The Kansas State 2OT win was a critical building block game for the Mountaineer Men’s Basketball Team. Some will say they’re tired and only had a day to recover, so that makes them vulnerable tonight at home verses Miami. Don’t believe it. We're not even 1/4 of the way through our season. And Huggs' offseason workouts are more strenuous than a game – even a double overtime one - and WVU runs those practices day after day after day.
And it’s not like these guys walked home from Kansas. They flew first class (can you imagine Kilicli in coach?) and ate well along the way. The flight home was all the time they needed to wind down - and they probably slept on the plane and blew off class that morning. A light practice on Friday afternoon and another great night of sleep last night. A game-day run through after sleeping in this morning. And they’re college students, for God’s sake. If I take a red-eye flight I might not be able to play well two days later, but I'm twice their age.
The Mounties will be ready.
The Hurricanes, however, flew in from 80-degree Miami weather and are freezing their asses off for the first time this year. No matter how young you are, if your blood is thin it is thin. Welcome to Morgantown in December, boys.
Why so confident in a victory? Is it my homer bias? No. Miami sucks at basketball. They’re not any good at football anymore, either (looks like that move to the ACC isn’t really paying off like they’d hoped). Granted, they beat us last year in Miami, but their basketball team has never been anything remarkable. And in spite of their 5-3 record, this year is worse.
Statistically it’s just embarrassing. Amongst Division 1 programs, the Hurricanes are 195th in points per game, 168th in rebounds, 249th in assists, and 301st overall in field goal percentage (compared to WVU’s 54th/23rd/55th/44th - and we’re rebuilding). Normally I wouldn’t get all that focused on stats. But when an ACC (the best conference in the universe, they say) team is statistically anywhere near the bottom of the 345 NCAA Division 1 schools, it’s pretty sad. And they’re in the non-conference portion of their schedule.
You won’t read this on MSNSportsNet.Com or hear it from MSN radio, but we should beat the Canes up pretty badly. If we don’t, something’s really wrong. Coach Huggins will say nice things about them in pre-game interviews and scare the team with memories of last year’s choke in Coral Gables. But WVU’s confidence is high after the Kansas State win, they’re playing in the Coliseum, and Kevin Jones is simply a stud.
Tip off is 7:00 p.m., EST, and the game can be seen on ESPN2.