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Ex-Cleveland State coach: WVU, Louisville, VCU are rare, pressing breed

West Virginia’s Daxter Miles and Nathan Adrian trap Texas Tech guard Randy Onwuasor.

 

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — Bob Huggins didn’t reach 700-plus wins by being too proud or too narrow-minded to seek advice from other coaches, and before this season, Huggins’ 33rd as a head coach, he had an inclination of how to make West Virginia basketball a winner again.

Kevin Mackey essentially validated it.

Huggins reasoned the Mountaineers needed to ramp up their defensive pressure to have a chance, and Mackey, who famously coached a pressing Cleveland State unit into the Sweet 16 in 1986, provided the offseason push and the persuasion that spawned “Press Virginia.”

Mackey, of course, endured a very public plummet from coaching thanks to cocaine and alcohol addiction, but at 68 years old he remains a scout for the Indiana Pacers and marveled at where Huggins has taken a squad that currently doesn’t boast an NBA prospect outside of Juwan Staten.

“Bobby recruits a certain kind of kid, players who have a toughness … and it’s maximized by the pressure,” Mackey said Thursday night while joining Huggins on his weekly call-in show.

“Everyone sees the tangible benefits of the W’s as opposed to the L’s. With the pressure, you win more games than you ever have a right to.”

No. 18 West Virginia (15-3, 3-2) is in favorable position for an NCAA berth because it harasses opponents into a ridiculous amount of turnovers with full-court defense. Mackey scouts a ton of college basketball and only sees Louisville, VCU and West Virginia committed to deploying 94-foot pressure.

“These teams they’re all thriving and they’re all in the top 20,” he said. “And I think it’s a great advantage that only three teams in the country do it.”

In recent years Mackey has heard from other coaches interested in pressing, only they talk themselves out of it.

“They say they’re going to do it, but at the end of the day it’s not in their DNA,” he said. “They’re afraid it’s going to turn into a layups drills and they’re not going to be able to get their kids to play hard enough.”

Mackey raved about Huggins squeezing effort and wins from this team, despite a lack of elite talent. Aside from Staten, an All-Big 12 point guard, West Virginia’s roster may not feature a single player with an NBA future. Yet the Mountaineers have been ranked for nearly two months and are in the hunt for a Big 12 title.

“Staten is a prospect, but the other guys are what we have always called ‘track’ guys,” Mackey said. “They’re young guys that we take notes on and say we need to keep track of them to see if they develop in a couple years.”

That can be a winning mix, though, as Mackey’s 1986 team revealed. It featured only one NBA player—Clinton Smith played parts of two seasons in the league—yet knocked off Indiana as the No. 14 seed.

West Virginia’s pressing style gives it a chance at making a tournament run.

“They’re getting better at it,” Mackey said. “Their kids are built for it.”

Fouls piling up: As a by-product of its aggressive defense, West Virginia ranks 10th nationally in fouls per game. And the whistles have increased of late, up to 26.6 fouls in Big 12 games from 21.2 in nonconference action.

Mackey suggested the success of WVU forcing 22.1 turnovers per game, tops in Division I, has opposing coaches chirping to officials.

“They’re afraid of it. It embarrasses them because they can’t get the ball inbounds, and they can’t get the ball up the court, and their kids are throwing balls into the third row,” he said. “So part of the evolution is these coaches run to the officials and say ‘Call fouls!’ because they don’t want to play against it.”

Huggins claimed he doesn’t see a difference in his team’s defense: “We’re not fouling more, and we’re not fouling any less either.” While it’s possible national coordinator of officials John Adams or the Big 12’s Curtis Shaw handed down an informal directive to police the press, Huggins shared his own frustrations about calls that aren’t going against opponents.

“You’re not allowed to stiff-arm in college basketball, and they stiff-arm us repeatedly against pressure,” he said. “And the other thing is they walk out of traps—they just walk out, and (officials) don’t look at their feet.”





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