After watching the lackadaisical performance against Notre Dame earlier this week, I was worried that our soft early schedule had us ill-prepared for physical Big East play. Notre Dame is highly underrated though and I'm sure they will crack the top 25 this week. Winning games against tough opponents at home is also very important and the ND loss won't hurt if we can win some of the other road games that shouldn't be as difficult. (S. Florida, Providence, Depaul, St. Johns) I'm also hopeful that the 2OT loss to Oklahoma will provide some extra end of game experience that we haven't had to deal up to that point.
Some interesting #'s in this game that show a huge difference in philosophy from previous teams. WVU shot fewer 3 pointers than Marquette and dominated the glass. We also saw a huge edge at the free throw line, but that is somewhat out of proportion due to the 13 made free throws in the final minutes.
Though it is a great win, there are still a lot of areas for improvement. Alexander seems out of sync during stretches and he needs to be much more consistent for us to be successful. Interior defense was very lacking at times even in a zone defense as Marquette completed several passes for easy layups. They weren't plays on drive and dishes either, they were passes from the outside going past standing around defenders. Butler's offense has been spectacular at times, but he continues to be forced to spend time on the bench due to foul trouble. The frustrating part is that many of his fouls are "stupid" fouls and not for being aggressive. Nichols presence on the court seems to be very reassuring to the team as the offense just seems to be much more in sync while he's out there. I would like to see him be a little more aggressive with the ball. Though he still almost never turns the ball over, he could be a little more productive scoring and getting assists. Ruoff continues to play solid, intelligent basketball and has been the anchor for this team. The next stretch will be very telling. WVU has a better record than 4 of the next 5 opponents and if we hope to make the tourney, these would be extremely important wins.
1 comment:
What I see is a great win. It is against a top 11 team and it comes on the heels of a bad loss to ND. We needed this one. One "trend" from last year that appears to be moving in the right direction is the "loss hangover." We were notorious at giving up a stinker loss after a tough one. This "bounce-back" win against a very good team is the type of win which can move us back on track. We have one remaining OOC game and the balance of the Big East schedule to make some noise. As I said some time ago we are looking like a Tourney team. I am very excited. On a side note Pitt is really in trouble from the injury standpoint. (oh what a shame.)
DaGeek
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