WVU certainly wasn't impressive last night but gained another important win in conference play. One more week and the schedule gets significantly more difficult w/ upcoming contests against Georgetown, Pitt and Providence who appears to be playing well. The interior play again was not very good as St. Johns continually had uncontested layups and dunks. Some of these plays were on "broken" sequences where there was a loose ball, but players are still able to sneak down low uncovered way too frequently. And we were significantly out rebounded again. There were definitely a couple encouraging signs as well however. Seven turnovers in a game is impressive no matter who you're playing. Also, Flowers played quite well off the bench. And Butler showed how valuable he can be when he isn't plagued with foul trouble. When he gets minutes, he looks every bit as dangerous as Alexander can be. It was a good thing too, since Ruoff was unable to find his shot and Alexander was just wasting space on the court. I know I sound harsh, but let's be honest about things. This team only has one good win so far (Marquette, who may not be as good as people thought anyway) and the road ahead does not get easier.
Photos from Rivals.Com
2 comments:
2 sides to the coin on last nights performance. 1 We played lousy and won. 2 We played lousy and won. By that I mean we could have played that way and lost and we can not afford any home losses in this conference. What we got on Thursday was a lesson in what playing in the Big East is all about. Crash the boards or you will have a struggle. We didn't have our "play-makers" show up offensively and we still were able to out-distance St. Johns by 10. I for one am encouraged by this. I think that road wins will be hard to come by so I will take this ugly home win with a big grin. Weezie don't get me wrong your concerns are real ones and need to be addressed. I just happen to have faith that we will do so.
DaGeek
Well Geek, I am hopeful we can improve in those areas as well. Unfortunately, however, there aren't too many St. Johns (8 freshmen) on the schedule at home or away. Butler's performance keeps me optimistic. But immediate improvement will certainly be essential as teams who have scouted us now will certainly shadow Ruoff closer than teams earlier in the year have. And though rebounding is a big problem, (2 rebounds by your starting 4 is pathetic especially when your 5 only plays 5 minutes and your backup point guard has 4 rebounds) just as concerning is the uncontested layups. Today will be a big test. If we can't get past S. Florida on the road today, we drop to 11th in the early BE standings and that would be after playing the easier portion of the schedule. Win today and we will still be very much in the hunt for an at large bid, and hopefully give us some confidence for what will be some much more difficult conference road games.
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