Louisville defense will face severe test from quick strike offense of Notre Dame

Saturday, March 1, 2008
12 PM Hartford, CT

West Virginia invades Hartford on Saturday afternoon with aspirations of knocking of No.16 UConn and sealing a berth to the NCAA Tournament. The Mountaineers (20-8, 9-6) take aim at their 10 th conference win, having won four of their last five. West Virginia’s most recent surge has the Mountaineers just 1 and a half games behind No. 21 Marquette for fifth place. And while a WVU win couple with a Marquette loss to No. 10 Georgetown would pull them closer to the top 5, with three games left, the Mountaineers still have an outside shot to catch No. 17 Notre Dame for fourth place, which would earn the Mountaineers a first-round bye when the Big East Tournament begins.

That will be a daunting task for West Virginia to complete. The Mountaineers have UConn and Pitt to deal with in their next two games, followed by a regular season finale with St.John’s Notre Dame’s final leg of conference play is somewhat easier: DePaul, St.John’s South Florida. West Virginia enters into Huskie territory having never won in Connecticut (0-6). West Virginia bested UConn last season 81-71, improving to 3-11 versus UConn. Last season, the Mountaineers corralled UConn forward Jeff Adrien, limiting Adrien to just seven points and eight boards. Last year, the Huskies struggled all season, and missed the NCAA Tournament. That, however, was last year.

This year, UConn is all but assured a spot in the Big Dance, boasting a 22-6 overall mark, 11-4 in conference play. Safe to say there won’t be a two-year tournament absence around Storrs, not if Adrien has anything to say about it. Adrien leads the Huskies in scoring (14.9) and rebounding (9.3). The junior forward is coming off a career-high 27 points and 11 rebounds in a rout of Rutgers, 79-61. Adrien notched his 15 th double-double of the season, putting him in second place in the Big East behind Notre Dame’s Luke Harangody (17).

UConn, winners of 10 of their last 11, welcomed back sophomore guard Jerome Dyson, who missed the last nine games due to a suspension for a violation of team rules. With Dyson back in the fold, UConn trots out five players averaging at least 10 points per game, but the Mountaineers have some pretty good weapons of their own to combat the Huskies. West Virginia has four players averaging double figures, two averaging more than 14 points per contest ( Joe Alexander and Alex Ruoff are averaging 14.5 and 14.1 ppg respectively). West Virginia must devise a game plan for the 7-foot-3 UConn big man Hasheem Thabeet. The Mountaineers aren’t a predominantly large team, and West Virginia may take a page out of Villanova’s defense playbook. Jay Wright used anybody he could find to send at Thabeet and the game plan paid of. Constantly hounded by Wildcat double and even triple teams, Thabeet had a minimal impact, registering on eight points.

As good as the offense shapes up to be for this one, the head coaching match-up isn’t too shabby either. Bob Huggins and Jim Calhoun have combined to win nearly 2,000 games (Huggins-610, Calhoun-772), but this will be only the second time ever the two will meet. Calhoun got the best of Huggins and his then-Cincinnati Bearcats, back in 1995 in the NCAA Tournament, 96-91.

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The Huskies are 7-1 at home against Big East opponents. UConn has won their last six home games. West Virginia looks to pull even in conference games away from Morgantown (3-4). The Mountaineers are 2-3 versus teams in the top five of the Big East standings this season.

by Frank Minniti
BigEast-fans.com Director of Content

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