By Bob Hertzel
For the Times West Virginian
BUFFALO, N.Y. —
Let us begin today talking to those of you who have taped a West Virginia basketball game, any game, doesn’t matter. Slip it into your VCR or whatever it is you use these days to show your tapes and play on fast speed.
Done it?
Good.
Now you have an idea of what it is going to be like for the Mountaineers at 2:40 p.m. today when they take on the Missouri Tigers in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
Missouri refers to its brand of basketball as “The Fastest 40 Minutes in Basketball.”
They’re so fast the world record holding sprinter, Usain Bolt, would look like he’s standing still. You need oxygen just from watching them play the first half. They’re so fast their two-hour practices last only 20 minutes.
They press from tip-off to the final gun. In fact, WVU players may find Missouri defenders still on them as they go into their post-game shower.
There’s only one thing that seems to slow the Tigers down — CBS-TV.
“They got them long timeouts, man!” said Coach Mike Anderson when asked what can be done to slow his team down.
Anderson’s style of basketball is inherited from his former coach, Nolan Richardson, who won an NCAA championship with his “40 Minutes of Hell” defense, relentless pressure through and through.
“Pressure busts pipes,” said Missouri’s Zaire Taylor, in explaining the theory behind it all. “That’s the way we’re going to play. We’re going to live or die by that. I mean, pressure is what got us here. We can’t stray from what we know and what got us to this point.”
Nobody in America plays pressure defense the way Missouri does. They have forced more turnovers than any other team in America, forcing 649 turnovers, which is 190 more than WVU has forced.
Of course, playing a pressure defense is hardly anything new. Rick Pitino has done it at Louisville and before that at Kentucky. John Wooden had a killer press at UCLA.
But with Missouri, it is a way of life.
It isn’t a defense, it’s an offense. They create points off turnovers. Against Clemson they scored 20 points off turnovers.
Turnovers often mean fast breaks and in the Clemson victory they outscored the other Tigers, 22-2, in fast break points.
So, you ask, how did Missouri lose 10 games during the season?
That, of course, brings us to West Virginia and Coach Bob Huggins. Earlier this year the Mountaineers had trouble with a press at Cleveland State, winning by two points, and since then Huggins has been stressing working against the press, although he hasn’t seen much of it.
“I don’t know why they’ve stopped pressing us, but we’re ready to handle it,” Huggins said. “I can tell you that. We’ve spent a lot of time on it since the debacle in Cleveland, for a lot of reasons. I think there’s going to be a lot of situations where we’re headed at the end of the game where we’re going to have to take care of the ball.”
But Huggins is hardly afraid of the press.
“I think it helps us, to be honest with you,” he said. “It gives us a better chance to score. We can score with the floor open. I mean, I think that when Da’Sean has big games. I think that plays well into Devin’s hands, Mazzulla’s hands.
“And so I hope people do extend their defense a little bit and spread it out a little bit. Basically, what we’ve done is played against people who have stood five people in a line.”
To beat the press, however, WVU will need to handle the ball well and not be flustered, pushing into playing a frenetic pace.
“We’ve played against Louisville, a pressing team. It’s the same thing. I have to take care of the ball, me and Da’Sean and Devin,” guard Truck Bryant said. “We have to play a half-court game and try to slow the game down.”
Indeed, West Virginia’s advantage is that Butler, Ebanks, Bryant and Joe Mazzulla can handle the ball, can set up the offense. They also hold a huge advantage in rebounding, the Tigers having been outrebounded by 11 in the Clemson game.
Controlling the tempo, the ball, the boards and themselves is the road to the Sweet Sixteen for WVU.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.
