I Bleed Blue and White

West Virginia has used some sharpshooting from the outside along with their typically suffocating defense to take a 36-18 lead into the half over Notre Dame.

Darryl “Truck” Bryant is being left open a bit too often, scoring 13 points in the opening 20. Da’Sean Butler and Alex Ruoff each have 9, although Butler was 4-14, which is awful.

Luke Harangody looks completely disinterested in playing. I don’t know what’s wrong with him. Is he hurt? He looks like he wants to go home. He had just 4 points on 6 shots. Sheesh.

It’s not just him though. ND has no clue what to do on offense, and forget about them playing any sort of defense. They are basically just passing it around the perimeter and hoping somebody is mysteriously left open for a 3. I know he won’t get fired, but if I’m an ND fan I’m livid if he still has a job next year. He’s just not the answer for them.

West Virginia looks like a team primed to make a run in this tournament though, especially if guys like Bryant and Devin Ebanks can step up. Could they beat Pittsburgh? That’ll be a great game tomorrow.

Barring a complete meltdown by the Mountaineers, this one is over.

According to ZagsBlog, The Big East has handed out 4 more awards today, and 2 Wildcats have picked up some hardware.

Dante Cunningham was named The Most Improved Player in the conference.

“Cunningham, who was already a solid starter at Villanova going into his senior campaign, took a big jump in 2008-09.  Last season, the 6-8 forward averaged 10.4 points and 6.5 rebounds.  Going into The BIG EAST Championship, Cunningham owns a scoring average of 16.4 points per game and a rebounding mark of 7.3.  Both averages lead the team.  He helped lead the Wildcats to a 25-6 record.  A native of Silver Spring, Md., he has reached double figures in scoring in 30 of his last 33 career games.”

The conference also announced that Corey Fisher has been given The Sixth Man Award.

“Fisher also made significant contributions to Villanova’s success, which included a school record number of victories in the regular season.  Coming off the bench, the 6-1 sophomore provided a consistent offensive spark.  He is third on the team in scoring with a 10.8 average and has 86 assists and only 58 turnovers.  A native of the Bronx, N.Y., Fisher has reached double figures in scoring in nine of his last 11 games.”

UConn’s Hasheem Thabeet was named The Defensive Player of the Year for the 2nd straight year, and West Virginia’s Alex Ruoff received The Sportsmanship Award.

…Congrats to both Dante and Corey…frankly, if they hadn’t won these awards I wouldn’t have known what to think…well deserved for both players and a true testament to the work ethic of both players…

If you missed the game check out the recap and box score, although I don’t blame you if you don’t want to.

All good things must come to end as the saying goes, but I don’t think anyone expected them to come to an end with a big kick to the groin. Villanova looked totally unfocused from the start en route to their worst beating of the season, a 21 point shellacking at the hands of Da’Sean Butler, who had a career high 43 points.

Hold on one second, Mike Patrick just let me know that was West Virginia’s biggest game of the season and they were playing like it.

Okay, back to the column. Look, we all knew Butler was their best player, and he was going to get his (although Pittsburgh held him to 4 last time out, which makes this even worse), but I could have never imagined him going for 30, much less 40. And the worst part? He wasn’t even going to play after injuring his ankle in practice.

Regardless, he was only one of the Wildcats’ problems. I was really concerned with the fact that Villanova had seemingly forgotten how to play defense the past 3 games. They seemed more intent on scoring than stopping their opponent, which is atypical of a Jay Wright-coached team. And low and behold when they run into a great defensive team and their shots aren’t falling, it was apparently obvious that they had forgotten how to grind out a game, letting the Mountaineers just run away from them.

It started early when Dante Cunningham picked up 2 silly offensive fouls in the first few minutes (by the way, Alex Ruoff is officially challenging Greg Paulus for biggest flopper in the NCAA), sending him to the bench for the rest of the half, but I thought he performed admirably even though he was a non-factor. Reggie Redding also played hard, he just wasn’t very good.

