COMMENTARY
MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — If you truly savored the Yuengling during your Backyard Brawl celebration, it was probably because you recalled what your gut told you after the Deutschland Disaster.
During the 29 days between getting bombed by Texas A&M and surviving some serious burps against Pitt, you’ve got to give Press Virginia credit for quite the rebound. (OK, rebound is probably the wrong word at the moment, given how the Panthers pulled down too many for Bob Huggins’ liking. Yet nine straight wins sure constitutes a bounce-back from that season-opening stinker overseas.)
And so it stands that after Saturday night’s 69-60 victory inside The Pete, West Virginia stands 99.9999 percent assured of entering Big 12 action with an 11-1 record. Only winless Coppin State and fragile Fordham remain before conference play returns in all its fierce familiarity.
WVU’s second-place slotting in the preseason poll remains a durable forecast. And if you watched Kansas play half-hearted defense during its back-to-back losses, you might even be prompted to call for an end to the 13-year dynasty. (Monday’s AP poll update: The Mountaineers rose to No. 11, making them the Big 12’s highest-ranked team at the moment.)
West Virginia looks capable, at least the West Virginia that carved up Pitt during the first half. What transpired over the final 20 minutes, however, was less encouraging, and not just because of how fast and curious the whistles came.(Officiating shall always be the bane of the full-court press, which is why it demands depth to even attempt it. Last week’s two-win sweep of the ACC — in which Pitt and Virginia outscored the Mountaineers’ bench 20-18 — showed Huggins currently lacks the second wave of reinforcements that hallmarked previous teams.
I say currently because no season travels a flat trajectory: Highly seeded teams in March didn’t look so polished in December. With Esa Ahmad’s suspension scheduled to end after six more games, West Virginia soon will inject a decent rebounder and a versatile scorer. It’s likewise reasonable to expect reserves like Maciej Bender, Teddy Allen and Chase Harler to make marginal strides. (That trio’s donation to the past two wins: 1-of-6 shooting with nine fouls, four turnovers and four rebounds.)
No game follows a flat trajectory either. In the span of a few minutes, West Virginia went from walloping Pitt to wallowing. The Panthers, inspired by their first respectable home crowd of the season, came alive to an extent that WVU briefly came apart.
The rebounds became scarce thanks to Wesley Harris fouling out in 12 short minutes. Speaking of scarce, you needed an APB to find Daxter Miles during a 16-minute chunk of the second half: 0-for-3 shooting with three fouls, a turnover, zero rebounds and zero assists.
Huggins fired his most acerbic barb at Lamont West, whose 13 points and eight boards didn’t immunize him from a perceived lack of activity.
“I wanted to give Lamont a chair,” the coach joked. “I was afraid that standing around out there, it would start hurting his knees or something. I want to throw a chair out there and say, ‘Just sit down and relax.’ He was not in it.”
Most pivotal, of course, was Jevon Carter’s foul trouble that led to Pitt nearly reclaiming Cardiac Hill. West Virginia finished plus-21 scoring with its All-American candidate on the floor and minus-12 without him.
Yet stew on one factoid about the cagey Carter: This marked the 28th time he has collected four fouls in a game, and not once has he fouled out. Never. For a defender incessantly poking, crowding and disturbing ballhandlers, that seems remarkable.
So was Saturday another warning siren of Press Virginia’s vulnerability? Or should it provide reassurance that only a gritty team can overcome a whopping foul disparity and generally substandard performance to beat a Power 5 rival on the road?
For now, I’d recommend enjoying the latter, and all the Backyard Brawl bragging rights contained therein. Such opportunities don’t come around much anymore.