MORGANTOWN — West Virginia Coach Bob Huggins' second year in charge of his alma mater begins officially with Saturday night's 7 o'clock home game against Elon.
WVU, a team that advanced to the Sweet 16 last year, lost two seniors to graduation and one starter to the NBA draft, is different in one additional, though beneficial way.
"We feel comfortable and also obligated to know exactly what he (Huggins) wants us to do," junior point guard Joe Mazzulla said. "For example, in practice we know what he wants and we make sure he doesn't waste any time correcting us."
Mostly, though, the Mountaineers are a lot like they were last year.
"We're not very good scoring the ball and that's going to take a while," Huggins said. "We still don't have that post presence and it's going to take time to figure out who we're going to stick down there."
Without a back-to-the basket player, Huggins knows his team will have to take more difficult routes to scoring, at least early on.
"I hate to rely on jump shots," he said. "If you're going to win on a consistent basis, you've got to get easy scores close to the basket."
Elon went 14-19 last season, but advanced to the final of the Southern Conference Tournament, where it lost to Davidson. Three starters, four of the top five scorers and eight players who averaged at least 11 minutes per game last season, return this season.
Former George Washington High star Chris Long and ex-St. Albans High standout T.J. Douglas are expected to be in the starting lineup Saturday for Elon.
WVU won its exhibition game last Saturday against perennial NAIA power Mountain State, 98-78. Huggins used nine players for at least 11 minutes, but none for more than 31.
Junior forward Da'Sean Butler led all scorers with 38 points and senior guard Alex Ruoff added 18. Freshman forward Kevin Jones had 14 and sophomore forward John Flowers added 10.
"It's going to be that way a lot," Butler said. "I think for a majority of the season you're going to see well-balanced scoring and a well-balanced team. We don't need someone to come in and score a lot of points because everyone is capable of scoring."
The Mountaineers managed 24 points in the paint. Most, though, were second-chance points or layups. They were also outscored by two points in the paint.
"It's just hard when you're undersized," Huggins said. "You can create an advantage on offense with quicker guys, but on the defensive side, it's hard. The one guy we have isn't used to guarding their big guy. It's hard to guard when you're so small."
That guy is Wellington Smith, who at 6-foot-7 and 235 pounds will be responsible for guarding the basket. It's a complicated task for a team Huggins said is still sometimes guilty of complicating matters more than it needs.
"We make the game harder than it ought to be and it's hard enough as it is," Huggins said. "We make bad passes, take bad shots and we didn't concentrate on blocking out. Consequently, we let them make a little run. We make things too hard."
Example? The exhibition game should have been much easier than it was. WVU took a 20-2 lead five minutes in, but afterward admitted assuming things would take care of themselves from that point forward.
WVU never led by more than 20 the rest of the first half and was up only 10 five minutes into the second half.
"We get them down whatever it is, 20-(2), and we don't put our foot on their throat," Huggins said. "Instead of trying to make it 40-6, we want to have fun. We want to make great plays instead of doing the things that made the score 20-3."
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