BUFFALO, N.Y. —
There was a time when Joe Mazzulla really didn’t know what his future held.
His shoulder was a mess, the pain was unbearable at times. He couldn’t shoot, had trouble passing, could only give all that he had and what he had wasn’t enough.
“There was no one low point. It was more a week or a month or so,” he said Sunday after his career reached a high point as he and his fellow point guard Truck Bryant shook off all the questions of how they would handle Missouri’s press and led West Virginia into the Sweet 16 round of March Madness with a 68-59 victory.
Most of the Mountaineers’ scoring was provided by Da’Sean Butler, who had 28 points, many of them set up by Mazzulla and Bryant’s point guard play.
Mazzulla knows one thing, that he could not have bounced back alone, that his ability to rehabilitate the injury that took more than a year to heal was dependent upon those around him.
“I couldn’t have do it without my teammates and without the people living in the state,” he said.
What he went through, the way his battle to regain his ability to play the game was affected by people, changed him as a person.
“I truly believe I would not be the person that I am if it weren’t for that,” Mazzulla said.
Once caught up in a run-in with authorities, Mazzulla has changed quite a bit.
“He’s a great kid,” Coach Bob Huggins said. “I think anybody who has been around Joe would tell you that. We all make mistakes. I’m looking out there at a bunch of people that made mistakes in their life. They’re looking at one right here that’s made some.
“It’s not whether you made a mistake, it’s how you deal with it. Joe has done a great job and he’s loved on campus.”
Mazzulla and Bryant were tested in a game that many felt would be too much for the Mountaineers. Forget the seeding, and WVU was a No. 2 and Missouri a No. 10, the Mountaineers were supposed to be vulnerable to a press because of their point guard play.
It was something they had heard even since Cleveland State almost upset them with a press that was much like the one Missouri threw at them, a press that some compared to Nolan Richardson’s “40 Minutes of Hell” at Arkansas but turned, instead, into 40 minutes of hell for Missouri.
“Me and Joe took a lot of games personal,” Bryant said. “We’ve won our last eight and were a No. 2 seed and people were saying we’d lose because of our point guard play. We do get tired of hearing that. We’re a 2-seed. We can’t be that bad if we keep winning.”
So, too, did Huggins, who challenged his two point guards in this one and did so in a most emphatic way.
“Hugs is a great motivator,” Mazzulla said.
No, he could not say how Huggins motivated, the language being Double-X rated.
“I can’t repeat what he said, but he challenged me and Truck. And, I think Truck and I took the challenge. We accepted the pressure and wanted them to trap us because when they did, we got easy baskets.”
The fact of the matter was that Missouri never really had its way with the Mountaineers, trying to force turnovers and speed up play. The final score was a West Virginia kind of final score, Missouri sitting in the 50s as it was the Mountaineers who imposed their will on the Big 12 representative.
Certainly, Huggins doesn’t buy into the talk about his point guard play being lacking.
“We had one point guard, because Joe really couldn’t go early on,” Huggins said. “Truck did a good job for us, but I think we probably asked him to do too much, play too many minutes.
“I think getting Joe back, keeps both of them fresher. I think both of them have done a better job getting us into offense. It’s different for Truck. He’s used to scoring the ball from high school. He and I have had several sitdowns about what a point guard is, what a point guard does.”
Huggins noted that he had no trouble with his point guard scoring, that he coached Nick Van Exel and Steve Logan.
“It’s just you still have to be able to get other people involved and get us in offense, and I think both of those guys have done a better job as the season progressed,” he said.
They certainly did in this one, and the main beneficiary was Butler, who carried the Mountaineers in the first half with 19 points, including 13 of the team’s last 15 of the half, the other coming on a Butler assist.
West Virginia moves on to face Washington on Thursday in Syracuse. There is no game time yet.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
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