The Mountaineers move on while all the other top 4 seeds lost in the Big East tournament. Of course the Mountainners were far from spectacular. After a sizzling 18-4 start, the Bearcats beat them up. Only 54 points against Cincinnati along with no answer for Lance Stephenson when he decided to drive showed the weaknesses of this team. Against Cincinnati Butler and Jones actually had pretty decent games, which generally means success for the Mountaineers, but Ebanks and Bryant were awful, combining to go 4-23. I've heard many people say it and it continues to be true, for a team so highly ranked, the Mountaineers are hard to watch. It's just ugly.
On a separate note, as Johnnie West hit the 3 at then end of regulation and was on the court for the end of the game, it got me wondering why he doesn't play more if Huggins thinks he is one of the top 5 offensive players, even coming off the bench ice cold. Compare him to Casey Mitchell who gets some significant minutes in certain games. Mitchell is in the game to shoot, but apparently they have more confidence in West ability to shoot (West 42% from 3, Mitchell 31%). It is obvious Huggins doesn't have much confidence in West's defensive performance, but have you seen Mitchell play defense? Ugh. Honestly, I'd take West's toughness and effort over Mitchell's avoid contact playing style on the defensive end. I also think West is more confident with the ball and thus a better ball handler (West 5 assts 0 turnovers, Mitchell 9 assts 9 turnovers). He's smarter on the court too. Mitchell was supposed to be a starter because he was a great JuCo scorer, but that hasn't worked out. He can't drive at this level, so he's just a sharp shooter and if I'm looking for a sharp shooter to pull from WV's bench, I'll go with West. I see no advantage to having Mitchell in the game over West. Mitchell may have more talent, but talent alone doesn't get the job done.
The Mountaineers still have an open road to their first Big East tournament championship with Notre Dame next and the winner to play either Georgetown or Marquette. Normally I might think it would be good to lose in a conference tournament to get rested and hungry for the NCAA's. However, I just don't have the confidence in a deep WV run no matter what they do, so if they could win their first Big East tournament it would be something special to remember about the season. As for the ND game, when you looked at unranked 7th seeded ND vs #6 nationally WV, who do you think is the better team right now? It's hard for me to say WV. They have the better resume no doubt, but I might have to take my chances against WV instead of ND if I was an opposing team, particularly the way ND has played of late. I'll be interested to see the odds, but I bet the line will be very close. The Mountaineers keep being reinforced that they are doing good things on the court by winning in strange ways, but it will catch up to them sooner or later. Last night they needed a very bad turnover by Cincinnati and a miracle banked in 3 by Butler at the buzzer to win in regulation (the Mountaineers would have had overtime if the shot had not gone in). I kind of felt bad for Cincinnati to lose like that, but onward we go with the Mountaineers. Let's get a good lick in on the Irish before they bolt for the Big 10 here in a couple of years. Good riddance.
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Hey boy I agree with alot of what you said, but for some reason this team just seems to have A destine will to win even if it is ugly. I agree with the statement that this is for sure the hardest Mountie team to watch in a long time. On another note how many game deciding shots has Butler taken this year win or lose seems to be about eight to ten to me anyway GOOOOOOOO Mounties.
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