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Mountaineer Fan here Congrats to you guys

It's a pleasure to be in the Big 12 with similar teams, schools, and fans. far more enjoyable than those with whom we've shared previous conferences.

Good luck the rest of the season - with one, maybe two exceptions...
 
Great game by your Mountaineers. Played out like I thought it would. Lots of respect for the style of ball Huggins coaches. Scrappy, opportunistic, tough defense. Well played game by both teams. The rematch in Morgantown is going to be a doozy!
 
Great game by your Mountaineers. Played out like I thought it would. Lots of respect for the style of ball Huggins coaches. Scrappy, opportunistic, tough defense. Well played game by both teams. The rematch in Morgantown is going to be a doozy!

Doozy is putting it mildly.

I just hope none of our guys require an ambulance.:rolleyes:
 
robEERt, You guys have a team that will have to be contended with at the conference level and likely the national level. When I watched the first half, I didn't think we'd win the game.

I hated the officiating in the game. Two of the guys especially called the game way too tight. It took the flow out of the game. But I think it help us more than it hurt us. It was crucial when Spangler picked up two and three early in the second half. The clueless guys calling the game were talking about the 9-0 run that put West Virginia in the lead by four or five. And oh, by the way, that came when Spangler went to watch for a while.

The little black guy kept calling touch fouls when it took an advantage away from a guy about to get a layup. That's not the way you call a basketball game. And the shorthaired/bald guy kept getting it wrong both ways. I liked the third guy who appeared interested in letting two good teams get after each other, much like the crew in Lawrence did in three overtimes.

But I think it hurt your team more. Your pressure was really tough. You could tell our guys had worked hard on it and still we gave up easy points from pressured turnovers. I wouldn't want to play West Virginia in the NCAA's. I"m pretty sure when we make the rematch visit, we'll be pressed out of the gym. we had some backups. today who played unexpectedly well.

I think you have one of the top four teams in the conference, and out of WVU and OU and KU, I"m not sure who's better. So far, they all held serve at home.

Beat Texas and good luck as you said, with maybe one or two exceptions.
 
I hope by then we figure out some better in bounding schemes that will enable us to get the ball out & moving up on (or over) the floor better than we did tonight.

I remember last year's game in Norman where the Sooners were prepared for WVU's press defense on the inbound pass and we broke it easily, time after time. Seemed like during yesterday's game, we struggled a few times inbounding against their press.

But I gotta hand it to Huggins for employing that style of play, especially against a team like OU that doesn't go to the bench much and keeps guys on the court for long stretches of time. That press defense causes the other team to exert more energy to move the ball upcourt, so guys are going to get tired more easily and possibly make more mistakes. I can imagine that the press also takes the offense out of their rhythm and forces them to take shots they normally would not take. This works to their advantage as it allows them to keep the games relatively low-scoring and keeps them close, as they showed yesterday. OU never led by more than seven yesterday, so that is a direct result of Huggins' focus on defense. Fortunately, we are blessed with some guys who can dribble, pass, well-conditioned and used to playing a lot of minutes, so hopefully we'll be able to handle their D the next time we're in Morgantown.
 
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I think one of the unspoken factors in the game, was that OU spent so much effort trying to get the ball up the court against the press, and then trying to get into their offense that they didn't have much energy in their half court defense. To me, the two keys to the game went against OU. First key is playing good enough defense to be about to rebound the ball and avoid the press.

And the other key is making them pay with some easy baskets when breaking the press. We did get some open looks and made some jump shots, even from behind the arc against the press, but there weren't a lot of layups.

To me, one of the biggest positive factors was the play of the sixth, seventh, and eighth guys off the bench and especially how the backups shot free throws. I believe that against OSU, we missed the front end of the first four one-and-ones. Yesterday, we made every one of them and Buford made two or three and ended up seven for eight from the line. That was HUGE.

There were some issues. But I thought it was about as good as we can play. And still at home, it was a nutcracker game. Those guys are a load. The brought Billyball back to Lloyd Noble, but wearing blue and gold.
 
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Beat

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