just player specific.
Sooooooooo....support means never challenging those in charge. Hummm. Jack step a lot do you? Too funny.