By Bob Hertzel
MORGANTOWN — It happened almost by accident, really, a strange phenomena that overwhelmed West Virginia’s sixth ranked basketball team.
It was like mixing red and green to learn you get brown.
Injuries to three guards — Casey Mitchell, Truck Bryant and Joe Mazzulla — forced Bob Huggins to do the mixing and when he finished up he had created something entirely new.
It was a John Beilein team that could rebound, wasn’t it?
Or was it a Bob Huggins team that shot 3s?
Wellington Smith had become Kevin Pittsnogle and John Flowers had become J.D. Collins.
It really was amazing and something that Seton Hall has to consider today as the Mountaineers invade their Prudential Center in downtown Newark, N.J., for the 3:30 p.m. Big East opener.
This, of course, is Huggins third year here and his brand of basketball has captured the imagination of the WVU public, just as Beilein’s diametrically different brand of basketball had done when he arrived on the scene in 2002.
Beilein came in and installed an intricate game based on the 3-point shot, one that had even 7-footers like Jamie Smalligan shooting from outside the arc.
Rebounds? Didn’t matter.
He preferred to push the game with a 1-3-1 zone and steal the ball rather than rebound it.
Huggins likes athletes crashing the boards, ripping off rebounds, intimidating, blocking shots and finding ways to curl to the basket and shoot layups.
Huggins figures you take 100 shots and make 50 of them you get 100 points. Beilein figures you take 100 3-point shots and you make a third of them and you have 100 points — OK, 99, but who’s counting.
As odd as it seems, three of Huggins’ key players existed in both systems, adapted to each and now, as seniors, are benefitting.
Smith, of course, is one of them, a player who always had shot well in practice but never had been able to translate into a game, perhaps under because there were other 3-point shooters like Pittsnogle and Patrick Beilein and Mike Gansey.
Then there was Cam Thoroughman, who also had a reputation as a shooting guard, tore up his knee and remade himself into a hustling tough guy who shuts down on defense, goes to the floor for loose balls and bangs on the boards.
Finally, there is Butler, who has been a do-it-all player in both systems, but who has thrived under Huggins much the same way Joe Alexander did.
“Everybody’s system is right,” Butler said the other day as he thought about it.
Think about that for a minute yourself.
Is too much made out of a system? Why is Rick Pitino’s pressure defense any better or worse than Jim Boeheim’s zone?
It comes down to what the coach believes in.
“It’s how the coach gets his point across to his players,” Butler said.
There’s nothing that says someone who can rebound can’t shoot a 3, just as there is nothing to say that someone who can shoot a 3 can’t rebound.
It’s all in what you believe in.
Beilein had sold his teams on his system. If they didn’t believe, they were gone, like Jonathan Hargett and Drew Schifino.
Then when Huggins came in and remade the players he inherited into the image he possessed of a winning basketball player and team. They got stronger, tougher.
It wasn’t even a hard sell, even though Beilein’s system had taken teams to the Elite Eight, the Sweet 16 and to an NIT championship.
“Huggs is going to be in the Hall of Fame. He didn’t have to prove anything to us,” Butler said.
But if anything, Wednesday’s victory over Mississippi showed how they both could exist, ripping down 52 rebounds while assisting on 22 of 29 baskets. It was almost too good to be true.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
