The Times West Virginian

WVU Sports

January 15, 2010

Top 10 matchup at home a rare sight

By Bob Hertzel

MORGANTOWN — It comes around about as often as Haley’s Comet, what will transpire at noon on Saturday in the Coliseum.

West Virginia University, ranked No. 9 in the country, will host Syracuse, ranked No. 5, in a Big East game of cosmic proportions.

This matchup of Top 10 teams in Morgantown is so rare that occurs only every half century.

Honest.

Last time was — now sit down because you aren’t going to believe this — was on Jan. 16, 1960, exactly 50 years ago to the day when No. 9 Villanova came to Morgantown to face Jerry West’s No. 3-ranked Mountaineers.

The final score that day was West Virginia 89, Villanova 81.

How far back was that?

Well, there was no Coliseum then, only Stansbury Hall.

Heck, it was so long ago that Jim Boeheim, who it seems has coached at Syracuse since Jim Brown was a freshman there, was still three years away from enrolling at the school as a freshman.

As for Bob Huggins, the West Virginia coach who has been around so long that he possesses more than 600 victories, he was all of 7 years old at the time.

“I was very fortune to play against (Boeheim’s) teams,” Huggins reminded anyone who would listen on Thursday’s Big East Conference coaches call. “That says how old he is and how young I am.”

Half right, Hugs.

The truth is this is what West Virginia had in mind when it entered the Big East back in 1996. The school was looking for a higher profile, for a chance to play at the top level of college basketball.

It was also what West Virginia had in mind when it hired Huggins, who taken Cincinnati and rebuilt it into a team that could play at that level, in many ways much as he had done here. At Cincinnati, the shadow of Oscar Robertson laid over the basketball program, Robertson and West having been the greatest players of their era.

While WVU went to the 1959 NCAA title game, losing to California, Cincinnati won the national title the next year. What people forget is that Robertson was not a part of those teams, having graduated and moved on to the Olympics and NBA with West the previous year.

But this is exactly what the WVU administration had in mind when it jumped to the Big East and when it hired Huggins.

It certainly is what Huggins had in mind.

“We hoped we could get to where we were a Top 10 team,” Huggins said. “I felt like if we could get there it would set up a lot of matchups like this because this league is full of Top 10 teams.”

It should be an interesting showdown, a contrast in styles and in wills. WVU is an in-your-face man-to-man team, Syracuse a 2-3 zone team. Syracuse is big in the front court, West Virginia more athletic. Syracuse likes to play in the 80s, WVU is all right with that if it is the team that is in the 80s.

Huggins doesn’t like to give up more than 70 points in any game, and not that many if possible.

Rutgers has played both teams, giving coach Fred Hill a unique view at the showdown.

“Syracuse can pound inside,” Hill said. “They try to play inside out and that will create a problem for West Virginia.”

But West Virginia has some problems in store for Syracuse, too, according to Hill.

“West Virginia has so many weapons offensively, they will spread the floor. They can put playmakers at the 4 and 5 spots. A lot of teams can’t do that. Devin Ebanks can knock down that 15- to 17-foot jumper and put it on the floor. They have people who can get open looks.”

And so what you have is contrasting styles, each successful for a veteran coach, coming head to head.

West Virginia could be playing better than it has recently, showing up only for a half against Notre Dame in a game it lost and a half against South Florida in a game it won.

“We have not put it together on defense,” Huggins said.

And, when asked what’s wrong, he answered:

“How much time you got?”

The question would be better put to Huggins, who now has a little more than 24 hours to get it right before worlds collide at the Coliseum.

E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.

Text Only
WVU Sports
  • Jones nears milestone as Notre Dame visits WVU

    That it is a crucial game in a season that seems to have nothing but, today’s 9 p.m. visit to the Coliseum by a streaking Notre Dame team comes with a historical footnote in the history of West Virginia University basketball.
    Kevin Jones enters the game having scored 20 or more points in nine consecutive games.

    February 8, 2012

  • WVU source: Battle to join Big 12 nearing conclusion

    Indications were growing that West Virginia University’s battle to leave the Big East and join the Big 12 in time for the 2012 season was about to be won, possibly as early as today.
    A source within the Mountaineer athletic department said on Tuesday that the matter was nearing a conclusion and also told the Times West Virginian that West Virginia would be reinstating a golf team to compete in the Big 12.

    February 8, 2012

  • HERTZEL COLUMN: WVU, Irish strikingly similar

    Consider, if you will, that it is Nov. 25 past, that the West Virginia University basketball team is running a routine drill four games into its season, getting ready for the Akron game when Kevin Jones goes down in a heap on the floor, his ACL torn, his season over.

    February 8, 2012

  • WVU source: Battle to join Big 12 nearing conclusion

    Indications were growing that West Virginia University’s battle to leave the Big East and join the Big 12 in time for the 2012 season was about to be won, possibly as early as today.

    February 7, 2012

  • HERTZEL COLUMN - Truck drives Mountaineers to needed win

    Perhaps it is what has kept him going through a West Virginia basketball career with as many turns as a trip to Pineville down in Wyoming County, but Truck Bryant enjoys being Truck Bryant.

    February 6, 2012

  • WVU finds a way, wins in overtime

    Truck Bryant made the headline plays, including a 3-point shot with 3.3 seconds left to play, as West Virginia saved its season with an 87-84 overtime victory at Providence, but the subheads had to be reserved for Deniz Kilicli and a pair of freshman guards.

    February 6, 2012

  • Mountaineers face critical test today at Providence

    The schedule tells you it’s another game in the marathon run that is the Big East season, a trip to Providence to play a team with only two conference victories, but somehow everyone connected with the West Virginia University program knows today’s noon meeting with the Friars is much more than that.

    February 5, 2012

  • HERTZEL COLUMN: Jones on the brink of WVU history

    On the one hand there is yesterday’s Warren Baker, who entered the WVU Athletic Hall of Fame in the latest class for the work he did from 1973 to 1976, and on the other hand there is today’s star Kevin Jones, who has emerged from the shadows of the likes of Joe Alexander and Da’Sean Butler this year to carve his own niche in Mountaineer basketball history.

    February 5, 2012

  • WVU backs out of Florida State game

    West Virginia University has canceled its Sept. 8 football game at Florida State.
    Once again, as they have done with virtually everything since announcing they planned to move from the Big East to the Big 12, they did it behind closed doors, without any announcement or statement.

    February 5, 2012

  • WVU women upset Louisville

    It is foolhardy to put it up there with the Baylors and Notre Dames of the women’s world just yet, but really if you look closely and see potential, much of which came out Saturday afternoon when the Mountaineers upset No. 12/14 Louisville, 66-50, you realize that this team is closer to greatness than it is to mediocrity.

    February 5, 2012