What WVU fans are saying about our team

[Zagricultural]

I'm actually more concerned with NWG than Perk this game. Too many misses and to's when he tries to play hero ball.

[scrooner]

Your assist/turnover ratios don't add up/make sense.

You're right, I goofed something up in my spreadsheet. Removed the ratios.

[jwalk]

Stats can be misleading. If a player throws the ball out of bounds, he gets credited with a turnover. If a player throws the ball to a player that is being double or triple teamed and the pass gets knocked out of the players hand because you have 6 hands going after the ball, the player that threw the ball does not get charged with the turnover. Not saying any names, but one individual has been doing this a lot lately. Truthfully, a lot of the guards have been forcing the pass into Karno or Collins while they are being double teamed. The guards are not charged with any of these turnovers but should be. You are taught to never throw the ball to a player being actively double teamed. This happened 4 or 5 times at the end of the NU game.

[GrizZAG]

Of course Nigel is going to have higher number of turnovers, the ball is in his trusted hands more than the others in that same 40 minutes. He carries the burden of go to guy on this team so it is tough duty.

[maynard g krebs]

I'm actually more concerned with NWG than Perk this game. Too many misses and to's when he tries to play hero ball.

Agree. So far he's shooting 30% in the tourney. Forcing both shots and passes.

[bb guy]

WVU has a way of successfully playing to its opponents level each game. We play great against good teams and blow against teams that we should beat easily. We beat Iowa State twice during RS. Beating a team as good as IS 3 times in one season is hard. The ND game was statistically the 4th best road game WVU has put together in history. I would say that the only advantage we hold in this game is the caliber of teams played each night during the season in the BIG 12; Although 34-1 is incredible in any conference. The press has been shown vulnerable and GU is a great team! Good Luck Bulldogs, if you win, we pull for you to take it all!!!

Definitely aware of it. I just find Press Virginia to be kind of a cool way of describing your team. Heck, Huggins used to resort to 1-3-1 zone defenses and anything else to get a win. That's part of what completely screwed up Kentucky in the 2010 elite 8 game. It still pains me every time I think of Da'Sean Butler and his injury at the final 4. The scene of Huggins hugging him on the floor was one of the most moving moments in the history of the NCAA tourney. Last I heard Butler was playing in Germany.

My sister is a West Virginia grad. Welcome to the board MountaineerLegion.

[Zags_Fanatic]

Here's a nice preview from a WVU fan, facts are quite accurate even if the prediction is a bit homerish. Really good insight to be honest. https://www.reddit.com/r/CollegeBask...nzaga_preview/

[Martin Centre Mad Man]

This made me laugh.

http://www.scout.com/college/west-vi...gonzaga?page=1

The nation loves them. They’re like a five-year-old beauty pageant winner, they can be America’s darling. Sure, they might grow up to be a neurotic b*tch with a social complex and five or six untrained chihuahuas and no family, but at least they can cling to the fact that they once competed alongside Jon Benet Ramsey. And beat her. When she was four. Face.

Gonzaga, you are a thorn in WVU's side. WVU is Ferris Bueller, you are Principal Rooney. WVU is Superman, you are Kryptonite. WVU is Tiger Woods, you are one of 20 or 30 ex-strippers that keep calling me even though I’ve asked you to stop. You are the dragon that WVU cannot slay.

In a perfect world, the Spokane River would erode at a much faster-than-geologically-possible rate and your little hamlet of a school would get sucked into the bowels of the earth like the puny little blood-sucking mosquito it truly is. It’d be like losing an Abercrombie and Fitch model, or a white supremacist, or Yanni. You know, because the world would really miss you.

To WVU and other P5's, you are a plague, a virus, a disease.

You’re like a tattletale on the playground, a gas grill that won’t light without matches, and rain during a baseball game, all rolled into one.

You’re the teacher’s pet, or skinny jeans, or a fat girl in flip-flops in winter, or a driver that won’t turn right on red.

You’re like a stain on our favorite sweater, or rich people on welfare.

You’re that scratchy feeling we get in our throats right before catching a cold, an Ed Hardy shirt, the fine print on a coupon, or a trip to the DMV.

You’re a customer service call, outsourced to India.

You’re HD TV on a shrunken screen with writing on the sides.

You’re like a crying baby on an airplane. Or an old, naked man in the locker room. Or a bicyclist in the middle of a busy street.

You’re the chick from the Progressive Insurance commercials, you're Gerard Butler doing an American accent, you're the guy who won’t move his checkers from the back row.

You’re a Nicholas Sparks movie that our wives and girlfriends force us to see, a traffic jam on our way to work, and mall kiosk workers who heckle us to try their products as we walk innocently past.

You’re like a Jack Johnson song when I’m expecting Guns ‘N Roses. You keep me grounded when I wish to fly. You bring me down when all I want is up.
You have killed us in the past, Gonzaga. Like a telemarketer, I loathe you.

[Ezag]

I'm actually more concerned with NWG than Perk this game. Too many misses and to's when he tries to play hero ball.

Ok then what other guard is gonna step up and help the man out?

