By Bob Hertzel
MORGANTOWN — There are two ways Bob Huggins looks at West Virginia’s men’s basketball team as it prepares itself for tonight’s annual battle against Fairmont’s Ron Everhart and his Duquesne Dukes at the Coliseum.
The first way is with a rare smile on his face, for his efforts are being recognized nationally with a No. 6 or 7 ranking, depending upon whether you want to believe AP’s sportswriters or USA Today’s coaches. Either way it’s up there in the rarified air that would lead you to believe they are on the road to the Elite Eight or better.
The second way is with the more common scowl that Huggins wears when his team is anything but perfect and when he looks at the defensive figures his team has recorded this year his mood turns downright angry.
Huggins has spent a lifetime priding himself on a belly button-to-belly button, in your face man-to-man defense that drives opponents into dismal shooting and a week of bad dreams.
All of a sudden, however, this year’s team, as talented as it obviously is as it has waltzed through five consecutive victories, is being scorched on defense.
The No. 6 ranked team in America ranks 260 places lower than that when it comes to defending opponents’ field goals. The Mountaineers have allowed teams to shoot 45.6 percent against them, settling them between those two defensive giants Alabama State and Stephen F. Austin in the national rankings.
That puts them 16th and last among teams in the defensive-conscious Big East, something he has mentioned to his team, as one might guess.
“Several times,” Huggins says in his dry, understated manner that does not give a hint as to just how often, loud and, perhaps, obscenely he has brought it up to his players.
As for their response, well …
“They didn’t have much to say back,” he said.
That would translate into complete silence.
“He has mentioned it a couple of times,” said point guard Joe Mazzulla, quite sarcastically.
Why wouldn’t he, at this point last year West Virginia ranked 86th in field goal percentage at 40.2 percent compared with 266 and 45.6 percent this year.
“Coach is really upset about that,” said forward Kevin Jones. “It’s been like we’ve been focusing on offense and not defense.”
Now one may wonder why, if this year’s team is actually more experienced and better than last year’s, it would slip so badly in the one area Huggins emphasizes the most.
Huggins has some theories.
One is that a year ago he had limited participation.
“We’re trying to keep more players involved,” he said.
Because of that there’s some interesting combinations going out there.
“On defense, if one guy breaks down it hurts you. We’ve had numerous breakdowns because of unfamiliarity,” Huggins said. “We can fix it.”
Duquesne may be a tough team to fix the defense against. The Dukes come in at 6-2 and, as always, will be gunning for the Mountaineers. Everhart, of course, was a gym rat way back when Huggins was a player at WVU, hitchhiking from Fairmont to Morgantown while in junior high to hang around the gym, sometimes even sleeping there.
Huggins has been a guiding light for Everhart, a friend and an adviser.
“Ronnie has done an incredible job,” Huggins noted. “The year before he got there they won what, 3 games. And then 7 the year before that. Then to encounter all that he encountered there.”
That, of course, was the shooting that left most of his first team injured in the street, forcing him to creatively survive.
Duquesne will test the defense of WVU, spreading the floor and turning loose Damien Saunders, a 6-7 forward who scores at 15.1 points a game and grabs 13.3 rebounds. They also get a lot of scoring from another forward, Bill Clark, who averages 17.4 points and 7.1 rebounds, whil B.J. Monteiro, a skinny, 6-5 guard hits at 12.6 a game.
There is some question as to the availability of WVU star Devin Ebanks, who is suffering from an injured hand.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
