Da'Sean Butler goes from jest to best in a tail of two ball games, with his explosion of 43 points at home on Friday night. On Monday he simply never got it going, against the most hated Panthers, however on Friday night he found the range; he found the touch; he found just about every way conceivable to place the round-ball into what was a very elusive cylinder. (Post game photo published by MSNSportsnet.com) He truly had one of the greatest scoring outputs of a Mountaineer ever recorded. You have to go back in time 31 years to find another Mountaineer in the 40+ club. He now is has posted the best single day output for the Big East this season. Even Nova Coach Jay Write was compelled in his usual classy way the exploits of Mr. Butler, "... we just didn't have an answer for Da'Sean Butler, ... He was great and when we got down and we were trying to come back, we left him open a lot. ... He was just a great player tonight." Point being, well done Da!!! That performance overshadowed what was a very nice performance by our up and coming frosh, Devin Ebanks who scored a double double with 16 points and 10 rebounds. The Mountaineer defense as a whole was absolutely dominant, and the shots were falling. It was a night to remember. The only thing that seemed to slow the Mountaineer's dominant performance were the officials. They seemed to blow their whistles like they were in a parade, leading a marching band. But even with the zebra blowhards making their ugly appearance, the Mountaineers were able to get their biggest win of the season when they surely needed it. There yet remain 6 regular season games to build that NCAA resume'. Let us hope that our beloved team is up to the task. Friday night's performance indicates that not only can they play with the Nations elite, but rather, they can defeat them as well. With the ugly Irish coming to town on Wednesday they need to be ready to deliver this kind of performance again.Da Geek
4 comments:
First of all, to me, the officiating didn't seem any better or any worse than any other game played this year. Flowers certainly appeared to get hit a couple times and the blocking call on Truck during the fast break in the second half should have been a no call, but then again, Ruoff got away with a lot of contact as well despite his early foul trouble.
I thought our defense was excellent as it has been all season aside from certain stretches in a handful of games. Though we don't press, we play as good of pressure defense as anybody in the BE, even though we do tend to foul quite a bit. The difference last night was the offense. Handling 'Nova's pressure was expected to be a daunting task and we passed the test with flying colors. The result was more open shots for us than we've had in the last 5 games combined. When good teams get open shots, they burn the nets and that's what WVU was able to do last night.
It's been fun watching this team grow throughout the year. If Huggs can keep this team focused, they have made it to the more forgiving part of their schedule and have an opportunity to finish very strong and go into tourney play w/ a lot of momentum.
I agree with Marc's sentiments. The officials missed calls, but they missed them both ways. That's par for the course.
I would like to draw one other comparison. Da'sean's amazing performance late in the year is starting about the same time Joe Alexander started coming on strong last year. Hopefully, Da'sean can stretch that into the post season. He obviously has the ability to score when he's focused. He just seems to be a little ADD and rarely puts a whole game together. So let's all chip in for some beta blockers and hope this guy can develope the consistancy to take it to the next level.
When they are all hitting their shots they can compete with anyone. When they're not, they can put up 11 points in a half (Kentucky). Hopefully, this stretch of games can build their confidence going into the tourney.
One other thing, 9th place in the Big East is going to pick up an easy Depaul win before playing the #6 seed. Where #8 is going to start with the #7 seed. I'm not sure that's much of an advantage!! The extra win may be worth more.
First off I stand by my assessment of the officiating. I was there and I saw what happened obviously the television accounts didn't portray it that way. Any one present saw what I was talking about. Secondly I disagree with finishing 9th being an advantage. Playing a low RPI team doesn't do anything for us. I think that we simply need to follow the 4 wins and we are in scenario. I would sleep better in any event. I am hopeful we can begin our winning ways this Wednesday.
DaGeek
You're mistaken Greg. The #8 seed plays the winner of the #9/#16 game. It probably doesn't hurt you that much as far as the NCAA tourney because the 8/9 game could still be important to both or either team. But as a team playing w/ three freshman, if we're to have any chance at making it to Friday or Saturday, we can't be playing on Tuesday.
Here's the link where you can check out the bracket:
http://www.bigeast.org/pdf4/144247.pdf?ATCLID=1322952&SPSID=99617&SPID=11228&DB_OEM_ID=19400
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