WVU?s season, tourney chances slipping

[IE]

West Virginia University?s basketball season has gone from wondering what seed the Mountaineers will land in the NCAA Tournament this year to wondering if they will be in the NCAA Tournament at all.

?I don?t feel this comfortable at this point at all,? said Mountaineer senior forward Kevin Jones, who will be honored with guard Truck Bryant on Senior Night Tuesday against DePaul. ?It?s going to take a whole lot to get into the tournament.

?If we win these next two games, we can be an NCAA Tournament team. The way we?re playing right now? No, we?re not an NCAA Tournament team.?

Jones was speaking after scoring only 12 points with six rebounds in a disheartening 61-60 home loss to Marquette.

Jones said he isn?t worried about seeing his chances to win Big East Player of the Year slipping along with WVU?s post-season chances.

?I don?t know about that stuff,? he said. ?My main concern is getting us to the tournament.?

Bryant feels the same way. Asked if he worried about his team?s chances now, his answer was as simple and direct as the 25 points he rained on Marquette to end his shooting slump.

?Yes,? he said. ?We need to win games. We are not playing to our capabilities. We are doing a poor job defensively, and I would put myself in that category, too.?

The season has unraveled in February for WVU. They have lost seven of nine games to fall to 17-11 and 7-9 in Big East play.

All of a sudden the focus is on what the Mountaineers can?t do rather than on what they can accomplish.

With the Marquette loss, they no longer can win 20 regular-season games, possessing 17 with two to play. They no longer can finish above .500 in the Big East, their limit being 9-9 and to do that they not only have to beat DePaul on Senior Night but go on the road and beat South Florida, the conference?s surprise entry that already has double-figure victories in conference play.

The alternative to the NCAA is not a pretty one called the NIT, which might as well stand for the National ?I Don?t Want to Play Here? Tournament.

How can WVU rescue the season?

It begins with winning both of its regular-season games, which would give it the necessary 9-9 conference record to get into the NCAA Tournament.

Then there is a matter of earning a first-round bye in the Big East Tournament, something that most teams need at this stage of the season. The top eight teams in the conference do not play the first day in New York.

To accomplish that, they would need to win two while Seton Hall would have to lose its final two games and Connecticut lose two of its final three games, those teams being directly ahead of WVU in the standings and each possessing the tiebreaker against the Mountaineers.

The shame of it for WVU is that this was a season that did not have to come unraveled. A couple of breaks, either built on WVU?s good play or the failure of the ball to bounce the wrong way, could have changed things.

Down the stretch WVU blew sizeable leads against Marquette, Notre Dame and Louisville, losing those games by one, four and three points, respectively, while dropping a two-point decision at Syracuse. Considering they are the next-to-worst free throw shooting team in the Big East, you might figure some marksmanship from the free-throw line might have been enough alone to change their fortunes.

 

[IE]

As Bryant goes, so does WVU



When this basketball season started 12 or 15 years ago, or so it seems, Bob Huggins made an observation that seemed terribly obvious and that would pan out over the course of the season.

He saw he had Kevin Jones as a potential star, Deniz Kilicli as an inside force and Truck Bryant as an outside shooter. They were his only three experienced players, his only proven commodities, and he expressed the opinion that for West Virginia to have a chance to win any game against a decent team at least two of them would have to be at the top of their game.

No one can argue that he not only was correct, but as we look back it appears that he actually underestimated just how important one of those players was ... and it wasn?t Jones or Kilicli.

Jones, it turned out, often brought his A game, and Kilicli wasn?t yet ready to be a player whose performance would control whether or not the Mountaineers would win the game.

Which brings us to the enigmatic Mr. Bryant, one of the most bubbling personalities ever to play at West Virginia and, when on his game, one of the best.

In truth, more than Kevin Jones, more than Kilicli, it was Bryant?s play that dictated the outcome of games.

Analyzing the Mountaineers? wins, of which there were too few, and their losses, of which there have been too many, the difference seems to be in Bryant?s play.

In truth, until WVU lost its last game to Marquette with Bryant lighting the Golden Eagles up for 25 points, Bryant had been off his game in nearly every game the Mountaineers dropped.

At the same time, when they won, he was often the driving force.

Take a look at what the numbers showed heading into the aberration that was the Marquette game.

Bryant in WVU wins and losses:

Wins ? 42.2 percent on field goals, 36.7 percent on 3-pointers, 19.8 points per game.

Losses ? 25.0 percent on field goals, 21.3 percent on 3-pointers, 11.4 points per game.

The numbers there are really startling when you think about it.

Bryant averages more than eight points a game more in victories than defeats.

Considering that WVU lost six games this year by six or fewer points, you can figure that the Mountaineers could have won at least five of those games ? the Marquette game was lost by a point with him scoring those 25 ? if ?the other? Bryant had shown up.

In victories Bryant averaged almost 20 points a game, twice topping 30 and seven times scoring 22 or more.

Oddly, Jones? play doesn?t drop off nearly as drastically in defeats. In fact, until the Marquette game, when he didn?t have a good game while Bryant did, he had averaged 19.3 points in defeats and 20.9 in victories. Only Jones? shooting percentage shows much of a difference, shooting 53.2 percent in wins and 46.3 percent in losses,

perhaps because he is pressing and takes more difficult and hurried shots with the Mountaineers behind.

So why does WVU have to have Bryant at the top of his game to win?

The reason probably is because without him Huggins is relying on two freshmen to run the game and they are not yet ready to take the load when Bryant isn?t handling it. It?s as it was when Bryant was benched in the Pitt game, only to come off the bench and turn in a big all-around performance.

He scored 15 points, tied his season high in rebounds with seven, had four steals and hit six of seven pressure free throws.

When asked about it after the game, freshman Gary Browne summed it up quite correctly:

?He didn?t take bad shots. He ran the offense. You saw that,? he said. ?He?s played here four years. It?s not like he?s a freshman like most of us. He knows how to play the game and he came out and did everything right.?

Bryant, you see, isn?t just a scorer. They need him for his defense and his floor play. They need him for his leadership, for he is the role model for the freshmen and they couldn?t have a better one, for he works at the game and is honest in his evaluation of his own play, admitting when he messed up and expecting to be recognized when he plays well.

His college career now is in its final days, two more regular-season games and then the Big East Tournament.

Senior Day comes up Tuesday against DePaul and it will be an emotional, important game, one that screams out for Bryant to use the Marquette performance as a catalyst and join Jones in leading the Mountaineers into the NCAA Tournament.