Published: November 18, 2008 11:51 am            

Huggins mixing and matching before big games arrive

MORGANTOWN — Early in the season, Bob Huggins harps on one problem plaguing his second basketball team at West Virginia.

Consistency.

"We don't consistently rebound it, we don't consistently pass it, we don't consistently make our rotations on defense to guard the ball," the WVU coach said.

His wry wit aside, it's agreed the Mountaineers are still shaky in some areas, much like every other team in America today. And not that Saturday's season-opening 92-47 win against Elon was proof, but there also seems to be no arguing against Huggins' well-informed hunch WVU can be very good this season.

The question is how the Mountaineers will arrive at that point, who will deliver them there and when it will happen.

Here's where things take a twisted turn. WVU's consistency issues are somewhat self-inflicted.

"I compound that by running guys in and out," he said. "But I have to get them in there. We have to get them in there to see what they can do."

A year ago, Huggins was the new one, but knew enough to quickly assemble everyone and everything into a serviceable squad that got better and better.

This year, though, the Mountaineers are using three new starters, one a freshman, one a point guard, while two freshmen and a junior college transfer are three of the first four people off the bench.

Only Alex Ruoff and Da'Sean Butler played more than 30 minutes against Elon and the point guard, Joe Mazzulla, and the freshman starter, Devin Ebanks, were the only ones who played more than 20 minutes. Five players played either 15 or 16 minutes.

The story was similar in an exhibition game against Mountain State.

The starting five and the four off the bench often overlap and the quality tends to deteriorate when that happens. Then again, there are also some rough patches when the starters are together.

It's all by design, though. Struggles, even small ones so early in the season, are worthy sacrifices for the future. Huggins has easy fixes at his fingertips, but it only postpones the problem.

"Devin is the only new guy starting out there, but he's with the four older guys, so it's hard for him," Huggins said. "It'd be easier probably if I threw John Flowers out there, but it's not about that. It's about trying to get better and trying to get as many guys ready to contribute as we possible can."

Many teams give freshmen time to adjust and rely on upperclassmen until it happens, but the Mountaineers need all those parts and need them to work well together. Why sooner rather than later?

Well, WVU travels to Las Vegas to play Iowa and either Kentucky or Kansas State, then gets Mississippi, Cleveland State, Davidson, Miami of Ohio and Ohio State before New Year's Eve.

"We're going to have to be pretty good pretty early here," Huggins said.

The Mountaineers have the parts that fit on offense. There are smart players and good passers and a roster of guys who can get to the rim and score around the basket.

If one goal is to match them up properly and get them used to playing together, a second is to assure things work as they're intended to.

That means understanding the offense and what -- or, more specifically, who -- makes it go. That was a problem Huggins addressed at halftime against Elon.

"I want to have a little more ball movement, but what I really wanted to do was introduce them to Alex and Da'Sean," Huggins said. "I was afraid some of our guys had never met them, I wanted them to understand those two are pretty good players."

        

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