[DZ]

This made me laugh.

http://www.scout.com/college/west-vi...gonzaga?page=1

Huh.

We must be doing something right.

Last thing I'd want is to be loved by guys like this.

[Zagsker]

This made me laugh.

http://www.scout.com/college/west-vi...gonzaga?page=1

That is fantastic...kudos to that guy

[rennis]

One advantage for WVU fans is they aren't in the midst of a potential coach controversy with all these rumors about Few's future flying around.

haha, good one.

Not as good as Wonka's post on the Scout forum though. That was awesome. :laugh:

[JPtheBeasta]

There's a funny article out there about one of Huggin's guards coming back after surgery and he told him he should play soccer- but stuck with him and the player loved him for it.

Edit: (Here's an excerpt)

Mazzulla is Huggins' little point guard, a kid who anybody else but Huggins would've left on the bench all season. The Mountaineers are in this Final Four because he didn't.

Get this: Huggins stuck with Mazzulla when his shoulder was so useless that he was shooting free throws with the wrong hand. Huggins stuck with Mazzulla even though the kid hadn't made a 3-pointer all season (until the Elite Eight). Huggins stuck with Mazzulla through thin and thin.

Mazzulla is Huggins' little point guard, a kid who anybody else but Huggins would've left on the bench all season. The Mountaineers are in this Final Four because he didn't.
This is a kid who, last February, thought his basketball days were over. He was about to have radical shoulder surgery that doctors said no hoops career had ever survived.

Mazzulla came to him on that day with tears in his eyes. "Coach, you think I'll ever play again?" And Huggins took him by the shoulders, looked him in the eyes and said, "Well, you're always talking about you being the best soccer player in the state of Rhode Island; you can always go play soccer. You don't need arms for that."
See? Lovable!

But Huggins brought back Mazzulla as soon as he could dribble, even though Mazzulla couldn't even shoot a jumper. He even put Mazzulla and his 6-foot-2 frame under the basket in his 1-3-1 zone D. Put a shrimp under the basket when he could raise only one arm!

Sticking with Mazzulla against all sanity proved even smarter when WVU's best guard, Darryl "Truck" Bryant, broke a bone in his foot last week and couldn't play in the Sweet 16 weekend.

So, as reward, Mazzulla went out and beat Kentucky for Huggins on Saturday night in Syracuse. And when he was done making his first 3 of the year and
scoring a season-high 17 points and pestering Kentucky's big men the way mice pester elephants (at one point, Kentucky's huge center, DeMarcus Cousins, looked down at Mazzulla and said, "Are you being serious right now?") and becoming the East Region MVP in a 73-66 win, he went looking to hug one man -- Huggins.

"I had to find him," Mazzulla says, "I never want him to forget that I love him. What he did for me, how he stuck with me, nobody else would've done it."

And he's not the only one on the team. They all talk about "Huggs" like he's their favorite IRS auditor. "We all have one thing in common," says Mazzulla. "We're all trying not to get yelled at by Huggs."

http://www.espn.com/espn/news/story?id=5040010

[zaguarxj]

Here's a nice preview from a WVU fan, facts are quite accurate even if the prediction is a bit homerish. Really good insight to be honest. https://www.reddit.com/r/CollegeBask...nzaga_preview/

Their prediction is based on WVU making shots, enabling them to set up the press. Gonzaga is one of the best defensive teams in the country, so I think it's a little optimistic to think WVU is going to keep shooting above their average. Of course, it's called "March Madness" for a reason, so they may all have out-of-body-experience shooting nights.

[bartruff1]

That is fantastic...kudos to that guy

Great read...terrific imagination....West Virginia and it's Coaches and Players and Fans are the best of any of our opponents ... even the silly guy with his Few to the NBA...

[scott257]

It seems to me that people try to characterize this Gonzaga team and players and toss around negatives like they have forgotten that this team has only lost one game the entire season. They will end this season with the best record and they don't have to apologize to anyone. I have been following the Zags for years and by any real measure this team is the best I have seen. Can WV win this game? Sure, but the Zags will have to beat themselves if WV is going to win. If Gonzaga goes out and plays as a team, that vaunted press will become WV's Achilles heel. They don't have our size, they don't have our depth, and if they don't trap Nigel, he will eat them alive for not making the transition to set up their half court defense. This is going to be a great game and while I think WV is good, they do not match up to us - if we lose, we beat ourselves.

[TravelinZag]

Welcome the opportunity to play West Virginia and "Huggy Bear" again. Great team, colorful and excellent coach who is a fine man. The fact that their team has a style of play challenges the Zags' recent play is well timed. WVU will force better ball control, rebounding, and shooting free throws and 3-pointers. The Zags can do better, and have done so earlier this season. Without a return to form in these areas, their season would end soon against the level of competition they will face the rest of the way. WVU simply requires the Zags do so now.

Then, the ship righted, the Zags can pursue, and achieve their goals.

Go Zags! Appreciate, but defeat Huggins' lads, and move on to Final Four & beyond. Great season so far; you will regret for a long time if you don't finish it playing your best.