PITTSBURGH —
It was not long, really, before West Virginia University took the floor against Pittsburgh. The earphones that had been providing whatever pre-game music the individual players listen to had been stored away.
The Mountaineers were nearly ready to head out onto the floor at the Petersen Events Center, a building in which they had won once and had lost seven times, all of them in a row.
Kevin Jones is a senior, a leader, a player who had gone through the torture of loss after loss here, who had watched his team blow an eight-point lead as a sophomore and fall in triple overtime.
He had something to say, one final speech in a game that was important enough in the scheme of the season – a season that had deteriorated into six losses in seven games – let alone a game that might be the last in some time between West Virginia and their Backyard Brawl rival.
Jones looked at his teammates and spoke.
“Why not us?” he said. “Why not win here? Why not win now?”
His teammates understood.
“They bought into it,” he would say later, a widening 66-48 victory theirs, their NCAA Tournament hopes still alive.
They did it the way they should have done it in Morgantown when, quite frankly, they were disgraced by a mediocre Pitt team that beat them to every loose ball, that outhustled and outmuscled them on their home court.
Not this time.
“We took the fight to them,” Jones said. “Usually we let them come to us, but we took it to them.”
They did it with Jones scoring 16 points and pulling down 13 rebounds for his 18th double-double of the year, this one significant in that he did not have any offensive rebounds. They did it with Darryl “Truck” Bryant, who had had a miserable week that included a late-night escapade, coming off the bench to score 15 points and pull down 7 rebounds.
They did it with the freshman guards Jabarie Hinds and Gary Browne outhustling Pitt, getting those loose balls, turning them time and again into breakaways, sometimes even making the open layup on the first – or second – try.
And then there was Deniz Kilicli, who has become the Beast of the East, so to speak, pounding his way to 14 points, hitting the floor himself a few times, taking others down on other occasions.
The last four games he has turned in a powerful inside force, a menacing creature almost.
“Those guys, they can’t guard me,” he said. “I have realized that. Since Providence I am scoring very easy.”
He may think it’s easy, but it doesn’t look that way. Defenders are everywhere, and he seems to feed off it.
“I work hard in the post and occupy three men. That’s what I do on this team. K.J. scores and rebounds. Truck shoots 3s.” he said.
And it isn’t enough.
“If I can occupy five people I will, but the little guys don’t want to come around,” he said, laughing at his own joke.
What isn’t a joke is his analysis of the two teams, Pitt and West Virginia.
“We are more talented than they are. We’ve got more depth. When you make them play basketball, they can’t,” he said.
And his analysis of his own team is also incredible to hear, for he offers nothing that could be mistaken for modesty, false or not.
“Everything is mental,” he said. “This team has talent, maybe more than the Final Four team. If we play like we can, no one can beat us.”
That may be an exaggeration, but on an evening when you beat Pitt by 18 points on its home floor in front of the Oakland Zoo, a certain amount of hyperbole is allowed.
Email Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com. Follow on Twitter @bhertzel.
WVU Sports
HERTZEL COLUMN: Mountaineers take the fight to Panthers
- WVU Sports
-
-
FURFARI COLUMN- Huggins says transfers not isolated case
Coach Bob Huggins will tell you that losing four players to transfer mode from his West Virginia University men’s basketball squad was not an unusual or isolated case.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: Independent study of WVU finances needed
It is time someone gets to the bottom of what is going on financially within West Virginia University and its athletic department.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN: The gamble of leaving college early
One of the first lessons they try to get across to a student-athlete when he comes to school is the evils of gambling.
In truth, college sports still echo with the basketball point-fixing scandal from 60 years ago and a few others that have surfaced over the years, both on a professional and collegiate level. -
FURFARI COLUMN: Compton fifth of WVU’s 11 consensus All-Americans
Mike Compton, who was the fifth in West Virginia University’s line of 11 consensus All-America football players, starred on the teams of 1989-90-91-92.
A 6-foot-7, 280-to-295-pound center, he not only excelled on the offensive line, but he was a team captain as a senior. -
HERTZEL COLUMN: WVU has its academic ship on course
In the real world the initials APR stand for annual percentage rate, a term with which everyone who has a car loan or home mortgage is quite familiar, but in the world of college athletics it is a term that has a somewhat a different meaning.
-
Kendrick donates to tornado relief in name of WVU baseball
Arizona Diamondbacks Managing General Partner Ken Kendrick has made a donation of $200,000 to the Mountaineer Athletic Club in the name of the West Virginia University baseball program to the Oklahoma City tornado relief effort.
-
FURFARI COLUMN: Mon County prosecutor says FOIA handling OK
It wasn’t until about a week ago that I found for certain who is responsible to make sure that the Freedom of Information of Act law is enforced in West Virginia.
You may remember that in February 2013, The Dominion Post of Morgantown filed a grand total of 33 FOIA requests against West Virginia University. -
FURFARI COLUMN- Guidi was all-time great wrestler, coach
Lewis Guidi, who unexpectedly died last week in Jefferson (Va.) Hospital at the age of 78, was one of the greatest wrestlers in West Virginia’s athletic history.
-
HERTZEL COLUMN- MLB can wait for Musgrave
It had been quite a couple of weeks for Harrison Musgrave, his head still spinning like the tornadoes that had roared through Oklahoma when his West Virginia University baseball team was there to compete in the Big 12 Tournament.
-
Five WVU baseball players chosen in draft
Four current members and one future member of the West Virginia University baseball team were chosen on the final day of the 2013 Major League Baseball first-year player draft.
- More WVU Sports Headlines
-
FURFARI COLUMN- Huggins says transfers not isolated case