Antonio Pena and Scottie Reynolds looked like they had no interest in even being at the game. Pena was a main culprit of not boxing out giving up what seemed like 200 offensive rebounds (the official tally of 11 is way off). Reynolds had no idea what to do with a big defender on him, so his official strategy was barrel into the lane and hope to get bailed out by the refs.

If it isn’t for the play of Corey Fisher and Corey Stokes, Villanova would have lost by 50. It was that bad. 

But you know what? Whatever,this is actually a blessing in disguise in my mind. While it stinks to get embarrassed like that, the team needed this. They weren’t going to get by on just playing offense for the rest of the year. They needed a wake up call so they can re-commit to playing great D, which is what they originally built themselves on.

Rutgers comes to The Pavilion for Senior Night next Thursday, which should be a perfect remedy for last night. With the long layoff before the next game, the team is going to have a hardworking week I’d imagine, which is going to be good for them.

With the loss, Villanova pretty much took away any chance of a double-bye in the Big East Tournament, but that is okay. They need to refocus and come out and blast Rutgers next week. While this loss hurts now, in the grand scheme of this season it’s not a big deal.

Shake this one off ‘Nova Nation, West Virginia just had their backs to the wall and was nobody was beating them last night.

And why did the students rush the court? 

West Virginia, the patron state of burning stuff.

In anticipation of the Villanova’s trip to Morgantown on Friday, I chatted with John who covers West Virginia at Mountainlair. Below are some questions that I asked John about his beloved Mountaineers. John has some personal matters to attend to, so no return questions this time around, but thanks to John for taking the time to do this. And away we go…

Chris (I Bleed Blue and White): First things first; Bob Huggins’ all-gold getup. Yay or nay? I can’t decide if he and Bruce Pearl are on to something or if I want to set that thing on fire.

John (Mountainlair): Throw it on a burning couch! Man, that picture of him in all gold makes him look like Goldmember! I like the look he’s sporting now with the dress shirt and jacket without the tie. The pullover look was a little too casual.

John (ML): That was really the two key players on the team last year. If either one was back this year, we would be a completely different team. Nichols was just clutch and had an unbelievable assist to turnover ratio. Alexander’s absence speaks for itself. We really lack an inside game that freed up Ruoff and Butler. Butler has been able to shine at times this year, but Ruoff’s game has been hurt because people are paying more attention to him. Our problems at the point guard position were compounded with the loss of Joe Mazzulla. Bryant is improving, but I think it’s a bit much to ask most freshman point guards to be the only option without a dropoff.

John (ML): It’s happened in football and basketball. I think it’s mostly because of the success and expectations. And being spoiled by the likes of an Alexander or Slaton and White in football. You get bandwagon fans that are there to be seen more than to show support combined with higher ticket prices. Huggins has every right to complain about it. Especially with such a young team, it can make a huge difference to have that kind of home court advantage. But as of right now, there’s nothing intimidating about playing in Morgantown.

John (ML): I don’t think Ebanks and Bryant can carry the team without Ruoff and or Butler on the floor. Even when those two aren’t on their game, they lead on the floor. Ebanks kept us in the game early against Pitt and has a world of tallent, but he’s probably a year away from being a dominant player. Bryant is fearless, but it gets him in trouble sometimes.

John (ML): I’m hoping you guys shot your load the last two games and will have a big dropoff Friday. West Virginia has done well against teams we match up with size wise. The bigger teams have just worn us down, though. So that gives me hope. Also when the Coliseum is rocking, that’s worth 10 points. It’ll be interesting to see how Bryant deals with the quality of guard play he’s going to face. If he can hold his own I can see West Virginia winning. I’ll say WVU 70-66.

There you have it, John sees a West Virginia win on Friday night. Before Villanova caught fire, I had this game marked down as a probable loss. Villanova just seems to struggle going to West Virginia for some reason, and their hot streak has to end sometime (doesn’t it?). But how am I going to pick against our boys when they have been playing so well? With Anderson probably out, this will be tough. Antonio Pena, Corey Stokes and Shane Clark will all need to step up to account for that loss. I still think Villanova gets it done, they just seemed to be locked in. Villanova edges one out 76-70.