SUBSCRIBE today to stay up on the latest in Mountaineer sports and recruiting.
The night before West Virginia’s thrilling triple overtime win over TCU last week paid dividends for freshman big man Derek Culver.
Culver, with the help of former West Virginia basketball player and current team video coordinator, James Long, worked on slowing down his process at the free throw line and made two simple fixes.
“We shot like 500 free throws,” Culver said. “I just bend my knees and then just all one motion when I come up.”
Culver wound up finishing 6-of-7 at the line against the Horned Frogs and although he shot 5-of-9 at the line in each of West Virginia’s past two games, it’s going to take that after practice effort to perfect not only slowing down his free throw process but the rest of his offensive game as well.
The 6-foot-10, 255-pound freshman has committed 25 turnovers over the past five games mostly due to playing too fast and not slowing down to watch his keys and see what’s around him.
“He needs to slow down. If he slows down, he’s going to be really effective because he’s a willing passer,” head coach Bob Huggins said. “He’s not a particularly good passer--he thinks he is, but he’s a willing passer. He will pass the ball, we just got to get him to slow down and understand what his reads are.
“I think all those guys think that quick is better. Coach (John) Wooden used to always say ‘be quick but don’t hurry.’ He hurries,” he added.
Part of the progression for a post player offensively involves reading your keys and the defender guarding you. When the season passes, Huggins said one of the biggest things he wants to work with Culver on is feeling pressure in the paint and reacting to it.
This is something that according to Huggins is best learned through on-court instruction and repetition.
“It’s just got to become habit,” Huggins said. “Your eyes in the post are your butt cheeks. If they’re on one cheek, you go to the side of the other cheek and if they’re on that cheek, you go the other way. And if they’re on both cheeks, then you got to square up and face them. It’s not really that hard, but things happen a lot faster than they’re used to them happening.”
Despite his inability to slow things down at times, Culver has still become of the team’s top contributors, racking up eight double-doubles on the season so far. Much of his success can be attributed to his size, athleticism and effort going after the ball.
“Right now that’s the best thing he does,” Huggins said. “He really does pursue the ball. He’s become a really good rebounder because he purses the ball.”
Culver admits that this problem he has traces back to when he was in high school and is still working toward slowing down his progressions at the offensive end in a season that has been a roller coaster ride for West Virginia. Injuries, inconsistency and player exits have thrown more newcomers in the mix and has led to Huggins using several different lineups.
“That’s kind of like my problem I had in high school. I used to do too much and too fast,” Culver said. “When I slow down, I feel like I see the court a lot better instead of when I’m sped up.”
Perfecting this process of slowing down his game at the free throw line and in the paint will take more offseason work and after practice sessions, but as Culver and some of his fellow young teammates such as Jordan McCabe have shown, progress has been made and more can be built off of it.
“We’ve been going in with the same mind set week in and week out and we’re starting to finally get over that learning curve even though it’s late in the season, but it’s better late than never,” Culver said. “It’s a learning experience. All I can do is just take the positives out of it and keep going forward.”
Enter the contest by clicking on the following link and choosing to subscribe to the channel: http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=VideoGlide
