Basketball weekend recap

It was a rough week for Mountaineer fans. First they were outclassed at home versus Villanova and then they gave the game away against Pittsburgh. This wasn't the first time the Mountaineers seemed to have a game wrapped up only to see it go to overtime. Seton Hall did the same thing against them earlier in the year. The Mountaineers are not a great foul shooting team and they do not have strong guard play. The combination makes the team susceptible to comebacks. Mazzulla unfortunately can't be on the floor offensively because he has to be one of the worst free throw shooters in the country (37.5%). A big reason for that is his injury, but he would likely only be around 65% even if healthy, which also is not very good. It comes down to Bryant, Butler, and Ebanks handling the ball. Butler has made clutch shots this year, but his two front ends of one and ones weren't close. It was a choke job. The Mountaineers also missed the other front end as well. The most disturbing thing is that they quit rebounding and playing defense down the stretch. Kilicli has not looked very good since his impressive debut and the Mountaineers continue to struggle to get bench production, which is odd since depth seemed to be a strength of the team. Butler is certainly the best scorer, but they seem to rely on him too much, particularly down the stretch. He also continues to commit dumb fouls and then run around the court with his arms up in the air like it was some crazy call when it was really quite an easy call and obvious foul. He has had this fouling issue since early in his career. I actually think that Bryant has to become more of a force on the offensive end, which is a little scary. I don't particularly want him shooting more, but he is one of the few that can penetrate. He needs to drive and dish. Can he do that effectively? I'm not sure, but they need somebody to do that. Still, the bottom line is defense. It must improve. The Mountaineers have dropped into a 3 seed and better gather themselves for a tough stretch run or it will continue to drop. They have not handled the elite competition well this year, so they need a high seed if they want to go deep in the tourney. This week the Mountaineers go to Providence and host Seton Hall. They need to win a couple here because it gets much tougher after that.

The Spiders are ranked for the first time in 24 years (#25). They lead the A-10 at 9-2 and are 20-6 overall with 6 straight wins. I continue to rave about Kevin Anderson. In their blowout win against St. Bonaventure he scored 6 points in 34 minutes, very unimpressive. However, that's the thing about this guy, the bigger the moment the better he is. There was no need for him to take over that game and he is not a stat hog. Gonzalvez is also solid. In many ways the Spiders and Mountaineers are polar opposites. The Spiders shoot it well, have great guard play, but struggle on the glass while the Mountaineers are great on the boards, but struggle shooting and handling the ball. The thing that concerns me is the rebounding. In the Spiders two big recent wins (Temple, Rhode Island) they shot 58%. That's just not going to happen most games. They were heavily outrebounded in both games, which is odd since the Spiders weren't missing many shots. The Spiders have worked their way up around a 7 seed and have a couple of easy games where they must not stumble this week before an extremely difficult finish. They are in great shape for the tournament, but they must close.