Musings from the Mountains: Summer WVU Basketball
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By now we’ve all heard the stories of Joe Alexander and his late night practices in the Coliseum when he was a player for the Mountaineers.
Unfortunately, those 2 a.m. sessions where he would sleep on an air mattress in the locker room in order to get up and take shots weren’t just entirely a sign of his competitive spirit.
They were largely out of necessity.
That’s because at that time West Virginia didn’t have the state-of-the-art practice facility that’s currently in place and the basketball program had to share the place it plays its games inside the Coliseum with a number of other things such as graduations, concerts, intramurals and everything else.
It was simply hard to get the time to get shots up.
“When I came back it hadn’t changed since I was a player,” head coach Bob Huggins said.
The veteran coach credits the players that have helped pave the way with the change of culture and providing the foundation for the construction of the facility. One that has changed a lot of those sleep overs inside the Coliseum in the process and made them a thing of the past.
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The West Virginia basketball team is going to have quite a different makeup this year and most years when you consider the history of Huggins previous clubs.
It’s going to have a south paw feel to it.
That’s because the Mountaineers will have more players of the left-handed variety this season than at any point during Huggins tenure as the head coach.
“We couldn’t make any right handed so go left handed and see it that helps,” he said.
Outside of Wesley Harris and James Bolden last year, the last that fit that category that Huggins could recall was Joe Mazulla and the makeup could lead to some interesting changes on the court.
“I think right handers have a tendency to go right, left handers have a tendency to go left so we’ll probably play a little more on the left side of the floor,” he said.
The others will be incoming freshmen Trey Doomes, Emmitt Matthews and Derek Culver to give the Mountaineers five total.
As for his abilities as a left-handed coach?
“Terrific. Because I haven’t had many to screw up,” he joked.
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