WVU

I think WVU is a bad matchup for us. They're physical and crash the boards. We're not physical at the rim, and rely on guards to crash for rebounds.

I think we need at least 8 threes (and maybe ten) tonight to counter WVU's second chance points or we're going to have a tough time.

I was thinking the same thing AZ'87, but maybe it's exactly the kind of game the lads need to go the distance (March) and help D-Mack get his act together.

We'll see . . . .

RC

Agreed AZ. My DPPI has KU as a slim 0.15 point favorite (basically a push) with a 50.9% probability of winning. But this matchup scares me. As I posted in my blog yesterday, West Virginia has the highest disparity of result with KU between home and away of all of the Big 12 teams. For some reason we tend to overperform against them in Lawrence and they tend to overperform against us in Morgantown, at leas assuming all home advantages are 2.91 points. I am not sure what to attribute that to. Here are the disparities for the last 8 season for all Big 12 teams.

Disparity in Scoring Margin between Home and Away with KU (National 6 year average of 5.82 points)
Baylor -- 9.25
Iowa St. -- 5.63
Kansas St. -- 12.25
Oklahoma -- 11.38
Oklahoma St. -- 13.13
TCU -- 6.25
Texas -- 6.13
Texas Tech -- 13.00
West Virginia -- 14.63

But back to the matchup. I agree with your assessment. Our weakest area this season both on offense and defense has been in the paint. I am actually excited to see what Self has up his sleeve. He will have a plan, that is for sure. Can the guys execute? That is the question.

Maybe we see some GETHRO tonight. Tell him his only job is crashing the boards. get 5-7 minutes to combat their rebounding.

I was right on my call for threes, but boy, did I undershoot with thinking we'd get 8-10.

The boys came out firing and were amazing to watch. That's our bread and butter this year - not our fool's gold.

Let loose the hounds!

Rock Chalk.

I have to admit that the bad thing about very high expectations is that there are few pleasant surprises.
Last night the Hawk's effort plus execution provided an incredible result. Wow!

The long shots when they didn't fall led to long rebounds which we got a lot of. Very good win.

Some late comments here due to holiday prep.

All I was thinking during the game was "fool's gold". I don't think we can expect a performance like that every night, but it SURE was nice to see us letting it fly and watching them go in. I was also impressed with our shot selection. So many of the shots we took were wide open and the result of an extra pass. If you have a good shot, by all means take it. Was wondering what WVU's defensive strategy was. Oh well...I don't think this was any fool's gold. Good shot selection and good shooters is something that will pay off most of the time.

D Mack was very solid in the paint. WVU depends on their bigs and Dave did a very good job of keeping them under control on both ends of the court. Nice game for him and I hope it's something he can build on.

The WVU shot at the end of the 1st half was ridiculous.

Overall a good "statement game" and it was reflected in the polls accordingly.

And PS, I'd love to go kick back and have a beer with Bob Huggins sometime.