UCLA-WVU Preview

After an embarrasingly poor performance against Pitt Wednesday night, the Mountaineers are faced with what amounts to a must win game if they aspire to attend the big dance. Unfortunately, the opponent in that game is the #2 team in the land, the UCLA Bruins. I stumbled upon a great preview of the game by Rob Carpentier, courtesy of BruinReportOnline.com via Scout.com. Obviously, it is UCLA biased, but that's what makes it great - its from the UCLA site, but still very complimentary of the Mountaineers. This is a trend I've noticed over the last several seasons, football and basketball, as both team's performance have cemented the Mountaineers as contenders in basketball and football year in/year out as opposed to "too poor to throw quarters, they'll throw pennies" comments. On to the preview:

Beating UCLA is far more important for WVU’s NCAA prospects than beating Pitt. UCLA has a higher RPI ranking, it is a non-conference game (which the selection committee looks at as gold, especially a high-profile one this late in the year), and the Bruins come from a higher-ranked RPI conference and are the #2 ranked team in the country.

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This is really a game that is going to come down to tactics rather than individual match-ups. That’s because Beilein will employ what has become his trademark, unorthodox 1-3-1 zone defense. This defense traps to the wings and the corners and does a good job of moving opponents laterally. The WVU zone has probably replaced Syracuse’s 2-3 and John Chaney’s Temple 1-3-1 match-up as the most effective zone in college basketball.

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But I’m not so worried about the Bruins on the offensive end, but rather on the defensive end. WVU runs a spread style offense that is similar to what Oregon runs and what Stanford did in the second half of the game in Palo Alto, at least in principle. WVU doesn’t have the penetration skills of Oregon, but they rebound on the offensive end much better. They are better on the perimeter than Stanford, but they don’t post up as well as the Cardinal. But the principle is the same; that teams that spread the Bruins out give them trouble, and West Virginia will spread them out. That’s what scares me.

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I think that’s what the game is ultimately going to come down to; who shoots well from behind the arc.

After Wednesday's performance, I would expect the Mountaineers to shoot well in a bounce-back kind of way.

Here’s my prediction: This game stands a good chance of going to overtime.

The article also breaks down individual matchups and is pretty spot on. The only exception I can see is the author claims Alexander isn't very athletic. I would only clarify that Alexander is not very athletic when dunking the ball.

Poor shooting is doubly bad for WVU as they typically return to man converage after missed shots at the offensive end and while this team is significantly more athletic than prior years, we probably still won't match up well man-to-man against the Bruins.

Other previews:
Charleston Daily Mail