Advertisement
basketball Edit

How Bob Huggins tracks his press

West Virginia is forcing opponents to turn the ball over more than 20 times per game.
West Virginia is forcing opponents to turn the ball over more than 20 times per game.


Believe it or not, as of Saturday, West Virginia has now played 50 total games since head coach Bob Huggins altered his philosophy to having the team feature a full court, pressing defense for every minute of each contest.

It was prior to the 2014-15 campaign, when Huggins visited with his friend and former Cleveland State head coach Kevin Mackey, who suggested West Virginia move to playing with full court pressure throughout the duration of its games.

West Virginia is 39-11 in those 50 games since Huggins installed the press.

Currently, more than one-third of the way through year two of using the defensive system, West Virginia sits within the top 20 nationally of both polls, is 14-1 overall, has started 3-0 in Big 12 play for the first time in school history and on average is forcing its opponents to turn the ball over once more per game than they did last year.

The tenacious style is still working for the Mountaineers, but it doesn’t come without relentless tweaking and editing of the defense from Huggins.

He analyzes and adjusts throughout each game.

“What I want to know is where they’re (the opponent) entering the ball at and where it’s going from there,” Huggins said.

Huggins has his coaching staff note the point of entry pass and the pass after that. The staff tracks this by splitting the court into eight different sections. Horizontally, the court is cut into simply, a left and right side, while vertically, the court is divided by four. Huggins separates the four sections from baseline to foul line, foul line to midcourt, midcourt to the opposite foul line and then the opposite foul line to the opposite baseline.

West Virginia wants its opponents to inbound the ball in front of the immediate foul line.

“We chart whether it comes in the short side or the long side or, if they’re throwing it over our heads into different areas, so at halftime, I can look at a chart to see where the balls are being entered and more importantly, where it’s going after the inbounds,” Huggins said. “Are they throwing the second pass diagonally or backwards?”

By learning how opponents attack West Virginia’s press within the duration of the first 20 minutes of action, allows for Huggins to change where the necessary trap points should belong in the second half.

When the trap points are in the correct spots, West Virginia can take the ball away from the dribbler or force an arrant pass, which in turn, will allow a Mountaineers’ defender to run through a passing lane and intercept the ball causing a live-ball turnover.

West Virginia wants live-ball turnovers because it leads to runs. Once West Virginia scores off of a turnover, it can setup its defense already in the mindset of creating another.

“I think we get more out of stealing the ball on the inbounds or a five-second count from a pysche standpoint,” Huggins said. “Look at the Virginia Tech game, we got three or four them – bang, bang, bang. It leads to layups. We want turnovers to lead to scores.”

It happened again during Saturday’s 77-60 win against Oklahoma State. West Virginia scored 15 points off of 16 forced turnovers. Additionally, West Virginia gained a lead as large as 20-points when Tarik Phillip recorded a steal creating a live-ball turnover, and off the steal, passed to Teyvon Myers, who knocked down a three-pointer.

“That’s what it does. We try to create live-ball turnovers in order to get fast break points. We did a lot of that against them (Oklahoma State),” guard Jaysean Paige said.

Paige had a fast break dunk against the Cowboys.

Following games, Huggins also consults with his staff concerning deflections.

West Virginia aims for 60 deflections per game. According to Huggins, West Virginia had a season-high of 80 deflections against San Diego State and a season-low, 47 against Virginia.

Once all the complete data from a particular game gets looked at, Huggins is able to teach off of it during film sessions with his players.

Phillip walked away from road wins over Kansas State and TCU believing his conference foes did a better job against the press compared to nonconference opponents of West Virginia and after reviewing tape, found out where him and his teammates were going wrong.

“We went back and reviewed when to trap and when not to trap because in certain areas we’re not supposed to trap. We trapped in a few places that we weren’t supposed to and then it gave them numbers to get up the court,” Phillip said. “I feel like we’ll continue to get better at it.”

Entering Tuesday’s showdown with top-ranked Kansas, West Virginia ranks first nationally in steals per game and forced turnovers per game. Individually, Phillip, Paige, Jevon Carter, Daxter Miles, Esa Ahmad and Jon Holton are averaging more than one steal per game.

Advertisement